Last Girl Ghosted(87)

Maybe she wanted the pain, says Robin. She’s talking about Mom. Maybe she thought that’s what love was.

There’s a twig stuck in the tangle of her hair. She’s frowning. Maybe you do, too.

“No,” I say.

Didn’t you see it in him? she asks, holding a glistening black crow feather.

“No,” I lie.

Here is where I should go back and find Bailey Kirk, call the police. It’s clear that my actions are hubristic, foolhardy. But it’s as if there’s a gossamer strand from my heart to yours, a tug at my solar plexus leading me forward, no turning back.

Making the turn, the night gets darker still. I keep driving.

I was living with Jax in a Lower East Side two-bedroom, four-flight walk-up when my father reached out to me the first time. Cobbling together a living writing book reviews for The Village Voice, working as a temp at a poetry magazine, and waitressing at a busy restaurant on Avenue A, I was running ragged, tired all the time. But happy. I owned my life. My blog was taking off, more and more followers every day.

And even though I was trying to live on what I made, I did have family money—my mother had managed to save quite a bit, enough to pay for my education and Jay’s. She had a small inheritance, as well, from her mother’s life insurance payout. There wasn’t a ton, but there was a comfortable buffer that allowed me to cover the rent when earnings were lean, especially since Jay’s money came to me, too. Like the property, my father signed all the money over to me, Wren Greenwood. His way of making penance, I guess.

We had a landline in the apartment back then. Jax’s mother insisted that we needed it to call 911 in an emergency. Jax came from a big Brooklyn family—a loud, funny, loving cast of brothers, cousins, aunts, and uncles. Her mother would stop by unannounced with food, but really just to check up on her. Over the years, they basically adopted me into their clan and it was with her family that I spent all holidays. Jax informed me that her mom thought we were a couple, in spite of her efforts to convince them otherwise. When I moved out, they thought we broke up. Her mother called me.

“You’re part of our family,” she told me. “I want you to know that.”

I tried to explain how Jax and I were best friends, always would be.

“I know, I know,” she said. “It’s all good, honey. You understand? There’s always a place at our table.”

Jax was out the night the landline—which never rang—woke me from sleep.

I answered it, groggy. A collect call from the Highwater County Correctional Facility.

I was jolted awake, heart threatening to leap from my chest. I accepted the charges, just in a daze of confusion.

“Robin.”

I hadn’t heard that name in so long it felt like a lie. My eyes filled and my throat closed.

“You call yourself something different now. That’s probably a good thing. As long as you don’t forget who you are.”

“Dad.” The word was thick in my mouth, tasting of sorrow and betrayal. Don’t love him, Jay warned. He doesn’t deserve it. But I did. Even after everything. Tears fell like a river. I sank to the floor, legs weak. I was back there with him in the garden, walking through the woods.

“Are you safe? Are you well?”

“Yes,” I managed to say.

“There are no words for what I’ve done. There’s no road back. But I wanted you to know that I found a way forward. That I think of you all every day. And that regret is my constant companion.”

I couldn’t find my voice. But a sob escaped my throat.

“Be strong,” he told me. “And that place is always there for you. When the world of men fails you, it will open its arms.”

Anger rose up. I wish my aim had been better, that I hadn’t lost my nerve—that my arrow had found his heart.

“You’re the one who failed me, Dad,” I said. “Not the world.”

“I know it.” His voice was just a whisper. “Forgive me.”

We stayed on the phone in silence, not sure how long, hatred and love and longing and grief a desperate mingle. Dr. Cooper always said that forgiveness was for me and not for him. That it was a way to release the pain in my own heart, not a condoning or an acceptance of his wrongs. But I couldn’t find my way there then, though I understand those words better now. I’m still not there.

Then, “Goodbye, little bird.”

He hung up, and I sat in the same spot until Jax got home from the clubs. We stayed up almost until the sun rose, talking about the things I’d never shared with anyone else—until I met you.

This road has no end. The urge to call Jax is strong. She’ll know what to do. But I just keep driving, following your trail.



forty-two


The blue dot pulsed. Cooper, who was driving fast and sure, eyes ahead, hands at two and twelve, had hardly said a word the whole ride. Bailey appreciated a man who didn’t feel the need to make small talk, especially as Bailey fought off waves of nausea, pain, held on tenuously to his consciousness. He’d told Cooper everything about the case, and Bailey could tell the other man was processing it all like a machine. But he’d said very little, except to admit that they’d made mistakes the night of the raid. That if they’d handled it differently, things might not have spun out of control.

“You carry that, you know. When your mistakes cost people their lives.”