Page 123 of Things We Do in the Dark
All my love,
Mama
Paris finds a pen and a blank piece of paper. She scrawls a quick note, which she mails right after she writes it.
Be there soon.
J
PART SIX
I’m only here to witness the remains of love exhumed
—BARENAKEDLADIES
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
She can’t go into the Golden Cherry, and she can’t go into Junior’s. She’s supposed to be dead, after all. As she sits in Drew’s Audi in the parking lot behind both buildings, she gets a text.
Lineup. 10 minutes. Jerk or curry?
Both, she replies.
He sends her back a pig-face emoji. She sends him a picture of her middle finger.
The back door to the Cherry opens, and she sees a man come out. Six five, thick, naturally tan complexion. His jet-black hair now has a sprinkling of salt to it. She finally looked him up on LinkedIn—private browsing, of course—and learned that he’s been Cherry’s business partner for the past ten years.
She watches Chaz for a while as he moves things out the back door and into a van. After he’s finished, he reaches around and rubs at a spot on the right side of his lower back. That spot always did bother him, and it’s weird how familiar that gesture is to her, even after all this time. Then he stops and turns around.
He always did have that uncanny ability to sense someone watching him. Her instinct should be to hide her face, but she doesn’t. Instead, she rolls the window down so they can see each other better.
Chaz freezes. Recognition slowly lights his face, and he breaks into the widest grin she’s ever seen on him. They look at each other across theparking lot. He doesn’t approach. She doesn’t get out of the car. Instead, he puts his hand over his heart, and she does the same.
Thank you, Chaz.
Drew jumps into the driver’s seat of the car at the same time Chaz goes back inside. The smells of jerk spice and curry fill the car, and her stomach rumbles in response.
“Heard that.” Drew puts the car in drive. “Where do you want to eat this?”
“Take me home,” she says.
Twenty-five years later, 42 Willow Avenue does not look exactly as she remembers it.
It’s brighter. The old brown brick has been painted a cream color, and the rusted balcony walls have been replaced with wrought-iron railings. The building lobby has been renovated with new doors, new tile, new everything. It actually looks like a nice place to live now, and the park across from the building is clean, with two new play structures for children that weren’t there before.
She looks up to where apartment 403 is, wondering who lives there now. There have probably been many tenants over the past nineteen years, all with different stories to tell. Hers was just one. Being here brings up vivid memories of Ruby being taken away that night, and while she’s worked hard not to think about it, it isn’t really possible to forget something that changed the entire direction of her life.
But with time, she can remember it less.
A plume of smoke catches her eye, and she spots a man barbecuing on his fourth-floor balcony. Barbecue grills used to be forbidden, but maybe they allow them now. He flips his burgers while chatting on his cell phone, and she realizes it’s Mr. Malinowski, the building superintendent who used to live on the first floor. Is he still the super?
The glass doors to the lobby open, and she watches as a woman wearing colorful nursing scrubs holds the door open for an elderly woman with a walker. She recognizes Mrs. Finch immediately; her old neighbor fromdown the hall must be in her eighties now. Her housedress is stained and hangs off her bony frame, her white hair so thin that the pink of her scalp shows through. In the end, the woman had done the right thing when she finally called the police, even though the years that followed were hard.
Paris gets back into the car. As she and Drew drive away, she mentally says goodbye to the girl who lived in Willow Park, the one who survived her mother. All the memories here are painful, but they belong to a life that’s no longer hers.
And over time, she will remember it less.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
