The sky rumbles as I finally reach Liberty Tower, where I started my journey yesterday, and climb off my bike. The building stretches up beyond the illumination of the streetlights. I ignore the ache in my chest and focus on the paintings, the shapes I studied over and over and couldn’t find meaning for. I don’t see anything in the structure that evokes those images, so I wheel my bike across the street and keep searching. What about the unusual lamp on the building on the next block? Could it be part of one of her paintings?

My heart sinks when I get close enough to see that there is nothing about the lamp that looks familiar. So I keep riding, studying every brick and iron bar and . . . there. I spot two white gateposts that lead to a courtyard several blocks away. When the lamp and the posts are combined, my artist’s eye tells me they match one of the images my mother painted. I snap pictures and keep walking.

My heart pounds. A drop of rain lands on my cheek, but even as everyone around me picks up their pace, I don’t rush for fear I will miss what my mother saw.

I see the blue-and-red columns on a building at the end of the block, put down my kickstand, and walk around, looking for what my mother painted. Finally, I find the right spot where the tree suddenly appears to be just small green specks behind the wide blue-and-red pillar.

Energized, I climb back on my bike and keep going—determined to find them all.

There! The corner of a concrete pedestal and the weathered bronze tip of the man’s boot from the statue I passed yesterday match another of my mother’s canvases.

Certain I am finally going to be able to finish my mother’s work, I ignore the mist of rain that starts to fall and keep riding until I again reach the La Salle Street Bridge.

The streetlights that line the bridge are bright. Thunder sounds. People hurry around me as I stare up at the black iron flower design and then walk the bridge past the arched red iron to the other side, looking for the last two of the completed paintings and a hint as to what the unfinished one might be.

Wait. There.

I snap a fast photograph from a distance, then shove my tablet into my backpack so it stays dry and hurry forward.

Fat raindrops fall from the sky. Thunder rumbles. A man with a shoulder bag bumps against me as he struggles to raise his yellow umbrella. Those without umbrellas race for cover. I don’t run, but I do wheel my bicycle faster as I approach a small courtyard area a half block away from the entrance to this side of the bridge. The rain soaks me, plastering my shirt to my body. My socks squish with every step until finally I get close enough to be certain that I’ve found the inspiration for Mom’s fifth painting. There is only one more finished painting to find the source of and then I’ll be able to search for the one she never got to complete.