On a fine spring morn­ing, Sam­my stepped out onto Main Street after leav­ing the gallery. He shared a cof­fee with Mary Mey­er, enjoy­ing a com­fort­able silence filled with their news­pa­pers. Sam­my frowned at images of Carter and Cas­tro while Mary read about a vast inves­ti­ga­tion led by the FBI and police chief Saint Brown, which spanned sev­en­teen states. The inves­ti­ga­tion uti­lized inter­view tran­scripts from Joseph Macauley to uncov­er the life of Eli Aaron. Recent­ly, author­i­ties had found the last body in Pearl Riv­er County’s Hemms­ford Swamp­land, pro­vid­ing a small mea­sure of clo­sure for the fam­i­lies endur­ing years of anguish. Despite this grave dis­cov­ery, no men­tion of Grace had sur­faced in any reports, a glar­ing absence for Sam­my.

Mary remarked, “Jus­tice is served,” to which Sam­my replied, “And it only took three decades.” Their con­ver­sa­tion turned reflec­tive as Mary posed a ques­tion about belief in kar­ma. This prompt­ed Sam­my to respond, “More so each day,” hint­ing at a grow­ing sense of moral bal­ance in their world.

The tone was light­ened when Mary com­ment­ed on Sam­my’s roman­ti­cism, prompt­ing him to recall her father’s face. This ques­tion about life choic­es often intrigued Mary; she fre­quent­ly asked, “If you had your time over…” But Sam­my only smiled, nev­er offer­ing a defin­i­tive answer. Even­tu­al­ly, he joked about dis­miss­ing the elders of her fam­i­ly, say­ing he would leave behind the Rothko paint­ing in favor of a life filled with some­thing far more beau­ti­ful.

As they con­tin­ued to read, Mary turned the page, not­ing a list­ing for that evening’s enter­tain­ment. Sam­my planned to take her to the new­ly reopened Palace 7, where they would enjoy a show­ing of Cleopa­tra. The moment hint­ed at romance and con­nec­tion, as he envi­sioned tak­ing her hand, know­ing she would wel­come the ges­ture with­out hes­i­ta­tion.