It’s not until I get home that I remember the letter, which I tossed onto the passenger seat of my car when I jumped in to drive to the vet. Sitting in my driveway, I look at her letter again. The last person I’ve left here for you, if you want. I look at the back of the letter, then the back of the poem, and then the envelope. There it is: a third piece of paper, a thin, yellow strip that looks like it’s torn from a sheet on a legal pad. I pull the piece out—it’s about twice the size of the slip you find in a fortune cookie—and on it, in the small block lettering that Susannah sometimes uses, is a street address, followed by one word: Kayla.
WOODBINE DRIVE IS in Marietta, a few miles northwest of the Perimeter across the Chattahoochee River. It’s part of the suburban tracts that surround Atlanta, subdivisions with cul-de-sacs and winding streets lined with pine trees and oaks, an occasional magnolia dropping its seed pods like organic grenades. It’s a landscape of mowed front yards, basketball goals in the driveway, trampolines and gas grills and block parties and an occasional backyard pool. The houses are split-level ranches and modest Colonials, in contrast to the regal piles of brick and stone alongside the newer and gaudier McMansions in Buckhead.
That Sunday afternoon, well after church services are over and the faithful have mostly returned home, I turn onto Woodbine Drive and roll slowly down the street, looking for number twelve. And there, at the far end of the street, on the left just before the cul-de-sac, I find it: a dark-gray two-story stucco house with white trim and a red door, sitting back on a fringe of ivy that decorates a brick walkway.
There’s a swath of grass from the walkway to the curb, and a woman and a small boy are playing in the grass. The boy is three, maybe four, towheaded and kicking a soccer ball to the woman. The boy is not kicking the soccer ball very far, but each time he kicks it, the woman claps and cheers and the boy grins, and the woman gently kicks the ball back to the boy.
I pull up to the curb, and the woman straightens up and shades her eyes to look at me. When she stands up, I realize she’s pregnant, just a few months along but with a definite baby bump. “Can I help you?” she says.
I look at her face, her brown hair floating in wisps at her temples, and try to see the younger woman with stringy blonde hair who stumbled into my home one night all those years ago.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I was … looking for someone.”
She smiles. “Who you looking for?”
I’m thinking of a reply when the front door opens and a man walks out, wearing a green polo and blue jeans and flip-flops, a Georgia cap perched on his head. The towheaded boy cries, “Daddy!” and runs to him, flinging himself against the man’s legs.
“Hey, buddy,” the man says, dropping a hand on the boy’s head. “You playing soccer with Mommy?” He looks up and sees me at the curb, then walks down the yard toward me and the woman. “Sheri?” he says, his tone questioning but not alarmed.
“This fella’s looking for someone,” the woman says.
The man nods and stands next to his wife, their son still clinging to his father’s leg.
“I don’t think she lives here anymore,” I say.
“Well, we moved in, what, two years ago?” the man says, looking at the woman.
“Three, right after Billy was born,” she says, smiling at the towheaded boy. She rests a hand on her belly.
“Yeah, three,” the man agrees, smiling. “I don’t remember the folks who lived here before, though. Friends of yours?”
I shake my head, smiling. “It’s all right,” I say. “Sorry to bother y’all.”
The towheaded boy is looking up at me. “What’s your name?” he says suddenly.
“Billy,” his father says, laughing and shaking his head.
The boy looks at his dad, frowning. “You told me to be friendly,” he says.
“Sorry about that,” the man says, and he sticks out a hand. “I’m Tom. This is my wife, Sheri, and our son Billy.”
I shake his hand. “Nice to meet you all.” Then I reach out to shake Sheri’s hand. “My name’s Ethan.”
She takes my hand and gives it a firm squeeze. “Nice to meet you, Ethan,” she says, and that’s when I see her, like the child hidden in every adult’s face.
“Y’all have a good afternoon,” I say. “Nice to meet you, Billy.”
Billy nods solemnly at me.
“Hope you find your friend,” Tom says.
“That’s okay,” I say, putting the car in gear. “I don’t think she exists anymore.” And I pull away from the curb, leaving Tom behind, a slight frown on his face. When I circle around the cul-de-sac and pass them going the opposite direction, Tom and Billy are playing with the soccer ball, having already forgotten me. But the woman stands apart from them, staring at me, her mouth open in recognition. I wave good-bye, then drive away.
As I drive out of the suburbs, I hear on the radio a report about a woman found dead on 285, in the breakdown lane. It’s the third body found on the interstate in the past month. The police have no leads on whoever the murderer is, but the press have already
