“My name’s Jackson, actually,” he muttered, not lifting his eyes past my chin. As I walked away I heard him whispering furiously to her. Just as the door swung shut, she burst into tears. I stopped on the sidewalk and shut my eyes, letting out a breath and telling myself to relax the muscles that had slowly tightened throughout my body.
The only thing worse than brides like Maddie was getting to the meeting only to discover that the client was a “fan.” Not of my photos, of course. Of the dramatic story my life had become when I was eleven years old.
I pulled my phone out of my purse. Liv hadn’t left a message, but that wasn’t surprising. She hated being recorded. We’d spent enough time with cameras shoved in our faces, and the clips still lived on the internet under names like GIRLS FOIL SERIAL KILLER IN OLYMPIC FOREST and SURVIVORS OF “QUINAULT KILLER” ALAN MICHAEL STAHL SPEAK OUT.
Back then Liv had what her mom called “stubborn baby fat” and a round face made rounder by blunt bangs and a bob. In the years after, she’d sprouted up and slimmed down, and then she just kept vanishing by degrees, melting away until you could count the vertebrae through her shirt. She made sure there wasn’t enough of herself left to get recognized.
I didn’t have the option. The scar on my cheek, the nerve damage that kept the corner of my mouth tucked in a constant frown—those weren’t things I could hide. Changing my name had cut down on the number of people who found me, but I’d never get rid of the scars, and I refused to try to hide them. I kept my hair cut short and sharp, and I always photographed myself straight on. I described my style as unflinching. My most recent therapist had been known to suggest I was using honesty as armor.
As if on cue, the phone started buzzing again. This time I answered, bracing myself to talk Liv down from whatever crisis the day had brought. “Hey, Liv. What’s up?” I asked brightly, because pretending it could be anything else was part of what we did.
She was silent for a moment. I waited for her. It would come in little hiccup phrases at first, and then a flood. And at the end of it I would tell her that it was going to be okay, ask if she was taking her meds, and promise I didn’t mind at all that she’d called. And I didn’t. I was far more worried about the day she stopped calling.
“I’m trying to reach Naomi Cunningham,” a male voice said on the other end of the line, and I blinked in surprise.
“That’s me. Sorry, I thought you were someone else. Obviously,” I said, letting out a breath and sweeping windblown strands of hair back from my eyes. “Who’s calling?”
“My name is Gerald Watts, at the Office of Victim Services. I’m calling about Alan Michael Stahl.”
My mind went blank. Why would they be calling me now? It had been over twenty years, but— “Has he been released?” I asked. I remembered the word parole in the sentence. Possibility of parole after twenty years. But twenty years was eternity to a child. Panic bloomed through me like black mold. “Wait. You’re supposed to call us, aren’t you? We’re supposed to be allowed to testify, or—”
“Ma’am, Stahl has not been released,” Gerald Watts said quickly and calmly. “I’ve got better news than that. He’s dead.”
“I—” I stopped. Dead. He was dead, and that was it. It was over. “How?”
“Cancer. Beyond that, I’m not able to share private medical information.”
“Do the others know? Liv—I mean Olivia Barnes, and—”
“Olivia Barnes and Cassidy Green have been notified as well. We had a little more trouble getting hold of you. You changed your name.” He said it like it was just a reason, not a judgment, but I stammered.
“You can still figure out who I am, it’s not like I hide it, but it cuts down on the random calls and stuff,” I said. I’d had strangers sending things to my house for years. Or just showing up themselves, ringing the doorbell, asking to meet the miracle girl and gape at my face.
“I don’t blame you,” he said. “Him dying, it’ll get reported here and there. You might want to take some time off, if you can. Go someplace you won’t get hassled. Shouldn’t take long for the interest to die down.”
“I’ll be fine. It never takes long for some new tragedy to come along and distract everyone,” I said.
He grunted in acknowledgment. “Ms. Cunningham, if you need to speak to a counselor, we have resources available to you.”
“Why would I need to talk to a counselor?” I asked with a high, tortured laugh. “I should be happy, right?” The man who’d attacked me was dead. A little less evil in the world.
“This kind of thing can bring up a lot of complicated feelings and difficult memories,” Gerald Watts said gently. He had a grandfatherly voice, I thought.
“I’ll be fine,” I told him, though I sounded faint, almost robotic. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Take care of yourself,” he said, a firm instruction, and we said our goodbyes.
I stood at the curb, my toes hanging over the edge, my weight rocking forward. There was something about that feeling. After the attack, I’d had damage to the membranous labyrinth in my left ear. I’d had fits of vertigo. Years later, after it faded, I would stand like this, almost falling, and that rushing feeling would return. But I was in control. I was the one who decided if I would fall.
I closed my eyes and stepped off the curb.
* * *
I was on my second glass of wine by the time Mitch came home. He dropped his messenger bag with the kind of dramatic sigh that always preceded a long rant about the soul-stifling horror of working in an office.
“You wouldn’t believe what a shit day I’ve had,” he declared, kicking off his shoes as he headed for the fridge. “Bridget is on my ass about every little thing, and Darrel is out sick again, which means that I have to pick up the slack. Fuck, all that’s in here is IPAs. I might as well drink grass clippings.”
“There’s a porter in the back,” I said, sipping my wine and staring at the wall.
“Thank God.”
I picked out patterns in the wall texture as Mitch cracked open the beer and dropped onto the couch next to me. I liked Mitch. There was a reason I liked Mitch. In a moment I would remember what it was.
I ran a finger along the rim of my glass, examining him. His hair flopped over his eye, too long to be respectable by exactly a centimeter, and he maintained a precise amount of stubble. We’d met at the gallery opening of my ex-girlfriend, forty-eight hours after she dumped me for being “an emotional black hole” and then demanded I still attend to support her. Mitch had stolen a whole tray of fancy cheeses and we hid in the corner drinking champagne and waxing faux-eloquent about tables and light fixtures as if they were the exhibit. It had been a bit cruel and definitely stupid, but it had been fun. This man, I’d thought, is an asshole.
So of course I’d gone home with him.
“And how goes the wedding-industrial complex?” he asked.
“Fine,” I said. I paused. “No, it wasn’t. The bride didn’t want a photographer with a mangled face.”