Chapter 2: Fly High, Little Bird
Lunch rush over, the dining room thinned to a few stragglers. Tommy Reyes wiped down the long folding tables with practiced care.
Silas watched him from the serving counter. The shoestring with the ring had slipped out of the boy's collar again as he bent over the tables. The gold caught the light and threw it back, bright and warm.
He told himself to leave it alone.
"Hey, kid," he said instead. "You mind if I take a closer look at that? Your mom's ring."
Tommy stopped wiping. His shoulders came up, a small animal's reflex.
"Why?"
"Old man curiosity," Silas said. "It caught the light. Gold like that, I'd like to see the workmanship."
"You're a volunteer, not a jeweler."
"Nope," Silas said. "Just a cook who peels too many carrots."
Tommy studied him for a long moment. Then, slowly, he lifted the shoestring over his head and held it out, coiled around his palm. He did not let go of it.
Silas took the ring gently between his thumb and forefinger. It was heavier than it looked, a man's weight of gold. Too big for a boy's finger. He tilted it toward the light.
The inside of the band was worn smooth by years of wear, but the engraving had been cut deep. A tiny crane in flight, wings spread wide. And beneath it, the words.
"M.C. Fly high. Love, Dad."
The serving tray in his other hand clattered against the counter. He grabbed it before it fell. His hands were shaking, and he could not stop them.
"Hey," Tommy said. "You okay, old timer?"
"Fine," Silas managed. "Just fine. You know what the letters stand for? M.C.?"
"My mom's initials. Margaret Crane. The ring was from before she married my dad." Tommy pulled the shoestring back and settled the ring under his collar, quick and practiced. "She used to say the crane was like a promise. Birds fly high, and so should I."
"She said that," Silas said, gripping the counter edge.
"Yeah. She said it all the time." Tommy picked up his rag again, suddenly brisk, as if the tenderness embarrassed him. "You done staring, Si? Tables don't wipe themselves."
"I'm done," Silas said. He stepped back and watched the boy.
Broughton Street, March 2013, the morning of Maggie's twenty first birthday.
The shop was narrow and dark and smelled of polish and old wood. H. Abramowitz kept them waiting twenty minutes. Maggie had not minded at all. She had stood at the glass case the whole time, pointing at trays of sapphires.
"Here we are," Abramowitz said at last, returning with a velvet box. "Your design, Mr. Crane. Cut to your specifications."
He opened the box. The gold band lay on the dark velvet, the crane engraved inside it with its wings spread, the words beneath.
Maggie lifted it out, turned it to read the inside, and laughed, that big unguarded laugh of hers.
"Fly high, little bird," she read aloud, and looked up at him, her eyes shining. "Dad. You gave me wings."
"Happy birthday, baby girl," Silas had said, his voice catching, and June had squeezed his arm so hard it left a mark.
Maggie hugged him right there in the shop. "I'll wear it every day," she whispered. "I promise."
She had kept the promise, and the band was worn smooth by years of daily wear. She had died in November of 2014, but somebody else had kept wearing it. Her son. For twelve years Silas had been told the baby died with her. The baby had not died. He was wiping tables in a soup kitchen with his mother's ring on a shoestring around his neck.
"Si?" Thelma Wright's voice cut through the memory. "You look like you've seen a ghost. Sit down before you fall down."
He let Thelma steer him to a chair by the kitchen door.
"Tell me about the boy," he said. "Tommy."
Thelma folded her arms. "What about him?"
"Where does he sleep at night? He's too thin. He can't be eating regular."
"He comes in most days. Eats here, sometimes takes a bag." She hesitated. "He's twelve. Turned twelve a couple of weeks ago. Sleeps under the overpass off 37th with a few other kids. There's a shelter bed program, but he's scared of shelters. Won't say why."
"Family?"
"Mother died when he was a baby. Father died a few years back. He lived with his uncle, his father's brother, down in Jacksonville." Thelma's mouth tightened. "The uncle kicked him out this summer. Said he was tired of feeding him. The boy walked, hitched, God knows what, and ended up here."
"Has anyone tried to get him into foster care?" Silas asked. "DFCS?"
"Kid runs," Thelma said simply. "Every time. He's smart, Silas, smarter than most, and he does not trust the system." She studied his face. "You've been volunteering here six years and you've never asked about anybody. Why now?"
Silas looked past her, through the kitchen door, to where Tommy was stacking chairs in the dining room, efficient and silent, the shoestring hidden under his collar.
"No reason," he said. "Just wondered."
That night Silas sat at his desk and took out a jeweler's receipt he had kept thirteen years. Abramowitz and Son. Fourteen karat gold band. Crane in flight, interior engraving.
He laid it on the desk, stared at it a long time, and picked up the phone.
"Walter," he said when his old friend answered, "it's Silas Crane. I need to find someone. A boy. Quietly."
He did not tell Walter about the engraving. He told no one. Some things you kept close until you knew what they were.
Tommy Reyes was his grandson. The crane in flight did not lie, and neither did twelve years of a worn smooth band.
He was going to find out everything. He would start with the uncle down in Jacksonville. He would end with the truth. And God help whoever had kept the boy from him.