WHEN THE DOORBELL let out its single cheery chime, I grabbed my purse and opened the door to see Brad in khakis and a polo shirt.

I glanced down at my jeans. “Hey. Am I underdressed?”

He smiled, revealing a row of straight teeth. “No—you’re perfect. I just wanted to make a good impression after phoning it in at our last dinner.”

I locked the door and we walked to the car. “You know, I kind of miss the pencil.”

“Pencil?”

“In your hat.” I gestured to the side of my head.

He laughed. “Next time I’ll be sure to take you to a fast-food place instead of Boston’s finest. I’ll wear my hat and pencil. I’ll even clear off the passenger’s seat of my work van and take you in that. My sister exaggerates—it’s not really as bad as an episode of Hoarders.”

I swallowed down the nerves climbing my throat. My mind skidded over the fact that he wanted to take me out again and landed on where we were going. “B-Boston?”

“Yeah—that okay? We were just there last week, so I didn’t think you were against it.” He opened the door for me, but I didn’t get in.

“Sure, that’s fine. Where are we going?”

“There’s something I want you—us—to see at the Museum of Fine Arts.”

Back Bay. I dragged in a deep breath, braced my hand against the top of the open car door.

“Annie?”

I exhaled, slow and steady. “My full name’s Anaya.” Why he should care, why I chose that moment to divulge such information, I didn’t know. But I wanted him to understand. And if anyone could, it was him, wasn’t it? The man who had shared the terror of that day with me? “It means ‘completely free.’” I laughed at the irony. “I haven’t been back to that part of Boston since the bombing.”

“Ah, gotcha.”

I flung my hand in the air, sat in the passenger’s seat of his Accord. “Go, please. I didn’t mean to make a big deal out of nothing.”

He didn’t close my door. “We don’t have to go to Boston tonight.”

I breathed deep. “I’m tired of being a baby about the past. Yes. I want to go.” At least I wanted to want to go. Same thing, right?

He shut my door and walked around to the driver’s side. The inside of the car smelled like pine and woodsy cologne. The scent triggered something about that long-ago day. Something more hopeful than horrible, more wondrous than wearing. I clung to it.

Traffic ran light, and we entered the city a short time later. As the buildings pressed in around us, I reminded myself I had nothing to fear. Couldn’t this even be an important step in my healing? Returning to Back Bay with Red Sox Sweatshirt?

“Are you afraid of another attack?” He pressed the brakes as we met a red light off the highway.

A news van pulled alongside us, reminding me that the trial I avoided rained upon the city. I wanted to know what went on in that courtroom, and I didn’t. I would stay up to watch the ten o’clock news, and then shut it off when highlights of the trial popped up on the screen.

“No. It’s the memories. The suffering. The thought of my niece, Grace . . . the thought of a boy the same age as my nephew . . .” I couldn’t finish the thought. The word killed didn’t seem to do justice to what really had been done.

“They’ll find him guilty.”

I scrunched up my face. “I’m not convinced that will fix everything.” I shrugged. “People think it will—hey, maybe I’m wrong and it will make me feel better.”

But it wouldn’t change things. The bombing had still happened. That boy’s parents still needed to live with the fact that they’d never see their son graduate high school, grow up, maybe get married. They’d never see what type of man he’d become. It had all been taken away. Stolen.

Just like my life had been.

My thighs tensed as we made our way through Boston’s Back Bay and pulled into a parking garage.

“The museum doesn’t close until ten on Wednesdays. Figured we’d get dinner after.”

I forgot about the past, about my grief, and clutched the ring at my neck until the metal grew warm in my palm. “There’s something about this ring in the museum?”

“I think so. But I wanted to see what you thought before I got you all excited.”

I turned toward him. “Okay, spill it. What’s this all about?”

Brad put the car in park and shut off the engine. His grin shone in the dim lighting of the garage. “Last December, some construction workers at the State House uncovered a time capsule from 1795. It was buried by Sam Adams and Paul Revere.”

Goose bumps broke out on my skin. “I remember hearing about that on the news. It was a bunch of coins and newspapers and stuff, right?”

“And something else. A poem.”

I blinked. “Okay.”

“I remembered them opening the capsule at the museum back in January. But I forgot about it until I browsed my newsfeed last night.” He reached for his phone in a cup holder of the center console, opened an app, and handed it to me.

An article from the news section of a Boston website. It stated that beginning today, March 11, the Museum of Fine Arts would display the artifacts found in the time capsule.

I lowered the phone. “Neat.”

Brad took it back, scrolled farther down the page. “The poem’s by a woman named Liberty Gregory. There were a few words that caught my eye.” He enlarged the picture of the poem, crinkled and yellowed with age.

I scanned the stanzas, incomplete in the picture. But my gaze immediately latched on to one phrase. “No way.” My head swam with excitement. This shouldn’t mean so much to me. It was Brad’s family, after all. His ring. His ancestors, his inheritance. But I couldn’t deny how it called to me, this story untold. I had waded through the last two years with this ring by my side. I’d clung to it, slept with it, imbued it with powers it couldn’t possibly possess. Of course I’d be enthusiastic about the words before me.

Victory belongs to the one who is strong.

Beside me, Brad grinned. “Keep reading.”

I skimmed the words in a rush. It spoke of a stolen ring. “You’re kidding me. Do you think . . . ?”

“That’s why I wanted us to come and see it. To read the whole poem. I’d been searching for information on the ring for days. When I saw this I thought it was wishful thinking.”

I handed him his phone. “That would be a mighty big coincidence.”

Brad nodded. “Unless someone made a lot of rings with that saying back then.”

“Possible. But we’re here now. Let’s go see what we find.”

We exited the car, and as we walked toward the entrance of the museum, Brad reached out and squeezed my hand. Then, just as quickly, he released it.

Before tonight, I thought I’d never set foot in this section of Boston again. I thought I’d never come so close to my living nightmares. But here, with Brad, anticipating Liberty Gregory’s poem inside the museum, I felt . . . alive.

My hand tingled where Brad had squeezed it, and I thought maybe, just maybe, Brad Kilroy was still my hero.