Paige stopped, looked at his smile and laughed.
"What's so funny?"
"Tell me you weren't thinking of asking if I had a Catholic school girl outfit."
Nathan's face went beet red and Paige laughed again.
"No," he protested.
She shot him a look of disbelief.
"I was actually wondering why my Paige never mentioned it."
She continued to look at him, saying nothing.
"Okay, I was also wondering if you had one, but I wasn't actually going to ask."
She laughed a third time and then resumed climbing the stairs, pulling Nathan behind her. The truth was, the thought had never crossed his mind until she had said it, but it seemed to distract her and he loved the sound of her laughter.
They got to the third floor and Paige looked left and then right.
"Which way is west?"
"You got me," he said with a shrug.
Paige picked a direction at random and they began to circle around the outer shelves. It only took them a few minutes to find the section. Paige pulled out the yearbook from the past year and they took it over to one of the numerous tables. She looked at the cover and frowned.
"Does it not look right?"
Paige shrugged.
"I honestly don't know. I never picked up my copy so they mailed it to me and before I got around to opening it there was the fire." She touched the cover and Nathan could see her fingers shaking slightly.
They sat there for a minute, Nathan refusing to rush her. She gritted her teeth and flipped open the cover. She fanned through the pages at random. Her frown deepened as she looked from picture to picture. Pictures of student gatherings, sporting events, random shots of campus life. Her eyes flew from picture to picture searching desperately. Nathan put an arm around her and she leaned into him.
"I...I don't see a single familiar face." Her words were barely a whisper. "How can that be?"
Nathan remained silent.
Paige began to flip through the pages of the graduating class. Nathan waited, certain of what was to come.
"I'm...I'm not in here," she said as she closed the book. "How can I not be in here? What does that mean?"
"I'm not sure."
Paige pushed back from the table and went back to the shelf of yearbooks. She pulled out several volumes and returned with them, dropping them loudly on the desk.
"Paige, your wife. She told you she graduated two or three years ago?"
Nathan nodded. The butterflies in his stomach were now matching Paige's. He watched as she leaned over the table and searched the appropriate yearbook. Even before she said it, he knew.
"She's not in here. What does that mean? Why aren't either of us in there?"
Several of the students around the room were looking in their direction. Nathan knew she was on the verge of hysteria and tried his best to calm her. He pulled her down into the chair and then took her face in his hands and forced her to look away from the books.
"Paige, I don't know what it means. But we will figure this out. I promise." He spoke slow and softly and she seemed to relax a little.
"But what does it mean?"
"I don't know. How about we forget about you and my Paige for the moment and see if we can find a picture of the tree."
"Forget about me and look for a tree? Seriously?" she asked as she stood up.
"That isn't what I meant, at least not how I meant it to sound. I mean you remember that tree and it certainly looks real in the picture. Let's see if we can at least establish that it was in fact real. Does that make sense?"
For a minute Nathan worried that she would have a breakdown or flip out, but in the end she nodded and sat down again. She opened her purse and removed the picture and put it between them. She handed him one of the yearbooks and took another for herself and together they began to look for the tree.
They didn't find anything in the four most recent yearbooks, so Nathan returned those to the shelf and grabbed the next couple. When he returned to the table he saw a short older woman standing next to Paige's chair, she reached out and picked up the picture.
"Oh my," she said in a raspy voice.
"Excuse me," Nathan said as he joined Paige.
"Oh forgive me, I didn't mean to..." She stopped and looked from the picture to Paige and back. "The resemblance is remarkable. You and your mother could almost be twins."
"Excuse me? My mother?"
"Oh is she not your mother? Your aunt perhaps? You just look so much alike. If it weren't for the tree I would actually think this was a picture of you."
"I am sorry Ms.?" Nathan said.
"Oh forgive me. I've lost my manners. I'm Sister Brenda." She laughed when she saw the look on Nathan's face. "We don't all wear the habit anymore."