Page 75 of The Hitman’s Final Job

“My parents died when I was young. I don’t have any memory of them. I went into the system, and I stayed in the system until I aged out.” He says it without emotion, like he’s recounting a fact. “I was almost adopted a few times.”

“What happened?” I ask, carefully.

Something moves through his expression.

“I remembered things,” he says.

“Remembered things?”

“I was an inquisitive child,” he says. “I noticed things, and I asked about them. I didn’t understand that some things weren’t my business.” He takes a drink of water. “There was a foster mother—I was about eight—who had a man come to the house when her husband was away. I asked the husband about it when he came home. Not to cause problems. I just thought it was strange that this man came every day. When he asked, I told him in great detail about the other man’s face, his car, what he said. I couldn’t not remember.” He repositions his silverware. “Her husband filed for divorce, and I was moved to a different foster family.

“With another family, I overheard something the foster parents said to another child in the house. I asked about it at school because I didn’t understand why it was a secret. The foster parents were investigated.” He shifts in his chair. “I was moved again.”

“Silas—”

“I wasn’t trying to cause problems,” he says, and there’s something in his voice that tells me this is something he’s needed to say for a long time. “I was just … I couldn’t help it. The things I saw and heard didn’t leave my mind. They were just there. And I was a child and didn’t understand that some things you keep to yourself.”

The server arrives with the food.

We pause while she sets everything down. The roasted beet with the goat cheese, the lamb that came from a farm three valleys over, and the bread that’s still warm. She asks if we need anything and we say no, so she leaves.

Silas picks up his fork. I echo his movement, and we begin to eat.

Then he says, “I have a photographic memory.”

I set down my fork.

“It’s a rare condition,” he says. “It was undiagnosed for a long time. I can remember everything I experience. Everything I see, hear, read. If I was present for it in any way, it’s stored. Permanently and in detail.” He stares down at his food.

What must it mean to carry the full weight of everything he’s experienced forever? Nothing lost, every moment of every day of thirty-five years permanently accessible? My heart breaks all over again at the enormity of Silas’s burden.

“Eventually, I learned to keep things to myself,” he says. “I learned which things to say and which things to hold. But by then I’d been moved enough times that the pattern was established. No one wanted to keep me.” He says it without self-pity, which is somehow worse. “When I aged out of the system, I got a job. Several jobs. I worked and saved and studied at the library after work because I knew that when I finally got to college, I wanted to be able to focus. I didn’t want to be working two jobs and studying. I wanted to just … learn.”

“How long did it take?”

“Five years,” he says. “I got there at twenty-two.”

I’ve known Silas as a person for a long time, but I feel like this gives me a new perspective of who he really is.

“That’s when I met Rowan,” he says. “He was in one of my classes. He decided we were going to be friends before I’d agreed to it, which is very Rowan.” A small smile. “I thought he was a sweet kid. I didn’t have many other friends, so I didn’t mind. But then I realized Rowan was different. He’s a genuinely good person.”

“He is.”

“I thought I was protecting him,” Silas says. “I told myself I was there to make sure no one took advantage of him. He was young and trusting, and I was older … but it was the other way around. Rowan saved me. By deciding I was worth being friends with. By just showing up with annoying consistency.” He looks at me. “He’s the first person who ever did that.”

I reach across the table and put my hand over his.

He drops his gaze to our hands.

“Thank you for telling me,” I say. “I remember the first time Rowan mentioned you.” I gently squeeze Silas’s hand. “He called me and said, ‘Dad, I met someone. He’s older than me and he’s kind of intense, but I think he needs a friend, and I’m going to be his friend.’ He said it like it was already decided.”

Silas laughs. “That’s Rowan.”

“He was always helping someone. Every phase of his life, there was someone he’d decide needed him.” I pause. “It’s no wonder he ended up at the FBI. His fear of blood stopped him going into medicine; otherwise, he’d be a general practitioner.”

“A doctor? Really?”

“He fainted in ninth-grade biology during the frog dissection. The teacher called me at work.”