But my mother wisely cautioned that this would help nothing. She was right. Carrie was bigger than me, for one. She was tall, an athlete, a basketball and volleyball player to boot. She could kick my ass if given the chance, and so I didn’t dare give her the chance.
Instead, my mother suggested I write notes to my friend-turned-archenemy, Carrie. “Jot your feelings down on paper. Tell her how you’re feeling,” she said, with the PS: “Don’t send the letters. Don’t give them to her. Keep them to yourself. But once you get your feelings down on paper, you’ll be able to move on. You’ll be able to think through your emotions. You’ll find closure.”
And she was right. I wrote the letters, long scolding notes on lined purple notebook paper with my favorite gel pen. And in those letters I read Carrie the riot act. I tore into her, I took her into the woodshed and reamed her out. I called her names. I told her I hated her. I said I wished she’d die.
But I never gave the letters to Carrie. I wrote them and threw them away. And in the end, I felt better. I found my closure. And I found new friends, too, though never any as dear as Carrie had once been.
Until the day I met Esther.
Sitting there that day on Esther’s bedroom floor, eating my pizza, mozzarella cheese streaming down my chin, I’m absolutely certain of one thing: that’s why Esther was writing the notes to My Dearest. That was her intent, to get her emotions down on paper, to feel better, to find closure with this two-timing man who has broken her heart.
The notes were never meant to be seen.
After searching a few more drawers, a shoebox or two in Esther’s raggedy closet and under the bed, I give up. I’m not going to find any more answers in here, anything other than the contacts, the information on loss and grieving, the passport photo, the change-of-name form, all things which raise far more questions than they solve—namely, who is Esther, really?
I’m feeling frustrated to say the least. Assumptions come to mind: Esther, aka Jane, has taken her passport and fled the country; or maybe Esther, aka Jane, is sitting somewhere, so afflicted by grief she can’t bring herself to come home. I just don’t know, but it makes me sad, thinking that Esther is sad and I didn’t know. And so I find that business card and dial the number embossed on its surface, the one for the psychologist. It rings five times, but he doesn’t answer, sending the call to voice mail, whereby I leave a message delineating my concerns. My roommate Esther Vaughan is gone, I tell him, and I explain that I found his card in her things. I ask if maybe he knows where she is. I beg, in fact, hoping, wondering, if Esther might have revealed to him some place she likes to go to hide, or whether or not she planned to leave the country without her phone. Maybe she told him the reasons she decided to place an ad for another roommate in the Reader, or why she wants to replace me with Meg from Portage Park. Perhaps he knows. Perhaps Esther sat there in some dimly lit room across from the man and confessed to him that I made for a lousy roommate. That I didn’t pay my fair share of the rent, that I didn’t cook. That I ate her dill weed. And maybe he encouraged her, as a good psychologist would do, to cut ties and to do it quickly. To kick me to the curb. To be ready to leave at a moment’s notice, in case my abuse went beyond the realm of shiftless and slovenly. To not let me take advantage of her anymore.
Perhaps it’s his fault I’m in this predicament.
Or maybe it’s mine.
But then I’m hit with another query: Does he even know who Esther is? Perhaps to him she is Jane. And so I say this, too, on the phone. I say that my roommate also goes by the pseudonym of Jane Girard—as I take a look at the petition for Esther’s name change and I’m stricken by how completely outlandish this is, admitting to some person I don’t know that my roommate has a double life I know nothing about. On his answering machine, no less. I pinch myself. Wake up!
I don’t wake up. Turns out, I’m already awake.
I press End on the phone, feeling miffed at how many questions I’ve formed—many—and how many answers I’ve found: none.
I think and I think. Where else could I possibly look for clues? I put in a call to Ben to see if he’s had any luck in tracking Esther’s family down, but again he doesn’t answer his phone. Damn Priya, drawing his attention away from the task at hand. I leave a message, and as I do, my eyes swerve to that photograph of Esther and me thumbtacked to the wall—Esther and me posing before the artificial Christmas tree for a selfie. Seeing the photo, my mind starts to wonder about that storage unit where we found the tree, that winter day we dragged the tree home through the snow. What else does Esther have hidden in there besides a Christmas tree? It’s not like I have the key to the storage unit, but still, I wonder if I’d be able to sweet-talk some employee into letting me inside. Doubtful. That’s the kind of thing Esther could do, but not me. I’m not the type of person able to sway someone with my bright eyes and a beguiling smile, which is Esther to a T.
That night, before I go to bed, I gather the collection of clues I’ve found and sit before the arched windows of the living room, going through them one by one, rereading the notes to My Dearest, familiarizing myself with the grieving process, running my fingers over the embossed name on the psychologist’s business card. It is dark outside, the lights of the city like a million sparkling golden stars. The number of neighbors who have curtains drawn is trifling; they, like me, sit in a fully illuminated room into which everyone outside can easily see. It’s part and parcel of city living or so I’ve learned, leaving the window coverings open wide to welcome in the city’s superabundant lights but also neighbors’ prying eyes. My mother, in our split-level suburban home, never would have gone for this. Curtains and blinds were closed at the first indicator of dusk, as soon as the stars and planets became visible to the naked eye and the sun began to dip. I stare out the window and admire it all: the lights of the buildings, the stars, the planets, the flashing wing lights of a passing jet plane, flying silently overhead at thirty thousand feet. From up above, I wonder what the passengers see. Do they see me?
And then my eyes return to the street, and I spy a sole figure standing in the shadows of Farragut Avenue, staring in the window, up at me. A woman, I believe, with strands of hair that flitter around her head like a dozen butterflies flapping their flimsy wings. At least that’s what I think I see, though it’s nighttime and I can’t see so well, but still, the figure doesn’t make me feel in the least bit scared or creeped out, but rather hopeful. Esther? The form stands far enough away from streetlights to be inconspicuous, to be invisible, to hide. But someone is there.
Please let it be Esther, I silently beg. She’s home; she’s come home. Or at least partway home, though she’s not yet convinced to come inside. I have to convince her. I rise quickly to my feet, a fish in a fishbowl, knowing that whoever is outside can see me with clarity, and for this reason I wave. I’m not scared.
I search for signs of movement, hoping and wishing that the sole figure will wave back, just a twitch of movement from the street, but no. There’s nothing. Not at first, anyway. But then there is. A wave, albeit a small wave, but still a wave. I’m just sure of it. Or at least I think I am.
Esther?