The news update reported extensive damage at Harvey's Casino. I listened for the difference between what the voice said and what people around me supplied afterward. The report gave me damage. The crowd gave me certainty about things nobody nearby had shown they could know.
A man standing behind our chairs said there must have been people inside. The woman with him asked who had told him. He answered by describing how loud the explosion had been. I knew what a loud sound could do to the imagination. It had already done it to mine.
"Did they report casualties?" Bram asked me.
"Not in what I heard."
"Somebody over there says—"
"Then somebody over there should say where it came from." I softened my voice. "I don't mean you. I just can't carry all of it as fact."
He looked at the folded newspaper in his hands. "Fair enough."
I had no right to promise that everyone was safe, either. The evacuation I had seen was not a view of every person. All I could say was that I had left before the explosion, had stayed where directed, and was unhurt. Those facts would be useful to Tessa. A collection of frightening guesses would not.
At the agreed calling time, the telephone alcove was busier than before. I waited with her number open in my hand. One man asked the line at large whether anyone knew a faster place to call. No one answered. I let another woman see the clock when she leaned around me, but I did not surrender my turn out of shame for needing it.
Tessa answered on the second ring. "Mama, are you all right?"
"Yes. I'm still at the same safe place. I heard the explosion from here. I haven't gone toward Harvey's."
She asked whether I was hurt. I said no, then said it again without adding a joke. She deserved the plain answer I had wanted from Nolan.
"I've heard so many things," she said.
"So have I. The report I heard says extensive damage. I'm not going to repeat the rest unless I know where it came from."
We were quiet together for a moment. It was the first silence between us that day that did not feel like resistance. Each of us was listening to the other breathe.
"I still want to come," she said.
"Only to here. Not to look at the building."
"I know. I don't want you trying to meet me halfway through somewhere closed."
I confirmed the accessible public location and described the dining area where I could wait: a place we could both identify without inventing a special entrance or relying on a room telephone. She repeated the details. We agreed that if travel guidance prevented her arrival, she would stay where she was and we would use our next scheduled call.
"I'll come by an open route when I can," she said. "If access changes, the meeting waits. You don't go looking for me."
"And you don't come looking for my suitcase."
She gave a short laugh, more breath than amusement. "I wasn't planning to."
I had needed to say it because some part of me still wanted the things upstairs to matter enough to justify an expedition. Hearing her refuse the errand before I offered it made me grateful and embarrassed at once.
We settled where I would sit and what I would do if the dining area became too crowded: remain on the same accessible premises and return at the next agreed time, not wander toward the closure. The plan was modest enough to survive a delay. No one had to prove love by defeating a barrier.
"Can you manage another night there if you need to?" she asked.
"I can arrange it. It will cost money, but I can arrange it."
"All right." She did not turn that answer into an offer she could not make. I heard the care in the question instead of measuring it by what did not follow.
Afterward I told Bram the meeting plan. He asked if I wanted him nearby when she came. I said I would introduce them if it happened naturally, but we needed to talk alone. He accepted that as easily as he had accepted my ledger.
The news continued in the background. I could not make the damage smaller by listening harder. I put Tessa's number back in my wallet and went to confirm the dining area's hours. For once, the next thing I needed to know was a question someone present could answer.