I looked quickly over each of my shoulders and, seeing no one, I folded the paper with my mother’s face and stuck it in my pocket. Perhaps I should have made a photocopy, but I wasn’t thinking. I’d only ever seen that one other picture of her, the one of the three sisters taken before their mother had sent my mother away. Lulu kept that picture to herself, stuck in the top corner of her dresser mirror.

Now I had one of my own.

I skimmed the rest of the folder’s brittle fillings but I didn’t expect to find anything more enlightening than what I’d already gotten. I was unsurprised by what it contained. Yet more accusatory headlines screamed out, complaining about the government funding going away and the place closing down over my scandal. I was strangely proud. It was all about me. There wasn’t much extra information on my mother to be found, but at least I could say I knew a little bit more about her case. I’d never quite felt up to speed; ever since Malachi’s trial in the courtroom and my own tribulations in elementary school I’d assumed the rest of the world knew something I didn’t.

After I replaced the file, I ran down the stairs and out across the street to find my uncle. He was sitting at a small square table at the end of a narrow corridor where I knew he’d be waiting. He lifted his head when I entered, disturbing the bell at the top of the coffeehouse door.

“Did you find what you wanted?”

I nodded and grabbed a rickety, skinny-legged seat across from him. “You’ve got to take me there.”

His chin swung back and forth. “The goddess will not permit it.”

“Then you only meant to tease me.”

“No. I only disagreed with Lulu that you were old enough. Now you know. Now you’ve seen. The rest is up to you. I’ll be in enough trouble when she finds out I told you this much. I’ll be lucky to get laid for the rest of my life.”

He was settled on the matter. It wouldn’t do me any good to push. I’d have to find another way. I’d have to ask another question.

“Dave, do you know who my father was?”

“Uh-uh. Lulu thinks he was a white guy, his name might have been Allen, or Andrew, or something like that. I don’t think anybody really knows. I’m sorry, baby. I’ve given you all I know.”

With that, my uncle, Promethean traitor, finished his coffee and closed his book.

III

In a week or two, Lulu returned to her old self and life resumed in its rut of normalcy. I don’t know if Dave ever told Lulu what he’d told me or how he helped, but we never spoke of it again, except for the odd occasion when I’d ask him to show me, and he’d shoot me down.