But as he locks the door and flips the sign, he sees them walking in opposite directions down the street, neither taking a backward glance.
This isn’t the first time Rowan’s looked for Rick since she moved away from Westchester County. But never before has it seemed so important to find him.
The problem with a name like Richard Walker is that you can never be sure you’ve found the right one based on the name alone. There are hundreds of Richard Walkers scattered through the tri--state area, and thousands beyond.
She scans page after page of search results, looking for a listing that fits everything she knew about him before they lost touch thirteen years ago. She remembers that his favorite color was orange, that he was left--handed, that he was obsessed with airplanes as a little boy, that his family’s house burned down not long before he graduated high school.
Those details don’t count, but they come rushing back at her along with countless others, none of which are useful. She doesn’t recall—-or more likely never knew—-concrete details like his birth date and graduation years and wedding date; the name or location of his Midwestern hometown, his parents’ names, or even what he did for a living.
He’d grown up dreaming of becoming an airline pilot, but that hadn’t happened because, as he told her, “I could barely afford college, let alone flight training, and the military didn’t want me.”
“Why not?”
“Smoke inhalation from the fire—-I had a collapsed lung, and it took me a long time to heal.”
He was between jobs when she knew him, and she can’t even remember what his career had been, only that it had nothing to do with aviation. It was insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
She clicks on one Richard Walker entry after another, looking for details that might fit. He’d be in his late forties or early fifties, and is probably still somewhere in New York. The package was postmarked there, and packed with a crumpled local newspaper.
Why the hell would he do such a thing after all these years?
The man she’d known hadn’t seemed capable of a malicious prank.
Okay, so maybe he didn’t send the package.
Maybe it was someone else.
His wife, Vanessa? Had she, after all these years, somehow found out what happened?
But nothing happened! Not really.
That’s what Rowan told herself afterward. And, all right, when time eventually burned off the fog that seemed to have settled over her in those days, she knew it wasn’t “nothing.”
But it wasn’t what it might have been, what it undoubtedly would have been if the smoke alarm hadn’t gone off, or if she’d ever dared let herself be alone in a room with Rick for even five minutes after that day . . .
But I didn’t. I made sure.
Even if Vanessa thought something had happened, it’s hard for Rowan to imagine her doing something like this. She was a Wall Street executive, the breadwinner while Rick stayed at home with the kids, two of whom were hers from a prior marriage.
Rowan would wave at her sometimes as she scurried to and from her car in a suit with a satchel over her shoulder and a cell phone pressed to her ear. She’d wave back distractedly, setting herself apart from the wistful working moms who loved to tell Rowan how lucky she was to be at home with the kids; lucky that she never missed a parent conference or a choir concert or had to scramble on sick--kid days and snow days . . .
She only recalls one snow day when they were living in Westchester. November thirtieth. That was the day.
Maybe Vanessa found out about—-
But nothing happened! Nothing happened!
Or was it someone else?
Only one other person besides Rick Walker knows about that day.
You shouldn’t have told! Why did you tell?
The words that have been marching through Rowan’s mind all night like a news crawl are the same ones she’d thought as soon as she’d unburdened her deep, dark secret years ago.
So many difficult moments in her life were impulse--driven, especially back then. But at least she confided in someone she trusted. Someone who promised never to tell.