When I got to the museum, I hurried up the steps past the stone lions. Inside, tourists escaping the rain crowded the lobby. The smell of wet people got in my nose like the wormy stench of the river. I climbed the grand staircase to the upper level and squeezed through the busy galleries. When I passed La Grande Jatte, I found myself looking for Dylan Moran in a leather jacket. I expected to see his face—my face—eyeing me with a steely blue gaze. I expected all the faces around me to become my face, as if I were back inside the portal.

Instead, it was an ordinary day at the museum.

I found Edgar in the wing where he always was. He wore a raincoat and a fedora that had to be decades old. From the back, he looked a little like the mystery man in Nighthawks, whose face you never saw. I navigated the crowd, and he shot me an impatient stare as I came up beside him.

“You’re late,” he said, his breath engulfing me with its tobacco smell.

“I know.”

“I hauled my ass halfway across the city to get here. You’re, what, four blocks away? The bus took forever, and the streets are flooded. My feet are soaked.”

“Sorry, Edgar. I’m having a bad day.”

“Well, try being ninety-four, and then tell me what a bad day is.”

I didn’t want to argue with him. For all our battles over the years, I owed him a lot—for opening up his life to me, for putting food on the table, for taking shit from me as a bitter teenager and not kicking me to the street. He’d played the cards he was dealt, and yes, he complained about getting a bad hand until I didn’t want to hear it anymore. I still loved him. I hadn’t said that to him nearly enough.

“Why don’t you tell me the story?” I said, putting a hand on his bony shoulder. “That’ll make you feel better.”

“What story?”

“You and Nighthawks.”

Edgar gave me an impatient look. “What are you going on about, Dylan?”

“The man you saved on State Street when you were a boy.”

My grandfather clucked his tongue in annoyance. “Saved? I watched a guy get flattened on the street when I was a kid.”

“What?”

“Killed right in front of me. I still get nightmares about it.”

I turned away from Edgar, and for the first time, I stared at the gallery wall.

That was when I realized that Nighthawks wasn’t hanging in front of us.

I took a couple of steps in surprise, assuming we were in the wrong location, but then I looked around at the rest of the wing and realized that we were in our usual place. All the other paintings were exactly where they were supposed to be. But Nighthawks was gone.