I never thought I’d see them alive again.
Emmy stares back at me and I wonder what it is she sees, if she knows that my eyes are my father’s and the line of my jaw, my mother’s. That the color of my hair is Bea’s. If there’s a connection here she’s making that she doesn’t understand—but feels.
She brings her hand up to the side of her face and after a moment, I realize she’s questioning the sight of my scar against her own soft and unmarred skin. A tear slips down my cheek. I lower my head as another falls and lands perfectly center in the open palm of my left hand.
* * *
We schedule our first interview for the New Year.
Emmy’s existence takes hold of me like a virus.
I wake up in the middle of the night, sick with it, and then I stand in my bathroom, staring at my sweaty reflection in the mirror. I try and fail to let this part of Bea’s life wash over me, but it lingers, then digs itself inside. She was born in 2014. In 2014, I was sixteen and Bea was two years older than I am now, a mother. In 2014, I was a year out from telling Patty I appreciated all she did for me, but I needed to go back to Morel. Life with her was her life, steady, quiet. Mine was in the distance, chaotic, a mess—but mine. All I wanted was to claw my way back to my sister, but the whole time she was so surrounded by new love, she buried her old family and built a new one on top of its bones.
Other things I know about Emmy:
She was premature, like me.
She nearly died. Like me.
* * *
“Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling.”
Paul’s voice is the first to greet me when I fly through the door. He’s standing next to the coffee carafe, and I very smartly stop myself from congratulating him for figuring out how to work it himself. I’m breathless, ran all the way here. I lean against the kitchen island, gasping, and manage an apology, telling him I overslept.
“Unbelievable,” Paul says, as though he’s never fucking done it himself. I stare at him, pissed, and he stares back at me, pissed, and points. “I’m paying you to work, not to waste my time. Hustle harder! You’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
My face burns as I make my way to my desk. I turn on my computer. There’s an email from Paul (passive-aggressive subject line: For Lo, wherever I may find her) outlining several conflicts of interest across his schedule with the request that I un-fuck them, on top of every other menial task I’m paid to do. I get to work, dreaming of the moment I get to slap the Lev Warren profile on Paul’s desk and the look on his face when it finally happens. An hour later, I’ve un-fucked exactly nothing and I’m uncomfortably hot because I’m still wearing my coat. I shrug it off at the same time the door swings open, drawing my eyes away from my screen.
Arthur.
He looks so different from the last time I saw him. Snow-dusted instead of rain-soaked, hair neat around his head, his eyes clear, not red, face flushed but not tearstained. He’s sad, still, but his sadness has evolved past a stage of grief—it’s just a part of him, indelible, now.
He glances around the office a little nervously, maybe a little curiously. The last time Arthur was at SVO was before the break-in. Paul finally had the slogan on the wall painted over, but the color wasn’t an exact match and Arthur’s eyes instantly seem to find the discrepancy. While he’s distracted, I fire off a quick text to Paul, letting him know what’s going on.
“Hey, Arthur,” I say uncertainly.
“I was wondering if I could—if Paul wasn’t busy, if I could—” He can’t seem to complete the request because it lives too closely to what happened the last time he was here. He clears his throat and gestures to the wall. “Feels really different in here since the…”
“Yeah.”
“So is he busy?”
I pick up the phone and dial into Paul’s office. It’s still ringing when he steps into the room. His eyes land on Arthur and he frowns.
“Art,” he says warily. “Hey.”
He doesn’t quite meet Paul’s eyes. “Door still open for me?”
Paul’s face softens. “It was never closed, Art. Come on in.”
Arthur’s face sags with relief, his mouth trembling a little as he rounds my desk and heads into Paul’s office. Paul shuts the door behind them both. I whirl around until I’m facing Lauren, awaiting her verdict.
“It was about … I don’t know, five minutes before they started screaming at each other the last time?” she says. I pick up my phone and set a timer. Now that she’s got my attention, she leans forward. “You’ve never been late once since you started here. What happened?”
“Nothing happened. I overslept.”
“Weird, because you don’t look like somebody who’s sleeping at all.”
After five minutes, nobody’s screaming. Another thirty pass before Arthur finally emerges from Paul’s office, looking a little tired but otherwise—fine. He gives me a thin-lipped smile on his way out. When he’s gone, I get up and knock on Paul’s door.
“Yeah,” he calls.
He doesn’t look at all surprised to see me there. He gestures for me to close the door and sit down, but I stay where I am.
“What’s up with Arthur?”
“Just wanted to talk.”
“You get an olive branch or what?”
“I did.” He leans back in his chair. “He needs a friend. Holidays are coming up and he hasn’t had Jeremy for any in … a long, long time—but it’s different when you know they’re still around. I’m glad he reached out. I don’t think he should be alone.”
“Has he given up on The Project?”
“I was waiting for you to ask me that,” Paul replies. He stretches. A few of the bones in his shoulders pop and we both grimace at the sound. “He’s decidedly not giving up. I’ve agreed to keep an open mind and he’s promised to temper his expectations. Anyway, he started a Facebook group, I guess, asking for people with similar stories, reaching out to the media, but Facebook shut it down. Too libelous. He said we got an invite. I didn’t see one. Did we?”
“Maybe? We get lots of Facebook invites so I’ve got a filter set up. Probably sent it straight to trash, if we did.”
Paul nods and turns back to his computer.
“He’s moved it to Telegram.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a messaging app. Lots of journalists use it. It’s got good encryption and self-destruct options, anyway…” He types a few things and then says, “Ah, here we are.” Nods at his screen. “He started a channel. It’s like a noticeboard…”
I round Paul’s desk to take a look.
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE UNITY PROJECT. Arthur’s plea to the public is much less grief-stricken and much more composed than his last attempt.
MY NAME IS ARTHUR LEWIS. I AM SEEKING ANSWERS REGARDING THE DEATH OF MY SON, JEREMY LEWIS, A TWENTY-THREE-YEAR-OLD WITH HIS WHOLE LIFE AHEAD OF HIM. JEREMY WAS A MEMBER OF THE UNITY PROJECT AND DIED CUT OFF FROM HIS FAMILY AND FRIENDS, WITH NO SAVINGS, NO PROPERTY, NO HOPE. THE UNITY PROJECT HAS RAILROADED ANY ATTEMPTS AT GETTING MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING, AND LEADING UP TO THE END OF JEREMY’S LIFE. THEIR LACK OF TRANSPARENCY LEADS ME TO BELIEVE THERE IS MORE TO THE UNITY PROJECT, AND JEREMY’S DEATH, THAN MEETS THE EYE. I WILL NOT REST UNTIL I FIND OUT WHAT IT IS. I KNOW THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT THERE WITH STORIES OF THEIR OWN, WHO MIGHT FEAR REPRISAL FROM THE PROJECT OR ITS SUPPORTERS. IF YOU ARE ONE OF THEM, I INVITE YOU TO COME TO MEET ME AT MY HOUSE ON 43 DAUD AVENUE, SATURDAY, JANUARY 13, 2018 AT 2 P.M. SO THAT WE MAY DISCUSS THIS SAFELY, AND SECURELY, IN PERSON.