Some of them I can help. Some I can’t. Accepting the difference is the hard part.
I know there are happy, well-adjusted people out there. People living authentic lives that have meaning and purpose. People who have deep and healthy relationships, weathering life’s many blows with strength and faith, coming out the other side of pain and tragedy stronger and wiser, with more compassion for themselves and others.
But Dear Birdie doesn’t hear from those people. Ever. People come to her for help. And having walked a dark terrain, she is uniquely qualified to guide people back toward the light.
Isn’t she?
Sometimes. But she’s not feeling it on this gray misty morning, where winter is settling into the air, and you’ve disappeared, and the past is digging itself out of its grave.
Today, I’m as lost as everyone else. Maybe I should write a letter to Dear Birdie.
Dear Birdie,
I have run away from the darkness of my past and created a successful life. But there are so many layers to me. The person I was then. The one I am now to do my job. There’s the person my few friends know. And then, there was a man I thought I could love, who is also buried deep, not who I thought he was at all. In fact, he might be a monster. Just like my father.
Are we all just layers of secrets and lies?
Or is it just me?
I feel like a fraud, a ghost in the haunted house of my life.
What I should I do, Dear Birdie?
What would Dear Birdie tell that lost soul? She’d say: Sounds like the universe is telling you that it’s time to peel back all the layers and expose the truth, speak it loud from the rooftops. You’ll never find yourself unless you’re willing to be yourself.
I’ve always been better at giving advice than taking it.
Now I’m on the Henry Hudson, heading north. As the city recedes from my rearview mirror, I am awash in memories of a place and time I have sought to forget.
My father.
In my early life, he was just a uniformed picture on the wall, a talking head on a computer screen. Then, he was suddenly back in our lives, in our home—a tired man at the kitchen table, a sleeping form in my mother’s bed. Shh, Daddy’s resting.
The house.
A rambling, ramshackle mess set on twenty acres in a town that sounded like something out of a horror movie: The Hollows.
My mother growing thinner by the day, weaker.
She snuck into my bed some nights and held me close, the way I used to do with her when I was little and afraid.
One night, when things had been especially bad, she whispered, He was someone else when I first loved him. He’ll heal. This place will heal him. He’ll be that man again. You’ll see.
Now I know. He needed help. But he didn’t get it and we all paid the price.
Why didn’t you know how sick he was, Mom? It’s a question I can’t ask her.
I am deep in the ugly twist of my memories when the phone rings. I press the button on my dash to answer. He doesn’t wait for me to say hello.
“I wanted to check in on you.” It’s Bailey Kirk. “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine,” I say briskly.
Who is this guy? I thought perhaps I’d seen the last of him. I remember I gave him my number, and really wish I hadn’t.
“Sounds like you’re driving,” he says. “Where are you headed?”
“Out of town for a few days,” I say. “I need to get away.”
There’s music playing in the background of the call. Jazz. A mournful saxophone, tinny and distant.
“Not doing anything stupid, right?” he says. “Like looking for your friend.”
Am I looking for you? Or am I running away from you? Maybe both.
I opt not to answer Bailey, am about to hang up. Then, “So is Wren Greenwood your real name?”
It’s not. It’s not my real name, the one my parents gave me. It’s my legal name, the one I gave myself.
“Of course it is,” I lie.
There’s a silence. I am gripping the wheel so hard that my knuckles turn white. I force myself to relax.
“Because it’s funny—that’s the name on your driver’s license.”
A dump of dread in my belly.
“But it’s not the original name attached to your Social Security number.”
An ache begins behind my eyes. Silence. That’s best. But he continues.
“Your profession on ConnectIn is listed as a freelance writer. But I can’t find a recent byline anywhere.”
Wow. He’s really going deep.
“And that town house of yours? I know you bought it in a foreclosure auction. But how many freelance writers can afford a town house in Brooklyn Heights?”