I meander rather than march, taking in the sights and sounds of a strange place. I pass a pocket park on a street lined with majestic town houses. It is one of those where you need a resident’s key to get inside, but I see a man leaving, a miniature furball of a dog at his heels.
“Last visit of the night?” I ask, as he emerges.
“God, I hope so—she’s only four months old, and it’s still like having a baby!”
I make sympathetic noises, and as I’d hoped, he holds the gate open for me. Inside, it is beautiful and weird: it is small, but densely packed with bushes and trees and flowers, little concrete pathways winding through the foliage.
It is almost midnight, and it feels as though the city that never sleeps is having a little snooze here in this park. I sit on a wrought-iron bench in front of a statue of someone I don’t recognize. It is tall, it looms, but with so little light it casts no shadow.
I take out my phone and see that predictably enough there are several missed calls, from Belinda and from Michael. I call Belinda back, the glow of the screen illuminating the feet of the statue, which are wearing iron boots with buckles on the front.
It’s quiet here, apart from the mysterious rustling of nighttime creatures in the bushes, and the occasional distant blare of a car horn. Belinda answers on the second ring, sounding relieved.
“You OK?” she asks. “Where are you? Are you coming back to the hotel? We’re in the bar waiting up for you.”
“Don’t do that, please,” I say. “I might be a while. I’m just trying to get my head a bit straighter, and . . . well, that’s not a quick fix.”
“We’re also in the hotel bar because we can’t sleep, and because we need to drink.”
“Oh. Well, that’s OK then. Go for it.”
“Michael has been doing some research. He thinks he’s found the people we need to speak to, to find out what . . . happened. To Joe, you know, after the fire?”
“You mean what happened to Joe’s body?”
“Yes. I just didn’t want to say it out loud. I didn’t want to make it real. Look, are you really all right? I’m not, and Joe was . . . he was my friend. He was part of my past. But he wasn’t to me what he is to you. I’m so, so sorry, Jess.”
I find myself smiling, in the midnight darkness of my secret garden, and reply: “I am too. And thank you. For coming, for helping. I’m not really all right, no—but I think maybe one day I might be. I have to believe that this hasn’t been wasted.”
“It hasn’t,” she says quickly. “It’s been important. Joe deserved it, didn’t he? To have us follow him, learn about him—mourn him?”
“He did. And we deserved to know the truth. The thing about truth is that once you have it, you often don’t want it. Anyway. There’s a lot to think about. A lot to do. But tonight, I’m just going to walk, and think, and let myself feel, OK? It doesn’t make me very fit company. The statue doesn’t seem to mind, but I’m not sure other humans would be keen.”
There is a lengthy pause, and I realize that what I have just said makes no sense at all.
“I’m in a park. There’s a statue. It’s not a hallucination.”
“Oh. Right. Well, be careful. This is the city at night, and you’re just B—”
“I’m not just Baby Spice, Belinda. I’m not just anything. I’m a grown woman with a lot of life experience, so please stop calling me that.”
See? I am already being braver.
“Cool. I’ll call you Snappy Spice.”
“Not much better, but we can brainstorm it tomorrow. Anyhow. Please don’t wait up for me. I’m going to walk some more. It’s helping.”
We say our goodbyes, and I leave the nocturnal creatures to their dark explorations, emerging back out into the grand neighborhood that I probably won’t ever see again.
I carry on walking, and find myself following the streets back over to Times Square. I walk past now-empty theaters, and bars that are closing up for the night, and keep going west. I have some vague idea that I would like to see the river before my body finally shuts me down, and decide that I will walk that far, and then try to jump in a cab back to the hotel.
I pass Ninth Avenue, walking along intersecting streets, seeing the atmosphere change around me. It’s odd, this city—a few steps can take you from one world to another, from China to Italy, from glamour to grime.
I am in Hell’s Kitchen, and it is different from the other places I have been tonight. The streets are still dominated by rows of tall buildings, but they seem narrower, more densely packed. Their metal fire escapes are serving as impromptu meeting places, small groups of people sitting and chatting and smoking.
There is music of all types, rap and Latin pop and Irish folk and even opera, and the smells of food from every corner of the world. There are still-open convenience stores, and cars parked within centimeters of each other. Normal cars—small and boxy and dusty, not the slick sedans I’ve seen elsewhere.
This is a real neighborhood. This is a place where real people live and work and love. Something about it reminds me of the flat, and Yusuf from the kebab shop, and home.
A lot of the bars and cafés are closed or closing, but the streets are still vibrant. It’s infectious, and I wander along, letting some of that energy seep into my tired bones. It is the energy of living, and I need some of that. I am in limbo, and could get pulled in either direction.
I pass a Catholic church, and an actors’ studio, and a place that offers self-serve dog washing, wondering if it is time for another stop. For a moment to rest, rehydrate, check in with my body and my mind and make sure everything is still in place. To look at those photos, and remember Joe—my Joe—and try to scoop out some of the hollowness I feel growing, deep inside.
As I stand, and gaze around me, I see a neon bar sign flicker on and off. On. Off. On again. Finally off. It’s a bit like being at a rave.
I shake my head, and blink my eyes, convinced that I am having some kind of otherworldly experience.
I am not a believer in the supernatural, and I am not afraid of the dark. There are enough horrors in the real world without fabricating them as well. But for a split second, I wonder if I am wrong—if there are such things as ghosts, or a delicate lace veil floating between this world and some other.
I wonder if I really saw what I think I saw: a neon sign that proclaimed the name of a place called Gracie’s.
The light is gone now, but I walk in the direction I think it came from. I could have imagined it. Or it could be real—it’s a common enough name.
Within a few moments I am there, in front of a corner building that juts out onto the main street on one side, and an alleyway on the other. It is a bar, and it is called Gracie’s. It is stenciled onto the windows, in a looping, curling version of old-fashioned handwriting.
The wooden doors are closed, and the sign does not come back on. I cup my hands around my eyes, and peer through the front window. Inside, I see wooden floorboards, and tables littered with empty pint glasses, and a long, shining bar punctuated by beer taps, logos for Guinness and Blue Moon and Bud and Samuel Adams.
Behind the bar, a mirrored wall is adorned with rows of liquor dispensers and spirits, shelves of glasses, small stacks of beer coasters and a collage of taped-up photos.
At the far end, I see a man placing glasses on the bar, obviously starting his cleanup rituals.
I stare through the window, and I see him. I see him standing there, in jeans and a T-shirt that has the Gracie’s motif across the chest. I see him pushing glasses to one side, making more space before he adds to it from the scattered tables.
I see him, and I know that it is Joe.
That Joe is not dead—he is standing right there, before my eyes.
I watch him as he works. I study his movements, I drink in his shape, and I ask myself again if this is real.
It is real. He is real. He is right there, through a thin pane of glass.
Joe is not dead. Joe did not die in that fire—we were wrong. I am stunned and silent and still for a few moments, not completely sure that I am not asleep and dreaming, or awake and dreaming. Still not sure that any of this is real. I close my lids, touch the solid brick of the wall, and inhale air that tells me this is where the smokers come. I nip at my own lip so hard it bleeds—an extreme version of pinching myself.
After all of this prodding and poking, I open my eyes again. He is still there. The bar is still called Gracie’s, and Joe is still collecting glasses. I have found him—just when I thought he was finally lost.
I have found him, and now I don’t know what to do. This is not how I’d imagined I would feel. I had imagined that I would feel joy, and certainty, and conviction.
Instead, I feel shaky and feeble. If I go in there—if I take a few small steps inside—I will be changing both our lives. He looks settled and happy here. He has his bar. He has a life, one that he has worked hard to build. Do I have any right to shatter that? Or should I simply take the win and leave? Leave, knowing that Joe is safe and well. Leave, and be grateful for that.
Even as the thought inserts itself into my mind, I recognize it as cowardly. I am scared, now that this moment is finally here. I am overwhelmed. I have yearned to see him again, and now that I have, it is too big for me to safely process.
Behind these brick walls I will not only find Joe, but everything that broke me before—the pain of losing our daughter. The perceived loss when I thought he’d left. It threatens me—it threatens all these years I have spent building myself back up, becoming stable, learning how to assimilate into a normal life that I have never felt truly comfortable in.
I let my mind run through all the notes that Joe has left me. About being brave. About being lonely. About how lucky we were to have each other.
I remind myself that minutes ago, when I thought he was dead, I vowed to live my life—to really live it. Now that he is alive, I must do the same.
I will not be a coward, I decide. I will not hide. I will not be intimidated—my normal life is not worth protecting, it is a flimsy and joyless thing. If I turn away now, I will never forgive myself—I will be doomed to self-loathing and soul-sapping safety until the day I die, sitting in my mother’s chair with a row of remote controls and a deep well of regret as I endure a slow death over decades.
For one more minute, I linger. I realize that my hair is a mess, my clothes are scruffy, that I am wearing no makeup. I remember a time, a tableau, during our early days, when I was getting ready for a party, still struggling with the contents of the same makeup bag I spilled the day I met him.
“Wear whatever makeup you like,” he’d said, smiling, amused at my sighs. “It’s your face. I’m just saying you don’t need to—you’re gorgeous as you are. It’s like giving the Mona Lisa a spray tan.”
I smooth back my hair, and take several deep breaths. This is not a time to worry about how I look. This is a time to act. To do, before I think myself out of it, or paralyze myself with fear.
I walk back to the door. I gently push it, finding that it is closed but not yet locked. I lay my shaking hands flat on its surface, and I push again.