I return to the entrance to see if there is anyone in charge there who can tell me where the patients from the Mechanics’ Pavilion are. I don’t find such a person, but I do see a billboard that is at least twenty feet high and that hours earlier had been advertising a brand of beer. It has now been peppered as far as an arm can reach with slips of paper, business cards, and notices asking for information on people or sharing information.

I stop to read the messages. One notice says, Sylvia and Malcolm Berger are safe. Call for them at Number 120, 28th Ave. Another reads, Have you seen our daughter, Eliza Jane Cole? She is eight years old. Dark brown hair, freckles. Red dress. Leave message please! There are hundreds of little notices on the board, some just tiny scraps of newsprint. The largest sign reads, Death notices can be left here.

I set down the travel case, reach inside, and pull out the documents from Martin’s desk, wondering which one I can sacrifice a portion of to leave a note. And then I see Da’s word book lying atop the strongbox and Kat’s clothes. I need the documents. Until I know what has become of Martin, I need them. I take out Da’s book and flip to the page where he stopped a few days before his fall with the word intrepid. I hesitate and then tear off the bottom half of the opposite page, which he would have filled had he lived longer. I ask an older woman writing a note of her own if I might borrow her pencil when she is finished.

I write, Belinda Bigelow: Kat and I are here on the bowling green. We are looking for you. Leave a note if you can. I tack my message at what should be eye level for Belinda, and then Kat and I head to the food tent to stand for an hour to get bread, cheese, bologna, and canned milk. Then we make our way back to the grass to find a new spot to rest, as our original patch has long since been taken by other refugees. I pull Kat to me as we sit down and tell her we will try again tomorrow. Tomorrow we will find Belinda and the baby.

When I say the word tomorrow, I realize we are staying the night in this park, on the grass under the stars, with thousands of other people who likewise have nowhere else to sleep tonight. Some people have made makeshift tents out of blankets and rugs, but Kat and I have only the one blanket between us, and I’m glad that as the sun sets the night is not cool, nor is it particularly dark, as the horizon to the east is glowing orange like daybreak.

As we settle in for the night and just as the last light of day leaves us, National Guardsmen walk through the park to announce that a curfew has been set in the park and in the city. No one is to be out and about after sundown or before sunup. No one is allowed to return to areas where the fires have raged nor where the fires are headed. The mayor has declared that any looters will be shot on sight. No candles of any kind are allowed anywhere and no cooking fires inside any structure, as that very thing was the cause of one of the fires now burning out of control. No liquor is to be sold to anyone for any reason. We are also told army tents will arrive early tomorrow morning, but that tonight we must make do with whatever we can. We are not to worry about the fires approaching the park while we sleep. The army has positioned troops outside the park to watch for them.