Your favorite hoodie is light and soft in my hands—a lovely navy blue cashmere garment that cost a mint. You are one of those stealth wealth people, dressing down in items that don’t look like much but are unaffordable to most. I put the garment to my nose and take in the scent of you, feel my body tingle. For a second I’m back with you, in my bed, that last time we were together. Your skin. Your arms. The silk of your hair between my fingers. I look over at Joe, embarrassed, but he seems lost in thought himself, stares off into nowhere.
A slim black Moleskine falls open in my palms. All the pages are blank. I flip through once, twice, hoping for any scribble on any page. Nothing.
The Mont Blanc pen is shiny and new, another simple, elegant instrument with its white star top and gleaming back shaft. It is sturdy in in my hand. I’m a writer so I can’t resist taking off the cap and putting the nib to paper. Who are you, Adam Harper? I write in careful script.
Finally, there’s a shave kit—straight razor and badger brush, neatly packed in a leather pouch. I remember this from your bathroom, noticing how everything you owned was an object, something chosen for its design, curated. None of these items tells me a single thing I didn’t already know.
Disappointment and frustration do battle in my chest.
I’m certain the box is empty, but I peer inside one last time.
And that’s when I see the thing that makes my heart stutter and the ground beneath me spin. It’s a newspaper article, more than a decade old, folded and creased. Not a copy. Not a printout. The actual newsprint article from the paper. A familiar face stares at me from the grainy images; ink transfers to my fingers.
“Everything all right?” asks Joe, startling me.
“Yes,” I lie. There’s acid in my belly and up my gullet. “Everything’s fine.”
“Find what you were looking for?”
“I think so.”
He rises and offers me a hand to help me up. I accept and he’s surprisingly strong. I stow your belongings in my messenger bag while he watches, leaving the empty box. My whole body is shaking. There’s a ringing in my ears.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Joe says with concern.
I have. I have seen a ghost. I see her every time I look in the mirror.
thirteen
I grab another Citi Bike and hoof it uptown, happy to lose myself in the exertion, tempting fate and earning angry bleats from drivers—who as a rule hate people on bicycles. They must resent our freedom, while they sit trapped in boxes, nowhere to go, snaking through this crowded city, time standing still.
Every nerve ending in my body is buzzing. Mentally, I tick through your possessions. The watch, the hoodie, the shave kit, the pen, the notebook. And the thing I almost missed. The article. The ground I thought was solid beneath my feet is quicksand. I’m sinking, nothing to grasp and keep me from drowning.
Again, I return the bike about a block away from my next meeting, and walk the rest of the distance, still reeling, trying to put pieces in this puzzle together.
I thought I was sharing the darkest part of myself.
The thing I’d kept hidden from almost everyone.
But you already knew.
How?
It doesn’t seem possible. With help, that history has been long buried. What happened to my family happened long ago, in a small town. Media coverage was blistering, but over the years so many other, more audacious horrors have captured public attention. Our ugly story has all but faded completely from public memory, thanks to short attention spans and the endless catalog of horrors that parade and preen like performers at a carnival show.
The event is there if you know what to look for, if you dig deep on the internet into horrific crimes and events. But it’s long gone for the most part. It hasn’t been rediscovered by a crime blogger or true crime podcaster, brought back to life for those who like to safely wander into darkness and see what’s there.
I even hired someone—a search engine fixer, someone who manages what people find when they enter your name into Google. Now, when you enter the name I use, you find my carefully curated social media presence, my website, a listing on the New School alumni page. A bland, forgettable presence. There’s no connection from my past to Wren Greenwood, no connection from Wren Greenwood to Dear Birdie.
I have been careful, eager to escape my past and protect my present. Just, apparently, not careful enough.
Bailey Kirk is waiting on the corner, leaning easily against a lamppost as the river of city dwellers flows by him. He doesn’t see me, at first. It’s interesting to watch people when they don’t know they’re being observed. As he was in the coffee shop, he’s relaxed but alert now. He watches people as they pass, neutral, nonjudgmental but seeing. He’s not staring at a smartphone, or blanked out, lost in thought, seeing nothing. He’s present, a rare thing. He catches sight of me and lifts his hand in a wave, which I return.