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“Go say hello.”

“To that man in the overcoat?”

“Yup. Give it a shot. Suss out for yourself if you like him or not.”

“But . . . why?”

“So you can learn to trust your own gut. If you don’t like him, walk away. Or run. But if you never make contact, you’ll never have your own barometer.”

My parents certainly weren’t perfect, but that was a lesson in self-preservation that has served me well. I know what I feel about people. Immediately. What to do with those feelings next is another question.

My parents never expected me or Ellie to rise above it all. We could lash out and complain and talk back, but we were expected ultimately to handle life and all its foibles and unfairness ourselves. So my parents didn’t hover. Instead they glided along the deep, and stayed out of the Duncan mess. I could not stay out of it. He was evil and he had to go. I saw an opportunity, and I took it. So that day on the beach, murder became another skill added to my toolbox. And once I saw how effective a tool it was, I kept it handy.

I was born with an inner strength that pushed me to help those who were weaker. In fact, just two weeks before that day in the ocean, I heard a pitiful squawking outside our den. I investigated, and in the grass behind the star fruit tree, I saw a small bird with a broken wing, trapped on the ground, bound by gravity like the rest of us. I gingerly scooped up the warbler and raced inside, hysterical. I yelled, “We have to do something!” My mother, effortlessly stunning, her long, wavy red hair barely tamed by a ribbon, put down the crossword puzzle and retied her thin sarong around her neck, as if to establish she was getting down to business.

“Grab the Yellow Pages,” she said. I did what I was told. She found what she was looking for, grabbed the phone, and dialed. After the first ring she handed it over to me, saying, “This is your discovery. Your patient. You should be the one to speak.”

I heard two more rings and then, “Bird Sanctuary. This is Benita.”

I was nervous. But spoke. “Hi, Benita. I’m Ruby. I found a bird.”

Not ten minutes later I was in the car, speeding to South Miami. My mother driving, me in the back seat holding the fluttering little soul gently in my hands.

Benita was about the same age as my mother, forty. But she was plumper and softer. Round and slow and comforting, superficially better suited to work at a panda sanctuary. I handed her the wounded package and she said, “You’re a good girl. It takes a kind spirit to understand that even the most common bird deserves a chance at a full and fruitful life.” I gulped down the compliment and looked around at the tropical flowers, bright and open, vulnerable to the world but still unafraid. I sensed the lush trees were teeming with so much avian energy that it seemed the trunks themselves could fly away. And I peered into the large well-kept cages filled with hopping rehabbing feathered creatures, beaks stoic yet delicate all at once. This was a good place. The right place. So why were there tears in my eyes?

Benita understood I had bonded with my small ward and didn’t want to say goodbye. She pet my head, just like I had pet the bird’s minutes before, and said, “Don’t worry, you can come back and visit anytime.” I nodded and turned to leave, keeping my head held high, to help the pressure of tears lessen against the inside of my eyelids. Then Benita called after me. “Wait! What is your bird’s name?”

At that time, I was the youngest kid in first grade and had already been put in the gifted program at my elementary school. The IQ test they had me take seemed like a fun game. “Which shape doesn’t fit? Which pattern is interrupted?” I had an inquisitive nature and a natural ability to eavesdrop undetected, so the world seemed an endless orb of intrigue. I had an impressive vocabulary for my age (encourage and fuchsia being my latest word additions) and a very active imagination. Spinning yarns about princess unicorns who imagine human children are make-believe.

I don’t want to be misleading. I was not a genius any more than I was a sociopath. I was not a prodigy. I didn’t play the violin or chess, I didn’t understand computer code, I didn’t learn Japanese. I am smart, above average, but certainly not an anomaly. I was simply very advanced, especially verbally. Probably because I was the youngest in a family of wordsmiths, trying to keep up with everyone else.

But when asked to name the bird, I went blank. All my precociousness and creativity seeped out of me at an alarming rate because I was using up my energy fighting so hard to hold in my tears. After a beat of searching all the corners of my brain, all I could think to say was, “Mr. Bird.” My mother looked at me, surprised. Was I being ironic? Benita, not knowing anything about my above-average background, thought this was a totally acceptable name choice from a small child. “Wonderful. We will take very good care of Mr. Bird.”

And over time I did visit Mr. Bird. Eventually, once her wing healed, she was released back into the wild, but year after year I bonded with the birds that were forever residents, those who would never survive without human care. And I made that bird sanctuary my own sanctuary. A place to volunteer, to breathe, to take in nature. And also a place to hide one of my dark secrets deep in the trees. Detective Keith Jackson would never find it there. I was sure of it. Especially not now, all these years later.

I relaxed my jaw, to be sure not to show any signs of tension. I picked up the photo of Duncan, held it respectfully, and let out a resigned sigh. I looked at Detective Jackson, making direct eye contact but blinking enough to seem natural. I said, “I knew him. He drowned when we were really little. It was so terrible. Tragic. My whole school was totally freaked out.” I put the photo back, right where it had been on the table. And waited for what the clever detective would say next.