Our Missing Hearts (82)

But blocks away she knew things had gone wrong. Suddenly it was eerily silent. The roads were blocked off, starting from Flushing Avenue; she couldn’t even get in sight of Fort Greene Park. A cordon of police cars, sirens off but lights flashing, surrounded the whole area, and she turned down a side street and headed home. She already knew what they were there for, and that they’d found it. Still, she waited, watching her phone, still hoping that the screen would light up and it would be Margaret, calling from somewhere, anywhere, to say that she was all right.

When the phone finally did ring it was well into morning, and it was the call she’d expected, and she was ready. Yes, she owned the property in question—what had they found inside? No, a complete shock and quite an outrageous one, as they could probably imagine. No, she had no idea how—well, wait a moment, there was a keypad at the back; whoever this woman was must have managed to open it and work her way inside. What did they say she’d been doing? Absolutely horrifying. No, she never went there herself; her father had bought it during the Crisis intending to renovate it, but it had never happened and he’d passed and it had been sitting there empty ever since. In fact it was a rather upsetting place for that reason; she never liked to go there but hadn’t been ready, yet, to sell it. Claude Duchess, his name was—yes, like the tech company; that was their family. Why yes, of course, she would make it more secure going forward; she would add an alarm system, hire security to keep an eye on it. Given everything happening these days, you really couldn’t be too careful. If the authorities could let her know when they’d finished their work . . . ? They were too kind; she so appreciated the service they provided, watching over the community—and this reminded her, she’d been meaning to make a donation to support the officers in their duties. No, no—thank you.

In the meantime, she was searching. Margaret hadn’t told her much, but the few scraps she already knew were enough. It was surprising how much you could track down with just a name, if you asked the right people. Ethan Gardner led her to Harvard, then to the library staff payroll, and then, eventually, to what she needed: a Cambridge address, one of the dorms. No phone number, but of course she couldn’t risk a call anyway. It took her nearly five hours to reach Boston, traffic clotting as the afternoon turned to evening, stalling outside of Stamford, then New Haven, then Providence. By the time she reached Cambridge it was just past four, and she parked outside the dorm, waiting. Maybe she’d missed him already, perhaps he didn’t work Friday, perhaps he’d already come home from work or he had never left or she was in the wrong place, and she had driven all that way for nothing. She nearly gave up. But finally, just after nine, there he was—a little older, a little grayer, but the same face she remembered from all those years ago. Dressed the same, even: a tucked-in pale blue oxford, a corduroy blazer. She couldn’t understand it, at the time, what had fascinated Margaret so, but she thought she saw it now, the softness in him, the promise that there could be gentleness in this world.

As he passed by, she stepped out of the car.

Ethan? she said, and he turned, startled. Uncertain. Scanning her face for something familiar.

It’s Domi, she said, and watched recognition flood his eyes. I’m here about Margaret, she said, and then, before he could speak, she added: And Bird.



* * *



? ? ?

He’d come home to an empty apartment that Monday, and his chest had seized. So it had happened, he’d thought in a panic: despite everything, they’d taken him at last. Noah, he called out, flicking on the lights in the living room, then the bedroom, circling the apartment again, as if Bird were a misplaced key he’d simply overlooked. Only then did he see the note on the table, the drawing, the scrap of paper reading New York, NY. After all these years, he still recognized her writing, quick and pointed and sure, and he understood.

He could not call the police: as soon as they began to investigate they would see the link to Margaret, they would dig gleefully into Margaret’s file, and begin one on Bird. He could go to New York, but then what? All he could do was wait. If Bird found Margaret, he assured himself, they’d contact him. He did not allow himself to think and if not?

Tuesday morning, he called Bird in sick from school; he called himself in sick from work. If Bird came back, he would be there. He spent the day pacing the apartment, picking up his dictionaries, setting them down again. Again and again he looked at the drawing Margaret had sent: the cats, the cabinet. What had this told Bird? At dinnertime he forgot to eat. Where was Bird? Had he found Margaret? And if he hadn’t—? That night, half dizzy, he dreamed himself back in his old apartment with Margaret, the Crisis still whirling around them. In the morning, woozy and sleep deprived, he awoke alone, below Bird’s empty bunk, and he called them both in sick again. Exhausted, he half dozed over and over; each time, he woke certain he’d heard Bird’s voice, but no one was there.

Friday morning, he headed back to work: he was out of days off. In the library, he wheeled his cart through the stacks, taking extra time to line up the books with care, to restore everything to the precise place it belonged. When his shift was over, he lingered, dreading the empty apartment. Instead he headed to the southwest corner of D level, combing the shelves until he found it: the thin book with a cat on its cover, and a boy who looked something like Bird.

This retelling, he discovered, was different from Margaret’s. In this version, the parents had too many children, the boy was sent off to study with priests, the building was not a house but a temple. Perhaps she’d misremembered, or maybe she’d changed the story to suit her own purposes. Or maybe, he thinks, there were simply many versions of this single tale. What did it tell Margaret and Bird that it did not say to him? He read it again and again, until the library closed, looking for the message, for the clue that would unlock everything and tell him where his family was. But the book revealed nothing.