I lean closer. “How did you know Jacob would get out of Russia?”

“Indeed,” Gram says with a shake of her head. “We had big plans but no way to know if any of them would come true. I had no way of knowing if Jacob would be there. We set up the plan so long ago, and I worried he might have forgotten or not been able to defect. I waited every day. I wore a red sweater, as planned. I did it all, but he wasn’t there. Then one day I was sick and couldn’t go until later in the afternoon.” She pauses dramatically. “And there he was!”

I grin and clap. “Yes!”

“I knew him the moment I saw him,” she says with a small laugh. “His hunched shoulders and bushy black hair. My Jacob. His voice was deeper, and he was even taller than before. But he insisted he recognized me instantly too. He said it wasn’t my red sweater that gave me away, but my beautiful face.” Gram laughs again, reminding me of Olivia when she holds her mouth to keep in a giggle. “The flatterer.”

“Like when you guys played chess,” I say with a smile.

“Yes,” Gram says, her own smile fading as she continues. “Our friendship didn’t skip a beat. He told me about the brutal time he had after I left. How he’d lost his mother when he was sixteen. I hated to think of how alone Jacob must have felt. He said he survived by hoping for the day he would see me again.”

I want to ask about her papa, but something stops me. She stares out the window, far away with her memories.

“I told him about my life here in America,” she says. “But it felt wrong to talk about my happiness here when he had struggled so much. Even here it was still hard for him. He’d been in the army since he was sixteen.”

“How did he leave Russia?” I ask.

“My stepfather, Mark, used his influence to bring him here. I will always be grateful to him for so many things, but that most of all.”

“Did you love Jacob?” I’m pretty sure I know the answer, but I want to hear her say it.

“I did,” she says in a low voice that shakes with emotion. “I loved him. I’d always loved him, but I thought he only saw me as a friend. I was afraid he’d never love me the same way.”

By now, I’m pretty sure I know who Jacob is. I just don’t know why Gram didn’t end up with him when they were so obviously in love.

I’m trying to think how to ask Gram when Clay shrieks, “Mommy!”

“Good morning, everyone.” Mom sails into the room wearing a flowered sundress and a floppy hat. “Are you going with us to the zoo, Lulu?”