Bailey’s computer and a stack of paper files sit on the desk.
I sit in the chair and open the lid of his laptop, only to find it, predictably, password protected. I don’t know him well enough to hazard a guess at his password. So, I thumb through the files. There’s one on each missing woman, all with a name on the tab, and a picture on the front of the file. Mia is on top. And I am on the bottom. Mine has two names written in the tab. Wren Greenwood. And my real name, or anyway, the name my parents gave me.
Robin Carson.
We all have different parts of our self, different aspects. We’re kaleidoscopes. I am Robin Carson—that’s the name I was born with. I am Wren Greenwood, the name I gave myself. I am Dear Birdie, the name I hide behind as I give others the benefit of my hard-won wisdom.
You know all about this, don’t you, Adam? You know all about that shifting around of pieces of yourself. I did it to survive. What’s your game?
I open the file with my name—names—on it. I don’t feel even a little bad about breaking into Bailey Kirk’s room and rifling through his personal belongings, his carefully gathered data. Why should I?
Robin sits on her haunches in the corner of the motel room. She looks out of place here, her auburn hair picking up the light streaming in from between the drawn drapes.
I’m real, she tells me, eyes accusing.
“You’re more real than most,” I assure her.
She seems satisfied, fades into the light.
Bailey’s files are as orderly as his personal possessions.
Inside mine, there’s a tidy stack of copied documents. On top sits a copy of my original birth certificate. I hold it in my hand. Robin Anne Carson. She’s just a trick of light now, a shadow that’s gone when you turn to look at it. My father, Luke, my mother, Alice—their names are neatly typed in the appropriate boxes. Two people who loved each other once and made a baby. Just a few months later, he’d go off to the Middle East to fight. When he came back, he was someone else.
There’s another birth certificate, with a name I don’t know. Emily Stone. That must be her. The girl in my grave. I stare at it a moment—her birthday, same year, just a few days later than my own. Her parents are listed as Wyatt and Melba Stone. I dig deep into my memory of the other families who lived up there, but there’s nothing. This girl, her parents—they’re gone, too.
I stare at Robin Carson’s death certificate. That version of myself died at the tender age of fifteen. There’s an autopsy report that says she died of a gunshot wound to the heart. I put my hand to my own chest.
Next, I find a document that certifies a name change—Emily Stone to Wren Greenwood. Did you know that anyone can legally change their name to anything? That you can just discard the name you were given and pick a new one if you want? Wren, because it was the name that Robin gave me. Greenwood because it made me think of that magical moment when you’re lying on the forest floor and the high sun beams through the canopy, how fingers of buttery light break the leaves, making them glow a verdant electric green. How the air is moist and smells of vegetation, and sunshine dapples the ground.
A copy of Wren Greenwood’s Social Security card and driver’s license. And then my tax records from the Chronicle, essentially outing me as the “author” of Dear Birdie. A shallow grave, Bailey had said. And so it is, if you’re paying attention. I can see how he easily connected the dots. But the truth is, you can’t hide from yourself. No matter how hard you try.
And people broke the law and worked very hard to hide Robin Carson from the world.
Next a raft of articles about the raid on the property. I flip through without really reading. I don’t like to go back there. It still feels like a knife in the gut. But a grainy image catches my eye: a black-and-white picture of the armory, that big rack of guns, ammunition, and explosives in the back of the bunker.
I browse the article. Jones Cooper, who was the chief of police back then, is quoted as saying: We received an anonymous tip about a weapon stockpile and other illegal activity.
My heart thumps, mouth dry and sticky as glue, remembering the sound of gunfire. This memory is a dark doorway. If I walk through, it swallows me.
I close the file and focus on my breath to bring myself back to the present. The past is gone. The future is a fantasy. There is only the breath, the moment. It’s a mantra Dr. Cooper gave me. Sometimes it even works.
You never have to go back there, she told me. The night is gone forever if you release it.
But it comes back for me, a haunting.