Before the next fan can step to the table, I gesture widely with a smile.

“Hello, there! Thanks so much for waiting. We’re only doing signatures this evening, but I will take photos of you at the table and post them to Val’s website.”

Nolan and I work as a well-oiled machine, me stepping into the role of crowd control, personal photographer, and name speller, all in one. Everyone seems okay with the stipulation of no personal photos, though some ask why they can’t go behind the table. I tell them the truth.

“It’s overwhelming,” I say to one disgruntled middle-aged woman. “And if he’s going to get through all these signatures, we need to keep the line moving.”

Nolan overhears this and shoots me a grateful smile.

“Holding up?” I ask him, as the woman collects her six books.

“Just,” he says. “Just.”

The quaint lampposts Alex has managed to position on either side of the signing table cast Nolan’s face in shadow, and I resist the urge to press the pad of my thumb against the scrunch between his eyebrows. I want to take him away, to tell him he will never have to sit behind a table and be stared at by people again.

Instead, I briefly squeeze his hand beneath the table, and ask, “Does it help or hurt to know that all of these people are carrying around a version of Avery and Emily?”

As if conjured by my question, two young girls step eagerly to the table. It’s obvious they’re sisters, the younger a shorter carbon copy of the other. The little girl can’t reach the top of the ticket jar, comically straining on tiptoe. Her sister plucks the tickets from her outstretched hand and deposits them with her own. With that taken care of, the little girl zooms around the table and wiggles between Nolan and me.

“Can I sit here?” She points at a frozen Nolan’s lap. “I can’t see over there.” Her voice is a little too loud and much too brazen in a way only young children’s can be. The look in her eye makes me think of the glint in Ainsley’s when she first sees Orman.

The folding table we set up for the signing isn’t tall, but she’s right—it’s just high enough that she can’t get a clear view of Nolan, especially in the dim lighting. To her, it probably seems like a perfectly ordinary solution, born of a lifetime of being hoisted onto shoulders and bent knees.

I’m about to kindly let her down, to guide her back to where her sister stands, shifting foot to foot, embarrassed, when Nolan leans forward in his chair and addresses the little girl directly.

“Do you have a book for me to sign?”

His voice is so warm and gentle it makes me pause.