A week later, Rebekah left the girls with Noella for the morning and went into the city. She felt scared at first, frenzied; she stood on the front porch of Noella’s house, unable to move, unable to rip her eyes away from the girls. But, her heart beating hard, she dragged herself forward and rode the subway in, and gradually, as the minutes passed, she started to calm down.
In the time she’d been on the island, her medical licence had expired and because she had made no attempt within three months to seek another two-year extension, she’d had to call the Office of Professions to explain what had happened. They’d told her, because her case was unusual, and because they were having a hard time understanding, to come by the office on Broadway.
After she was done filling out forms, she walked a block to Bryant Park, the sun beating down out of a clear blue sky, and found a table in the shade at the back of the Public Library. She’d brought her laptop, as well as the flash drive Frank Travis had given her the week before, and – in the zipped pouch of her laptop bag – something else: the card her mother had sent.
She’d fished it out of the garbage.
She had no real idea why. She still felt as much confusion about and contempt for Fiona Camberwell as she had the day she’d dumped the card in the trash can, but eventually she’d gone back to the kitchen, rifled through the old food, the chip packets, the detritus of her family’s life, and reclaimed it. It was stained and wrinkled, but it had survived.
She opened it again now, looking at the message.
I was sorry to hear the news about John.
‘Excuse me, would I be able to use this chair?’
Rebekah looked up from the card.
A man in his late forties, tall, broad, good-looking with dark hair, was standing next to her. He had a bag over his shoulder and a coffee in his hands.
‘Sure,’ she said.
He smiled at her. ‘Thank you.’
He dragged the chair away from her table and set it up at the next one along. Rebekah’s mind wandered again, back to her mother, to the flash drive, to the idea of going back to work, her thoughts moving fast.
‘Are you okay?’ the man asked.
She realized she was still staring at him. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I’m so sorry. I was miles away.’
The man smiled again. ‘Well, that’s a relief.’ He looked down at himself, his shirt, his pants. ‘I thought I might have food on my face.’
‘Ha, no, you’re okay.’
‘You’d tell me if I had food on my face, right?’
‘It depends how amusing it looked.’
The man smiled a third time. He had a lovely smile.
‘You’re English,’ Rebekah said to him.
‘I am,’ he replied. ‘You sound like you might be too.’
‘Not for a long time. I moved here when I was eighteen.’
‘But you still have some of the accent.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘for some reason, it’s always hung in there. I like it.’ She paused, thinking of Johnny, of how he’d hated his mid-Atlantic accent. The memory made her sad, so she pushed it away. ‘Are you here on vacation?’
‘Sort of,’ the man said. ‘I’m meeting a friend for a couple of days. She lives out in LA, and this seemed like a good halfway point for both of us. What about you?’ He checked the time. ‘Are you having an early lunch?’
‘No, not yet. Maybe soon.’
He didn’t pry, even though he must have been curious.
‘I’ve been on a sort of career break,’ she said.
‘Okay. And you’re thinking about going back?’
‘More through necessity than desire.’
It was only brief, but as they looked at each other it was like something passed between them, an understanding of how onerous necessity could be.
‘What do you do?’ the man asked.
‘I’m a doctor. An orthopaedic surgeon.’
‘Wow, you look way too young to be so qualified.’
She laughed. ‘Not as young as I’d like.’
‘I’m guessing you took a career break to have kids?’
This time, she paused before answering.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘That was incredibly nosy.’
‘No, it’s fine. It was a pretty accurate guess, though.’
He nodded. ‘Please don’t be creeped out.’
‘What about you?’ Rebekah asked, studying him.
‘I’m an investigator.’
‘Like a private investigator?’
‘Sort of. I find missing people.’
Rebekah looked from the man to her mother’s card, creased, tarnished, its lack of an address, the lack of a kiss, a sign-off, any clue about who she was.
The missing person who brought me into this world.
She turned her attention back to the man. He was watching her closely now, but not in a way that troubled her or made her feel uncomfortable. It was more like the look Frank Travis had always given her: curious, humane.
She reached out a hand. ‘I’m Rebekah Murphy.’
He took her hand in his.
‘It’s lovely to meet you, Rebekah. I’m David Raker.’