Before You Knew My Name (38)



Mortified that she’s crying again, wanting nothing more than to get away from this awkward conversation as quickly as possible, Ruby nods at Jennings’ suggestion, wipes away her tears with the back of her hand. Giving himself a mental tick for getting it right this time, the young officer practically runs across the street, back to the emotional safety of the station. Returning a few minutes later, he hands Ruby three or four glossy pamphlets, and feels even better when she rewards him with a half-smile.

The booklets he has picked for her all have covers showing a diverse cast of characters talking on the phone or walking together, holding hands. Everyone has a smile on their face, despite the words jumping off the paper. Trauma. Victims. Violence. Grief. Is this supposed to be her world, her people, now?

Ruby doesn’t feel like smiling.

Still, the young officer is clearly pleased with himself, and Ruby can only thank him for trying.

‘I’ll have a read over these for sure. To make sure I don’t’—she waves her hand about—‘get stuck. I appreciate this, Officer Jennings. Really. Thank you.’

‘Don’t mention it, Ruby. You’ve been through a lot. It’s good to deal, right? And come by if you want to talk some more, okay. You’re welcome any time.’

(An odd closing. More to do with her smile than anything else. They both recognise this, and Jennings has the sense to start backing away.)

‘Officer Jennings!’

He has already crossed the street when Ruby yelps out his name, startling them both.

He stops.

Ruby takes a deep breath.

‘Where is she? Can you tell me where Jane is?’

‘Where Jane is?’ Jennings repeats her question, confused.

‘Yes. I mean, the girl. Jane Doe. Where do you take’—Ruby swallows—‘the bodies you find?’

‘Ah, right. I get you.’ Jennings wonders why he has suddenly started to perspire. ‘She’ll be down on 1st Avenue, I reckon.’

‘First Avenue?’

‘Yeah. At the morgue down there. That’s where she would be. They’ll be hoping to ID her. If no one comes forward to … ah … claim her, they’ll keep her down there for a while, most likely.’

‘And then?’

Ruby needs to know what happens if nobody claims the body.

Jennings rubs the back of his neck, feels a trickle of sweat under his fingertips. He hates thinking about this part. Never gets used to it. The idea of all those cadavers lined up, emptied of organs, lips sewn shut. That ugly ending doesn’t feel right for a girl as lovely as the one they found by the river. He feels a sudden desire to protect Ruby from what he knows. It’s the least he can do for her.

‘You know what, hon? Odds are we’ll find out who she is real soon. It nearly always happens that way, so don’t you worry about it.’

Jennings gives what he hopes is a reassuring smile, and then he is gone, the doors of the precinct closing behind his back, and Ruby is left standing on the street, smiling faces staring up at her from the brochures in her hand. She unfolds the top one, but the print blurs, because she is crying again, fat drops onto the page.

U Ok?

Ash couldn’t even be bothered typing out a full sentence. What room did that leave her to answer? How could she fit in all the things that make her not okay?

She thinks again of the line she has read in so many newspaper reports: Her body was discovered by a jogger.

Why did they never say what happened to the jogger after that?



Someone organises a candlelight vigil in Riverside Park. News of the intended gathering is shared locally, and on Saturday night, four days after the murder, around three hundred people make their way down to the muddy fields near the pier. The mourners are mostly from the neighbourhood, but some women come from across town, from their own dark places, called forth to memorialise one of their ilk, one who didn’t, couldn’t, make it home. The crowd is punctuated by these survivors, their pain red-tipped, fierce, as the faithful from different denominations hold forth, one grasp at comfort after another offered into the night. Candles quiver, wave, and when the talking stops, someone steps forward and softy sings ‘Hallelujah’ into the silent congregation, her head bowed down.

From a distance, three hundred candles held high is a beautiful thing to see. A glow of stars drawn down into people’s hands. Faces are soft, warm, as people lean one lit candle into the wick of another, connecting each new flame, until the field flickers. Until the crowd appears to breathe light, a visible inhale-exhale of grief and prayer.

There is no name to be spoken, but I am recognised by each of the women present, clasped around their lifted hands, heavy on their hearts. I am their fears, and their lucky escapes, their anger, and their wariness. I am their caution and their yesterdays, the shadow version of themselves all those nights they have spent looking over shoulders, or twining keys between fingers. A man speaks to the crowd, entreats his gender to do better; people clap, cheer, but it is the silence of the women that binds up the candlelight, sends it skyward, a flare in search of every lost sister. So that when the man’s passion is spent, it is the quiet rage of women that lingers, can be seen, glittering, from above. Long after all the little fires have been extinguished, and the mourners have moved on.

Ruby does not attend the vigil. She sits alone in her room, just a few city blocks from the park. She has lit her own candle here, a single flame weaving, pulsing in the dark. Cross-legged on the bed, drinking lukewarm vodka, she stares at this candle and feels nothing. Sorrow, she is learning, can be as quiet as a whisper when it wants to be. Whether it all roils inside her, whether the pain spills out like a swollen river breaching its banks, or the waters go still and she floats upon the surface, numbed—it is all the same feeling in the end. One of utter helplessness. Knowing so little is in your control, knowing you cannot claw your way back to the ignorance of safety. Sometimes, these past few days, she has raged against this loss. Tonight, she grieves. She is alone in a lonely city, and nearly as deep as her sorrow for an unnamed dead girl is this wretched thought: should anything happen to her in New York, she herself might end up unclaimed at one of the city’s morgues. Because no one will have noticed she is gone.

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