My mind flips through the filing drawer inside my head and pulls an image of a white matchbook with one missing match. The Pelican Room. She would have been gone by then, according to Eric. But still, I wonder…

“People around here have all kinds of crazy theories about that fire. Some still believe the ground is cursed. Rumor has it that multiple girls came out against the priest, all claiming the same things, and they were paid off. If anyone had reason to burn that place down, it was one of them.”

I think of my mom saying she and the baby she lost were better off without the father, that he wasn’t a good man, and I squeeze my hands together under the table.

“You okay, Catbird?” Eric looks at me, his brown eyes full of concern. “If this is too much, we can stop.”

I take a breath, forcing the muscles in my neck and shoulders to unknot. “I’m fine. My breakfast just hit me wrong on the way over. So, you were saying she ran away after this scandal?”

“Yep. Everyone saw it coming. Everyone except for your grandmother, that is. Seemed to take her by surprise. To say they were contentious after that would be an understatement. But really, they were always contentious.”

I try to let these new details settle next to the eggs and cheese from earlier, but it’s hard to swallow all of this at once. Breakfast really is threatening to come back up.

“You know,” Eric says thoughtfully. “I think we have an old yearbook lying around here. Damien never could resist a guy in uniform.”

He gets up and leaves me with my thoughts and a cooling cup of tea. When he returns, he lays an old yearbook with a crimson, leatherlike cover in front of me. 1999 is stamped across the bottom in gold, and it’s embossed with one of those weird Catholic symbols that’s half cross and half coat of arms. “Told ya,” he says. “Take your time. I’m going to clean up and change. Damien and I have dinner plans. Back in a few.”

I open the cover and begin flipping through pages of black-and-white faces, all plastered with sweet, fake smiles. I find the senior class at the rear of the book and look under G. But there are no Gages listed. They must have taken these while she was away. Disappointment stings like lemon juice in a paper cut.