PART 3
Because he sighed.
“Look, Mrs. Mary. I don’t know what this is about. But that guy was weird.”
“How?”
“He came in around ten-thirty. Put the locket on the counter. Asked me if I’d take forty dollars.”
“Forty?”
“Yeah.”
“That locket is worth more than forty.”
“I know. I told him that.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he didn’t care.”
I looked at the little silver heart on my kitchen table.
“Did he have anything else?”
“No.”
“Did he say where he got it?”
“No.”
“Did he say my name?”
Evan hesitated.
Then he said, “Not exactly.”
My heart stopped.
“What does that mean?”
“He asked if I knew a Mary Louise Turner.”
I stopped breathing.
My married name was Mary Louise Bennett.
Only people from my childhood knew me as Mary Louise Turner.
My mother had died six years earlier.
My father had died twelve years before that.
Russell was supposedly gone.
I whispered, “What did you tell him?”
“I said I didn’t know anybody by that name.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t.”
I closed my eyes.
“Evan, please. What else?”
“He asked if I knew anyone who had lived on Sycamore Street in 1981.”
My chair scraped backward as I stood.
Sycamore Street.
I had lived at 417 Sycamore Street with my parents.
Russell had lived three houses away.
It was where we had first met.
Where he had climbed through my bedroom window one summer night because my mother had locked the front door after nine.
Where he had kissed me for the first time.
Where my father had found us sitting on the front porch at midnight and threatened to call the sheriff.
I sat down again.
“Did he say anything else?”
“He said something like, ‘She deserves to know before I die.’”
My hand went to my mouth.
“Evan.”
“Yeah?”
“Did he have a scar?”
“What kind?”
“Above his left eyebrow.”
I remembered Russell at seventeen.
A tiny white scar above his left eyebrow from when he had fallen off his bicycle at thirteen.
Evan breathed out slowly.
“Yeah.”
My heart began pounding.
“Was it him?”
“I don’t know.”
“You saw him.”
“Mrs. Bennett, people change.”
“Was it Russell?”
“I don’t know.”
I looked at the wristband again.
RUSSELL TATE.
ST. ANNE’S.
08/19/81.
I whispered, “He was at a hospital.”
Evan didn’t answer.
“He was at St. Anne’s the day after my mother told me he left town.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“You said he was weird.”
“Yeah.”
“What did he look like?”
“Gray beard. About six feet. Thin. Cane. Blue work jacket. Baseball cap.”
“What color?”
“Red.”
I closed my eyes.
Russell had always worn red.
Red Cardinals caps.
Red flannel shirts.
Even the old pickup truck he had borrowed from his uncle had been red.
“What did he say when he left?”
Evan’s voice became quiet.
“He said, ‘Tell her the river didn’t take everything.’”
My eyes opened.
“What?”
“He said, ‘The river didn’t take everything.’”
The line went silent.
I stared at the locket.
Then I asked the question I had been afraid to ask.
“Evan, did he leave an address?”
“No.”
“A phone number?”
“No.”
“Anything?”
He hesitated.
Then said, “He left something else.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
“A receipt.”
“For what?”
“An old storage unit.”
I gripped the phone.
“Where?”
“Cape Girardeau.”
“What’s the address?”
“I didn’t think it mattered.”
“It matters.”
“I’ll text it to you.”
“Please.”
A few seconds later, my phone buzzed.
I opened the message.
River Storage — Unit 214.
There was an address beneath it.
I knew the place.
It was less than fifteen minutes from my house.
I stared at the screen until the numbers blurred.
Then Evan said, “Mrs. Bennett?”
“Yes?”
“There was one more thing.”
“What?”
“He told me not to give you the receipt unless you came back for the locket.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he say?”
Evan took a breath.
“He said, ‘If she comes back, she’s finally ready.’”
I didn’t answer.
I couldn’t.
Because suddenly I understood something that frightened me more than finding Russell alive.
The man who had pawned my locket had expected me to recognize it.
He had expected me to ask questions.
He had planned for me to find him.
And somehow, after forty-three years, Russell Tate had left me a trail.
I did not sleep that night.
At 1:14 in the morning, I sat at my kitchen table with the locket open in front of me.
The tiny folded hospital wristband was beside it.
I kept reading the name.
Russell Tate.
Every time I saw it, another memory surfaced.
Russell teaching me how to skip rocks.
Russell putting his jacket around my shoulders when I forgot mine at the football field.
Russell sitting beside me on the curb outside the pharmacy after I learned my father had lost his job.
Russell saying, “When we’re old, Mary Lou, we’re going to laugh about all this.”
I had believed him.
That was the cruelest part.
I had believed him.
Then, on August 18, 1981, my mother had walked into my bedroom holding the locket.
She had been crying.
At least I thought she had been crying.
“Russell left,” she told me.
I remembered every word.
“He went to Cairo with another girl.”
I had asked who.
She said, “Some waitress.”
I had asked if he had said goodbye.
She said, “No.”
I had waited three hours for him to come back.
He didn’t.
My mother had found me sitting on the riverbank that evening.
She told me I was embarrassing myself.
“He doesn’t want you.”
I had cried.
She had said, “Throw that foolish thing away.”
So I opened my hand.
And dropped the locket.
I had watched it disappear.
For forty-three years, I thought that moment had been the end.
Now I knew it had been a lie.
At 6:30 the next morning, I called my daughter, Rebecca.
“Mom?”
“Are you awake?”
“It’s six-thirty.”
“I know.”
She sighed.
“What happened?”
“I found something.”
“Are you okay?”
“I found something that belonged to Russell.”
There was silence.
Rebecca knew the name.
Not because I talked about him often.
Because I didn’t.
But when she was a teenager, she had found an old photograph in my attic.
She had asked me who the boy was.
I had told her he was someone from a long time ago.
Rebecca had looked at the photograph and said, “He looks like he really loved you.”
I had taken it from her.
That was all.
Now I said, “I think Russell may still be alive.”
My daughter didn’t speak.
“Mom.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“No. I mean… are you sure?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
I told her everything.
The pawnshop.
The locket.
The initials.
The hospital wristband.
The man with the cane.
The storage unit.
When I finished, Rebecca said, “Don’t go there alone.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Mom.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were absolutely planning to.”
I smiled despite myself.
She knew me too well.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll wait.”
“I’ll come.”
“You have work.”
“I’ll call in.”
“Rebecca—”
“Mom, if this man is connected to Russell, you’re not going into some storage facility alone.”
I looked at the clock.
“Come at eight.”
“I’ll be there.”
At 8:07, Rebecca pulled into my driveway.
She got out wearing jeans, sneakers, and the expression she usually reserved for emergencies involving plumbing.
She hugged me.
Then she looked at the locket.
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
She picked it up.
“It’s beautiful.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be.”
“What do you mean?”
“My mother hated it.”
“Why?”
“She said Russell gave me ideas.”
“What kind of ideas?”
“Leaving.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Leaving what?”
“Home.”
She didn’t ask anything else.
We drove to River Storage.
The morning was humid, the kind of August heat that made the air feel thick.
I sat in the passenger seat holding the locket.
Rebecca drove.
Neither of us spoke for several minutes.
Then she said, “Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Do you want him to be alive?”
The question surprised me.
I looked out the window.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you still love him?”
I almost laughed.
Instead, I said, “I don’t know if you can love someone for forty-three years without loving the person you imagined them to be.”
Rebecca glanced at me.
“That sounds like yes.”
“It sounds like I’m old.”
“You’re not old.”
“I bought a twelve-dollar toaster yesterday because I thought fifty dollars was too expensive.”
“That sounds old.”
I laughed.
For the first time in two days.
Then we reached River Storage.
Unit 214 was at the far end.
The lock was new.
A brass padlock.
Rebecca looked at me.
“Do you have a key?”
“No.”
“Then what are we doing?”
I held up the pawn receipt.
On the back was a handwritten number.
214 — 8/22.
Today’s date.
I felt cold despite the heat.
“He knew we’d come today.”
Rebecca stared at the paper.
“Mom.”
“I know.”
We waited.
Eight twenty-two.
Nothing.
Eight twenty-three.
Nothing.
Eight twenty-four.
A white pickup truck turned the corner.
My heart jumped.
The truck stopped three units away.
A man stepped out.
Gray beard.
Red Cardinals cap.
Blue work jacket.
Cane.
Rebecca grabbed my arm.
“Mom.”
I couldn’t speak.
The man looked at me.
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
Then he slowly removed his cap.
