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Abby reached out, pleading, “Ms Gutman—”

“I would love to think Yoel is alive” She paused, her eyes filling with tears, her voice hard “But I do not entertain such frivolous drea, it was to be a realist I knohat happened tolike that Noould be lying if I said there wasn’t even a cru of bones when I know there is no such thing to be had I would be lying if I said I didn’t hat you are saying to be true, that I survived that place, not alone But clinging to such notions are dangerous”

“I’m confident in this”

“Have you asked him?” Ms Gutman asked

Abby shifted in her seat, uncomfortable with the direction of her questions When she said nothing, the old woman repeated the question “Did you ask hi for Abby’s response

“Not directly, but”

“It’s odd, isn’t it?” Ms Gutht through her “You go through all this effort to track one straight to him for confir with a knowing look “Maybe you’re not as confident as you let on”

Abby sed What could she tell her? That she couldn’t say anything because her dead grandmother told her not to? That this was all a part of some quest for the truth she didn’t even understand?

Tension coiled in hershe could say that made a semblance of sense No ht She saw right through Abby’s manufactured confidence

With shaking hands, Abby lifted her coffee cup to her mouth and took a sip of the now-cold brew The liquid turned bitter in herto do with her hands and her

thoughts

Ms Gutaze back to the journal “I can tell you one thing This Yoel—the man who penned this journal—is randfather”

“But he has the saht, and he has the journal Anything else is illogical,” Abby snapped

Ms Gutman’s eyes widened, but she didn’t bite back Instead, she straightened in her chair, her silent gaze her arer over the soft cover of the journal Abby struggled to contain her frustration Why would she not even entertain the possibility? It’s the only thing that made sense

“I have yet to read this so I don’t knohat it contains, but I assume my cousin wrote about his job at Auschwitz?”