“Let me know when you’re done and I’ll come lock back up,” she said.
Bethany’s apartment began as a narrow hallway with a coat closet. Contents: one raincoat; one longer wool jacket with pulls in the material; an umbrella in the back corner, a cobweb clinging to the inside handle. The hallway opened up to a carpeted living room, cutting abruptly into laminate flooring where the kitchen began, the wall behind covered in a row of cabinets, a refrigerator, a stovetop, and a sink. There were dishes in her sink, two glasses, two plates. Everything frozen in time.
The living room had a television on a faux-wooden stand, a cable box inside. There was an open door to the side, leading to a bathroom with a closed door on the other side—her bedroom, I assumed.
There was nothing on the surface that made me think of Emmy. But there was something similar about the decor or lack thereof. It was the things that were missing. There were no pictures on the walls or propped up on the countertops. As I moved to her bedroom, the feeling only grew. There was a simple wardrobe in her closet. A small brown jewelry box on the center of an otherwise bare dresser. The surfaces all wiped clean.
The bathroom had a white shower curtain, a single toothbrush, the surfaces uncluttered. I pictured this woman in a prison cell, suddenly set loose into the world. I could understand the lack of possessions and mementos. She had been starting fresh from nothing.
The kitchen was just as clean except for the dishes in the sink. While I was standing on the laminate floor, I detected the faint scent of cleanser, as if Bethany was used to keeping things in order, in the habit of wiping down the counters after each meal.
I opened her fridge and thought I should probably throw out the milk. It was pretty barren in there otherwise, and the same went for her pantry. I figured I should take out the garbage, at the very least. I opened the cabinets under the sink, found a stash of cleaning supplies and, behind those, a brown paper bag. The bag was not full of trash, as I’d assumed it would be, but opened envelopes bound with a thick rubber band.
The letters were each addressed to Bethany Jarvitz, care of the state correctional facility. The return addresses varied by state and name, ebbing and flowing over time. I sank to the linoleum floor, sifting through the envelopes. The closest I had come so far to Bethany Jarvitz.
The letters moved backward over time, from a few months before her release to the beginning of her incarceration.
Her only contact with the outside world. One-sided conversations that marked the passage of eight years. The one thing that truly belonged to her.
Mixed in with the opened letters were ones she had sent that went undelivered, Return to Sender. They were all unopened, ink on the front bleeding or smudged, the envelopes weathered and mishandled. They were addressed to various places but all nameless, like she was on a wild-goose chase, searching for someone. They had all been sent within the first year of her incarceration.
I slit one open and read the note inside. I could sense the rage simmering off of it, the handwriting slanted and angry.
You left me here. You’re going to pay. It was your idea. IT WAS YOUR IDEA. You don’t get to just walk away from me.
I opened the next, and the next—all more of the same. Accusations sent to a nameless person. I could tell at any moment. I could. Keep that in mind, wherever you are.
I wondered if any of these had reached the intended recipient. If they knew.
At the end of the stack, the beginning of her time served, there was a letter with no return address. The postmark was dated from July, eight years ago, from Boston. Inside, the letter was short and unsigned. I’ll be there when you get out. I’ll help. I promise.
I wondered if that was Emmy. It had to be. The date and location matched. Her promise held. My fingertips tightened on the letter. She’d come to this place not on the whim of fate but for Bethany. I wondered if she realized that, meanwhile, these letters had been making their way in the ether, bounced back, returned again. Nothing had reached her, as Ammi at least, in that basement apartment. Was she aware of the rage, of what was owed? Had she not seen the danger at all? God, Emmy, what have you gotten yourself into?
I stood and retrieved the plastic bag Zoe had given me from the front hall. Then I tipped it over on the kitchen counter, letting Bethany’s mail fall out. Zoe was right, there were more than a few bills. A rent notice, an electrical bill. As with Emmy, there didn’t seem to be a phone bill, and there wasn’t a phone hooked to any phone jack in the apartment that I could see. As I was rifling through the stack, I felt a few new credit cards. I flipped past them, mindlessly processing the sender info—and froze.
I went back, looked at the front again, at the name and the address in the plastic envelope window. It was sent to this address, and I could feel a credit card inside. But the name on the front said: Leah Stevens.
I dropped the envelope to the counter.
I heard my heartbeat inside my head, the pace ramping up. I stared at the closed apartment door, felt a hot wave of nausea, felt the ghost of Bethany in this apartment, becoming other than who I thought she had been.
Then I started tearing through her things, desperate and angry. Not just at Bethany but at Emmy, for bringing me here to begin with. For doing this to me. To me. Opening and closing dresser drawers, kitchen cabinets, searching for something I couldn’t identify. Under the bed, between the mattress and box spring, in the bathroom cabinets—I caught sight of myself in the mirror, wild, and I had to look away.
I stood in the middle of her bedroom, breathing heavily. The jewelry box on top of the dresser, the only thing in sight. I slid my finger into the handle, opening the door. A few pieces of costume jewelry, two rows of foam material to hold rings at the bottom. But all her rings were gathered on the row to the right.
I picked at the edge of the foam on the empty left row, and it peeled away easily.
Underneath: two slivers of paper, pressed down into the wood. My Social Security card. And a photocopy of my license. Ink bleeding through from the other side, a list of facts: my mother’s maiden name; a practiced signature—so, so close to my own and yet subtly not.
No, I thought. No no no.
I crumpled up the copies, slipping them into the back pocket of my pants, my hands trembling. I took the envelopes with my name on them, stuffed them in my purse, and searched every corner of her place once more.