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photographybuilding of the Southwest School of Art. Daniel was curious about all of them and dawdled. Olivia kept up a steady pace all the way to Navarro Street.
    “Was she raised by her dad?”
    “Huh?”
    “Your daughter. Did your ex get custody?”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “You don’t seem to know the kids very well,” he said. “I thought maybe your daughter grew up with your ex-husband.”
    Red opened her mouth to answer, but then took a moment to reply more carefully.
    “My daughter grew up with me,” she said. “But Bridge and the kids, they have their own life. And I have mine.”
    “Did you and your daughter have some kind of falling-out?”
    “Oh no, nothing like that,” Red insisted. “We just don’t have much in common.”
    Cam chuckled. “Oh yeah, right. Nothing except two kids who need you.”
    Red shook her head and waved away his interpretation as they continued down the street.
    “Look, I know you’re pissed off that I lied to you about Bridge and the kids, but I wasn’t hiding anything. It’s just that a time to discuss the subject didn’t come up.”
    “It didn’t come up because you deliberately didn’t bring it up,” Cam said.
    “And when would have been a good time?” Red asked. “In the middle of ‘oh baby, oh baby, yes, yes,’ I should just throw in, ‘by the way, I have a daughter and two grandchildren.’”
    “So in the last five months that we’ve been together there wasn’t any time when we weren’t in the middle of having sex?” he asked.
    “Darling, that’s a good thing,” Red answered, trying to make a joke of it. Cam wasn’t amused.
    “Don’t pretend that we’re just sex buddies,” he said.
    Red feigned incredulity. “Don’t pretend we’re anything else,” she countered.
    Cam’s mouth thinned into one unhappy line and he kept his glance straight ahead.
    Red forced a carefree jaunt to her step. She’d hurt him. She knew it. But it was for the best and now it was done. She’d pushed him away. And the emptiness she felt inside, that would pass. It always did. He’d find someone else. Someone younger who could give him a couple of kids to raise. That woman would make him give up music for a real job and keep him home at night. That’s what he needed, anyway. And Red, well, she’d keep the kids until Mike got there and then she’d move on. There was always another cowboy willing to give her a ride.
    Ahead at the end of the block was the San Antonio Central Library. Built in the early 1990s in the unique architectural style described as Mexican Modernist, it would have been striking enough just in its design. But the building had also been painted enchilada red, a true splash of color in a neighborhood of muted gray. Many locals had initially been taken aback, but time had mellowed the paint and venerated the walls and angles to the point where most in the city would say, That’s what a library is supposed to look like .
    Cam and Red waited with the children at the crosswalk and then followed them through the Garden of Spheres and along the colonnade, not speaking.
    Red wished she could have saved the breakup for the walk home. She didn’t want to be with him now. She didn’t want to see him after it was over. And she didn’t understand whyhe didn’t just take off. That’s what she would have done, walk away. It would save everybody these uncomfortable, uneasy moments afterward. Cam should know that. Apparently he didn’t. He stayed at her side.
    The kids ran inside the building on their own. The two adults had to rush to keep up with them.
    “Where are we going?” Red asked.
    “Third floor,” Olivia answered. “That’s the kid area. Have you never been in the library before?”
    Red didn’t answer that. Instead, she followed her grandchildren to the elevator and up to the Juvenile Books section. There, the two split off in opposite directions. Daniel was on his knees on a brightly colored mat looking though the contents