“You don’t need perfect glass to look up,” he would tell me.
It was where I first told him I wanted to design medical devices. Where I cried after losing a science competition. Where he taught me that courage was not the absence of fear, but the decision to bring fear along and keep walking.
I woke Clara gently.
“What happened?” she mumbled.
“He wants to meet.”
She sat up immediately. “Where?”
“The observatory.”
Clara’s face shifted.
She remembered too.
“He used to take us there after Mom worked late,” she said softly. “We’d bring sandwiches.”
Daniel had told me not to go anywhere without him. I called him immediately.
He answered on the second ring, voice alert.
“Iris?”
“He sent the message.”
I read it aloud.
Daniel was silent for a beat. “That could be him. It could also be someone who knows enough about your family history.”
