Winter charged in suddenly; what was jacket weather a month ago was now definitely of the heavy coat variety. People were beginning to negotiate their holiday vacation time; Eames was trying to get Thanksgiving Day off so she could take her nephews and nieces to the Macy's parade. Ritchie wanted Christmas and the days immediately after or before so he could travel home to Michigan. Goren shrugged off the season in his usual manner by volunteering to work for both the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday. Volunteering worked for his current situation; in addition to the much-needed overtime pay, it meant that he wasn't sitting at home thinking about how things could have been different.

He still spent his free Friday nights casing the library at the university; he hadn't run into the unnamed woman since they'd spoken six weeks ago. He was beginning to worry about her, and realized the fact that he simply forgot to get her name made her practically unreachable. Bobby wondered if she'd read the packet he'd assembled and if she had been able to put any of the information to good use. Thinking of his own situation, he wondered if she was having difficulty with the upcoming holidays. As he picked up extra hours here and there, he wondered if her financial situation was as dire as his.

On the Monday before Thanksgiving, he arrived at 1PP early and started organizing his desk for the day's work as he listened to Eames carrying on a conversation with someone regarding the best places to try and see the parade on Thursday. As he sorted through the mail he received, she bickered good-naturedly with the person on the other end of the line, and realized it must be her sister. Eames was discussing the finer points of parade watching; the length of time before seeing floats, the ability to move close to the barriers for unimpeded sight lines, the need to bring a backpack with layers of clothing and lots of snacks, the desire to have a bathroom available should the kids need to utilize one. He sat at his desk and marveled at all the details one had to think about to take a few kids out for a few hours, and admired Eames for handling all the little details with her usual aplomb.

As Eames talked, Bobby quickly disposed of his stack of interdepartmental mail, leaving only one Priority Mail envelope on his desk. He looked at the name and return address on the package, trying to get a handle on what it might contain. When he realized he didn't recognize the information on the outside of the package, he carefully nuanced the package open, dumping the contents onto his desk. When the George Harrison CD landed in the center of it, his breath left him in a rush of emotion. The mystery woman from the library had contacted him; when he had researched her handwritten pages several lyrics from this album had surfaced and he had marked them clearly. He scanned the shipping envelope for the name written on the mailing label, in hopes of finally putting a name to the woman who was grieving just as much as he. Disappointment filled him as he realized the name section had been left blank.

Eames bid her sister farewell, and turned her attention to him. "What's that?"

Bobby tore his eyes away from the envelope and looked up at her. Blinked his mind clear. Came up with a plausible story and went with it. "Oh, Lewis scratched one of my discs beyond repair and owed me a new one."

"So why'd he send it here?" she quizzed.

"I have no idea." Bobby scooped up the disc and the envelope and shoved them into one of his desk drawers. "What's up for today?"

About an hour later, when Eames wandered off for her usual coffee refueling, he ripped open the drawer and looked in the envelope again. Empty. As he picked up the CD, he ran his thumb over the case and noticed it was unwrapped. Opening it revealed a square sticky note attached to the inside of the front cover. He peeled the note off the cover, stuck it on his desk, and placed everything else back in his drawer before Eames returned. Only after he was in the clear did he look at the note.

"Shanghai Garden, Chinatown. Thursday, 8 p.m."

***********************

It took a moment to adjust to the warmth of the restaurant after walking a couple of blocks from the Chinatown subway station in the nearly-freezing temperatures. Removing his coat, he placed his hat and gloves in the pockets, and hung it up at the front of the establishment. He spent a self-consious moment smoothing his militarily short hair down after removing his cap, then proceeded to the hostess stand. He was surprised to see just how full the place was on Thanksgiving night; most patrons looked to be ethnic Chinese, with a smattering of the rest of Asia among the tables. There were precisely two Caucasian women the restaurant, which made finding his library confidant much easier.

"I'm joining her," he informed the host, pointing in direction of the booth she occupied. The host nodded, walking him over to the table and placing a menu on the table across from her. She glanced up at him, then flicked her glance away again quickly. She picked up the pot of hot tea, pouring him a glass as he sat. He wrapped a hand around the cup she'd poured, took a large sip, and looked across the table at her, searching her face. He wondered if her eyes were always red, or if she'd been crying again. Managing to avoid thinking about how to start a conversation with her the entire time he travelled here, his brow now furrowed as he realized he'd have to come up with something. Might as well start with the basics. "I'm Robert Goren. Bobby."

Her face began to contort into a mask of anguish, as if simply saying her own name caused her pain. Maybe it did. Her face rearranged itself into a more thoughtful pose; eyebrows together, mouth pursed. She came to some sort of decision and looked at him. "Gretchen Stirling." Her voice sounded raw, distant. She fell back into silence.

Bobby waited. Uncomfortableness settled in. He continued to wait, seeing if he could force her to speak next, or if she would be able to maintain her silence. She had asked to meet him; he figured she had something to tell him, but he was tired and he'd be damned if he was going to play twenty questions to....

"Have you eaten?" Her voice broke into his thoughts.

"I had a sandwich for lunch. I worked today."

She nodded. "I work tomorrow. Had to be back in town tonight."

"Where did you go?"

The waitress arrived then, and asked if they were ready to order. He watched Gretchen drag her tired eyes over her menu, which was written in Chinese, as opposed to the one he held, which was written in English. Looking up at him, she asked, "Are you hungry?" He shrugged. As she flipped through her symbol-filled pages, his curiosity piqued. Did she read Chinese? He knew the best food was probably on her menu and not on his. With that he did make up his mind. "Why don't you order for us both?"

"How adventurous are you?" she asked neutrally, studying her menu.

"I ate live baby octopus when I was stationed in Korea."

She didn't look up, but her eyebrows raised nearly to her hairline. "Did you like them?"

"It was an experience. Don't know that I'd like to repeat it tonight."

Her eyebrows lowered and she glanced at him. "No live baby octopus. Got it."

Gretchen tentatively asked the waitress a few questions in Chinese. He could see her struggling to decipher the answers, yet she doggedly continued in Mandarin, when he was sure the waitress was able to converse well enough in English. He could tell when the end of the conversation arrived and handed over his menu at the appropriate time.

"Fresh fish, couple of vegetables. Some noodles," Gretchen reported. "Did you want anything else? Soup?"

He shook his head. "I'm fine." The waitress nodded, moved away. He continued, "You speak Mandarin?"

"Very little. Enough to get the correct food to the table, find the bathroom, and ask a cab driver to take me to the airport. I had to learn that much when I went to China with a friend several years ago. I spent 5 days on my own while she dealt with family obligations. I stayed in a hostel, visited the night market, wondered just what form of bug was impaled on some of the sticks. Never got up enough nerve to try them." She took a deep breath, then looked quizzically at Bobby, as if she was wondering how so many words managed to get past her lips, then let her gaze fall to the table again.

He figured he might as well plunge into whatever brought him here. "Your kids are with your mother-in-law for the weekend?" As he watched her, her eyebrows moved again. She had to be a terrible poker player, he thought to himself. Every emotion seemed to transmit across her face.

Taking a deep breath, she responded. "It's difficult having holidays with a woman who wasn't fond of you even before her son died. But she loves your kids and they love her, so you go, but the whole time you're wondering how long you have to stay. Can't call on your friends; they're all married and traveling or hosting family of their own. Can't start drinking 'cause there's no reason to stop. Can't keep crying, 'cause you just don't have the energy for it anymore. You know?"

He nodded. He did know. "Well, the drinking and the crying I know. I'd have been well into a good drunk by now. No kids, never had a mother-in-law, no married friends."

She nodded. "Ah. Tall, dark, handsome, and single doesn't get you a date in this town anymore?" Her lip curled at one corner; Bobby thought that maybe she used to be good at witty banter, but she seemed sorely out of practice now. He decided to go along with her attempt at humor. "You forgot broken," he half-smiled as he replied, and seeing her eyes mist over, he then remembered that he had never been very good at witty banter.

She looked steadily at him for the first time. "I didn't forget." She paused, but her eyes stayed on him. "What was your mother's name?"

He finished off his now-cold tea and poured a new cup. When he thought he had his voice under control, he replied. "Frances."

"And your brother? What was his name?"

"Frank." Bobby looked at the tablecloth, trying to ignore the pain exploding behind his eyes.

"Named after your mother. And your mentor? Where is he now?"

"Declan? Sing Sing." What could he do to divert her questions? Ah yes, he remembered. Go on the offensive. "What was your husband's name?"

He hand came up to frame her face, but she still didn't remove her gaze from him. "Matthew."

Bobby snapped off another question, hoping to head off any more of hers. "How did he die?"

"We had a fight. I slept in the guest room that night. He had a cerebral aneurysm in his sleep, grade 5 by the time I found him and got him to the hospital. He died a week later. His mother blamed me for not being in bed with him, for not knowing he needed help in time to save him. It's okay, I guess. I blame myself for that, too." She finally turned her eyes away from him, began moving the teapot and their cups. "Food's here."

Bobby stared at Gretchen as the food was placed on the table, wondering how she survived the crushing guilt she must have felt after her husband's death, and how she managed to visit a woman who blamed her. He thought about his own guilt, which Declan just managed to add to instead of free him from, and tried to imagine a method to weigh guilt so that they could compare apples to apples. He was still thinking when she spoke again.

"The food here is pretty good. You should eat."

He roused himself out of his rumination and placed food on his plate. An undeclared truce was called, and the meal went on in relative silence, comments limited to the tastiness of the food and the pleasantness of the surroundings; after a while, Bobby noticed that most of the food was gone and that it was the first time in a long time he'd had a decent meal. He said as much to his companion.

"It must be hard to eat alone. I have to eat or the kids will notice. It's hard to hide things from them." She stopped, seemed to take in his state of mind after their fragile truce during dinner. "I wanted to thank you. The information you pulled together was truly helpful to my family. My daughter's in a support group now, and really likes being able to talk with kids her own age about her dad. My son still doesn't understand why we're sad so much. I'm learning how to handle that better, thanks to you." She again tried to evaluate his state of mind. "It did help. Knowing that I helped someone else."

Ah, he thought. The point of the meeting. She hadn't forgotten a word of their earlier conversation. She must have revisited it as much as he had. He shrugged. "It was nothing, really. I'm good at research." He watched the waitress bring the bill to Gretchen.

She nodded, letting his offhand remark pass, and extracted her wallet from her purse. He fumbled for his wallet so that he could cover his portion of the meal.

"Don't do that," she warned him. "You're my guest. And while I may not be a stunning conversationalist anymore, I still remember that the person who invites the guest pays for the meal." Her tone was quite clear. She would be hurt if he fought with her about this.

So he didn't. "Thank you for this. It was a lovely meal." He looked at her. "And it was nice to have company."

She nodded. "For me, too." She stood, and Bobby followed suit. After retrieving her coat and putting it on, she held out her hand to him. "It was nice to meet you, Bobby Goren."

He finished putting on his own coat, then sheepishly shook her hand. "The pleasure was all mine, Mrs. Stirling. Can I walk you to the subway station?"

"Oh, I'm not far. I'll just grab a taxi from here."

He opened the door to the restaurant, and she preceded him out the door. The silence and the cold settled in quickly. Rubbing his hands together, Bobby turned his head towards the subway station and thought through a variety of goodnight salutations, trying to decide which one was most appropriate.

Gretchen looked at him, her breath making little ghosts appear in front of her face. She turned to him, and with a serious look on her face asked, "Have you figured out how to be just you yet?"

He couldn't decide if the shock he felt was from the cold or the question. He shook his head.

She wrapper her arms around herself, either to keep herself warm or to give her courage. "When you figure it out, would you let me know?"

"I'll call you first," he replied with sincerity.

"Good." She gave the closest thing to a smile he'd seen from her. "Well then, goodnight..."

Not trusting his voice, he nodded, and watched her head to the busy corner and flag down a passing taxi. He nodded at her one more time as the cab stopped, and she gave him a small wave as she entered the taxi and closed the door.

Then he headed for home.