Claire looked down.
Nathaniel looked at Claire.
Claire sighed.
“Because I lived in the building with Grandma Eleanor.”
“But you don’t live there now?”
Claire smiled sadly.
“We do.”
Ruby blinked.
“Our apartment?”
“The same one.”
Ruby looked astonished.
“Room 3B?”
Claire nodded.
“You grew up in my bedroom?”
“That was my bedroom first.”
Ruby considered this remarkable betrayal of information.
“You never told me.”
“You never asked.”
“I didn’t know I was supposed to ask.”
That finally made Claire laugh.
The tension in the room loosened.
Nathaniel glanced toward the old photograph of his mother.
“Sometimes families forget which stories children don’t know yet.”
Ruby accepted this explanation only partially.
She pointed at the folder.
“So Grandma Eleanor tried to buy the building.”
“With the other tenants,” Claire said.
“And somebody stopped them.”
“Yes.”
“And now the somebody’s son owns it?”
“We don’t know that,” Nathaniel said. “Not yet.”
