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I love the long summer days and the way the light seems to stretch through all the rustling leaves on the trees.
Idon’tlove transforming into this person who genuinely wears slacks to the real study groups I go to throughout the week and spends all her free time preemptively studying for 1L and is giddy to be accepted into the pre-law program. I’m pretending to be the adult I’m supposed to want to become.
I love how I feel when I dance, and people can’t take their eyes off me. When I’m up there, I don’t care at all if they think I’m hot. I want them to think I’mcaptivating.I want them to wish they could be me, mysterious and free-spirited. Graceful. Strong enough to fly away or vanquish demons or defy fate.
That version of me is fake, too. It’s an illusion that the control I have on the aerial hoop extends to everything else. Real life doesn’t happen while you’re dancing. It happens at law school, and in your work at your grandfather’s old law firm, and in the courtroom.
I gather my bag and my purse and get out of the car.
Every time I walk out of the garage, I think about the guy I ran into in the street that night. It’s been months and I’mstillthinking about him, which is not right. He’s nobody to me. I’m nobody to him. But his body gave a little when I hit him, almost as if he was ready to catch me. To let me perch on his arm, like a bird. I was leaving this very driveway when it happened.
I will not sprint down to the sidewalk to check and see if he’s there. Not in my study group clothes.
A breeze touches the back of my neck, light and purposeful, like it’s watching.
Or like apersonis watching.
It sends a shiver all down my body, and I glance around as discreetly as I can.
There’s nobody here at my grandfather’s beautiful Cobble Hill home. AtmyCobble Hill home. It’s a gorgeous, serene summer afternoon with no signs of either a woman dreading her chosen future nor some kind of peeping Tom stalker.
A code on the keypad at the back door lets me into the kitchen. I’m closing the door in apuffof air conditioning when my grandfather’s voice reaches me.
“—a failure of the department.” He’s not shouting, but he’s nothappy.It takes a lot for him to speak this way. He has years of practice keeping his cool in the courtroom, so I’m instantly on high alert. “It mystifies me. With all the resources I’ve provided over the years, you should be able to find one missing person.”
I don’t move a muscle.
It’s not that I think I have to hide from him. Fine. I hidesomeparts of my life, but not getting home from what he thinks is a Saturday study group. It’s that this call is so obviously not meant to be overheard.
“Let me remind you,” he continues, breaking the long silence. “We are talking about my daughter.”
My stomach drops. He’s talking about my mom.
Grandpapa normally won’t discuss her, but sometimes, these tiny things slip through the cracks.
“I want herfound,” he insists. “I deserve to know what she’s done with her life. If she’s thrown it away or if she’s ever—” Grandpapa makes a small noise, like a half-finished cough. “If she’s ever going to come home. Is that understood?”
I open the back door again, then shove it closed with abang. “Grandpapa?” I call, my voice as bright as I can make it. “I’m home.”
He clears his throat. “My granddaughter is here. I want an update on the case by the end of business on Tuesday. Yes, thank you. Goodbye.”
I kick off my business flats and pad down the hall, my feet cooled by the hardwood floor, and find my grandfather in his office.
He stands behind his desk, phone tight in his fist, his face red.
A question comes to mind:Why are you so determined to find my mother if she doesn’t want to be found?I don’t ask it. I never do. It’s something I ask myself all the time, but dwelling on my mom’s whereabouts isn’t something my grandfather raised me to do.
What I’ve learned today is that he dwells on it.
We both have secrets.
“You okay, Grandpapa?”
He puts on a smile for me, but his cheeks stay red. “Of course I am. Tell me about your study group.”
“It was great.” I think of how I felt on the aerial hoop and hope it makes my smile seem genuine. “We went over some of the contract law questions from past bar exams.”
“That’s wonderful.” Normally, he’d ask me what cases were involved in the questions, but he lays his phone on his desk with too much care. “You’ve made such good choices, Lily-bug. You know the difference between right and wrong. People like you do so much good in the world.”
