"No." The old man nodded slowly. "No, I didn't either. She's protecting you. And herself. That's her right." He turned the cane a quarter-turn between his palms. "Does she know you're here?"
Cal didn't answer, which was an answer.
"I won't keep you, then," Mr. Calloway said. "I won't make you a liar any longer than you have to be. But I'll tell you one thing, since you came all this way. It isn't mine to tell you the rest. What happened in this room—it happened to her as much as to me. More. If she wants you to know, she'll tell you. If she doesn't, then I'll respect that, and so will you."
"I looked you up," Cal said. "At the library. On the microfilm."
Something happened at the corner of Mr. Calloway's mouth. "Did you."
"It said you went missing. In January. Before I was born. And it said you came back."
"I did."
"From here?"
Mr. Calloway didn't say yes. But he didn't say no. He sat with his blind face turned toward the windows, toward the sound of the buses, and after a while he said, "Tell me what you see."
"What?"
"Out the windows. Tell me what's out there. I used to look at it. I'd like to know if it's the same."
So Cal told him. He told him about the bays and the silver buses with the dog on the side, and the destination signs, BALTIMORE, ERIE, NEW YORK EXPRESS. He told him about the man in the orange vest waving one in with his arms, and the pigeons on the roof of the Harrisburg bus, and the lady in a fur coat getting off the Philadelphia bus with a little dog in a carrier, and the gray sky over the buildings, and the steam coming out of a grate. He felt stupid at first. Then he didn't. Mr. Calloway listened with his head tilted, and once in a while he asked a question—"What color is her coat? Is the dog barking?"—and once he laughed out loud, at the pigeons, and Booker looked up from his paper as if he'd heard a gunshot.
"You're good at that," Mr. Calloway said when Cal ran out. "You notice things. Most people don't. Most people look at the world like it's a bill they've already paid."