I did not answer them.
Ethan and I walked past the cameras and climbed into Maya’s car.
Several weeks later, a letter arrived from Daniel.
He asked me to tell Ethan that the compass proved he had always intended to return.
I placed the letter unopened in a file for Ethan to access when he was older.
I would not destroy the truth, but I would no longer deliver Daniel’s version of it.
The compass belonged to Ethan.
The meaning belonged to Ethan too.
We returned home after the fraudulent lien was removed.
The house looked smaller than I remembered, but it was ours.
One afternoon, I found Ethan at the kitchen table drawing with a blue pencil.
The picture showed two people standing beside a small house under a bright yellow sun.
For the first time in three years, the house had a door.
It was open.
I sat beside him and asked where the people were going.
“They’re not going anywhere,” he said.
“They live there.”
He placed the silver compass on the table between us.
Daniel had engraved it with a promise to always find the way home.
In the end, he had been the only one who remained lost.
Ethan and I had found our way back without him.
