I CLIMBED THE STAIRS to exit Park Street Station, squinting against the daylight. I veered left, searching the Common for Brad. The scent of hot dogs from a nearby vendor mixed with that of cigarette smoke from a passerby. In the distance, someone jingled a jar of change, looking for handouts.
“Annie!”
I turned to see him walking toward me. In carpenter jeans, maroon Kilroy Construction sweatshirt, and matching hat—with pencil, of course—Brad smiled and waved. When he reached me, a split-second moment of awkwardness overtook us, as if we couldn’t decide what sort of greeting to give each other. A handshake seemed too impersonal. A swift kiss on the cheek too intimate. A hug too . . . something.
In the end, I reached out and squeezed his forearm. “Good to see you again. I hope I didn’t make you skip out on work too early.”
“Nah, I cut out at twelve most Saturdays.”
We walked in the direction of the Public Garden. After my run this morning, I’d promised myself I wouldn’t seize up at the thought of going to Back Bay again. I refused to whine to Brad. Besides, I could handle it. We’d go down Commonwealth Avenue and take Clarendon to Newbury Street, where the genealogical society was located. We’d come back the same way. Boylston Street was another block farther. We wouldn’t touch it. I would not be a baby about this anymore.
“So?”
I cast my thoughts aside to find Brad looking at me. “Oh, right. The run. I did it.”
He nudged me with his shoulder. “All right. Knew you had it in you.”
“Thanks. You helped me. A lot.”
“And how’d it feel?”
We crossed over the bridge of the Public Garden. The naked, lazy boughs of willow trees hung over the lake.
“Good. Really good.”
“So did you do the Rocky victory stance at the top?”
I laughed. “I refrained from that—but inside I definitely felt victory.”
We waited for the traffic signal to change, and when it turned to a lit-up man, we crossed onto Commonwealth Avenue. Nearby a car backfired. Brad grabbed my arm and pushed me—kind of hard—toward the sidewalk. He recovered quickly, straightened from his bent posture, and brushed off the gesture with a casual “Sorry.”
This time it was my turn to stare at his profile. His mouth was set in a thin line. His pencil drooped dangerously low from his hat. I resisted the urge to tuck it back up where it belonged.
“You react quick. From your time in Iraq, right? That’s why you were able to get to me so fast that day.”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
“You know, if you ever want to talk about anything, I wouldn’t mind listening. You’ve helped me. It’s the least I could do.”
He flashed me a fleeting, noncommittal smile. “Thanks.”
Okeydokey, then. Best leave that alone.
I stuffed my hands in my pockets, put a little pep in my step. “So what’s our game plan? I mean, where do you think we should start?”
The tension between us lifted. “I read as much as I could and watched a few webinars on genealogy. The first step is to figure out what we know so far and talk to living relatives.”
“Right.” I’d found out the same the past couple days, though I felt helpless to do any of that. This was Brad’s family, Brad’s ring. I almost felt I didn’t have a right to want to know about it as much as I did.
“So I know the ring comes from my dad’s side. I paid ol’ Granddad a visit last night.”
We turned on Clarendon Street, and against my will I sought out Boylston, just a couple blocks ahead. My breathing quickened, and the world suddenly felt a thousand times smaller. The streets pressed in around me. I ordered myself not to have a panic attack right there on the crowded streets of Boston. I made a sound of acknowledgment that I had been listening to Brad.
He slipped his hand into mine and squeezed. He began a loud hum of “Gonna Fly Now.”
It worked. I couldn’t contain a small laugh, and with it, the world righted itself, grew back to its normal proportion. “That song never fails.” We turned left on Newbury Street. Boylston disappeared from view. Ahead, a brown-and-white American Ancestors flag hung from the society. “I’m sorry. How is your grandfather?”
“As ornery and stubborn as ever. Doesn’t like to take his pills and still insists on splitting his own wood. But he’s good. And lucky for us—” he tapped his hat—“sharp as a tack.”
“You found out something about the ring?”
We stopped before the door of the society. Brad dug in his back pocket and took out a folded index card. He gave me a sheepish grin. “Sorry, this is about as organized as I get. I figured you might be willing to be our file keeper.” He handed the paper to me, and I looked at the names on it as he spoke. “He remembered the ring, for sure. Said his dad gave it to him when my dad was born. It was given to the firstborn child down the line. But again, he didn’t know any story to go with it. He made me promise to let him know when we found something. He was almost . . . excited.”
I blew the bangs from my face. “I sure hope we don’t disappoint him. I hope there’s something to find.”
Brad pointed at the index card. “I was able to trace back five generations just by talking to Granddad. That brings us to the mid-1800s—at least that was his best guess. I’m hoping we can find out more in here.”
“Great work, Sherlock.” I didn’t bother to rein in the urge to nudge his pencil back up into his hat this time.
“I enjoyed it, really. Funny, but all this information would have died with Granddad if I hadn’t asked him. Strange how we don’t often look where we’ve come from.”
I nodded. He was right. What did I know of my grandparents? Of their parents? Of the heritage my sister and I shared? Next to nothing.
Brad held the door for me, and after checking in and paying the visitor day fee, we headed to the seventh floor, where we were told someone might be able to help us get started. We placed our jackets and my bag on one of the chairs that surrounded a large table near the window, looked at the numerous books lining the walls, and swallowed down the feeling that our task was insurmountable.
Brad rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and approached the woman in one of two seats behind a large desk.
She looked up from her computer screen. “Hi there. How can I help you?”
Brad cleared his throat. “We’re kind of new at this, but I’m looking for information about my ancestors.”
She smiled. “You’re certainly in the right place.”
“We’re trying to find out if a family heirloom—a ring I have—belonged to a certain person. We have a name, but we’re kind of clueless where to start.”
The woman nodded. “So you have a couple of puzzle pieces and you’re trying to fill in the rest.”
“Basically. But we’re not even sure they’re from the same puzzle.”
She stood, propped a pair of pink glasses on her nose, and guided us to the computer near our things. “We have several websites, including our own library catalog, that can assist you in your search. How far back can you trace your family?”
“We’re guessing around the Civil War.”
“Great. I would start with Fold3—it’s a website that specializes in the American military. If you know what town they were from, add that into the search. We also have many published genealogies here. Search your family’s name in our catalog and see what comes up.” She looked at two people standing by her desk. “Let me know if I can help. Good luck.”
We thanked her and pulled two chairs up to the computer. Brad dug out a thumb drive and jabbed it in the USB. “Let’s get searching. From what Granddad told me, the firstborn of the last five generations were all males. Though if Liberty Gregory owned the ring, maybe it was passed down to daughters as well. Cross your fingers.”
Brad clicked on the Civil War icon and typed in Kilroy, Lexington. Several results popped up, but nothing that clearly stated a name on our index card, or even the Civil War. Mostly city directories and federal censuses. A couple of women with the last name Kilroy, but no match. We finally clicked on an 1876 Boston city directory that listed about twenty Kilroys, their first names, occupations, and addresses.
None of them matched the names on our list.
All hope that this was going to be easy evaporated.
As the sun made its arc over the building, the room grew darker. We typed in different searches, different first and last names. We even found Brad’s granddad’s WWII registration card. Several times we’d find a name that matched Brad’s list, but it wouldn’t line up with the correct time period or location. I wondered how sharp the tack was that Brad compared his grandfather to, but I’d sooner look through five hundred more results than voice the question aloud.
Brad stretched his fingers, which had rested on the mouse for the last few hours. He navigated to a different website on the society’s home page and clicked on an 1860 census, entering the name of his granddad’s great-grandfather, the last name on our list, Allen Kilroy. He scrolled down the page.
We saw it at the same time. The 1855 Massachusetts State Census listed an Allen Kilroy of Lexington.
“That must be him, right?” Brad clicked on it.
The census stated that Allen’s birth year was 1835. We clicked on the picture, and a black-and-white handwritten census list came up before us. Brad zoomed in on Allen Kilroy’s family, three members including Allen—age twenty, occupation clerk; wife, Madelyn—age twenty; and son, Jonathan—age one.
Brad pointed to Jonathan’s name. “Granddad’s grandfather.” We shared a smile at the small breakthrough. “Too bad it’s not new information.”
“But it is. Now we know Allen’s exact birth year, and we can look for an older census—one where he’s listed as a child with an age that matches his birth year—to find out who his father was.”
He gave me a wink and downloaded the picture of the census. “I knew I brought you along for a reason.”
I rolled my eyes and took out a notebook to sketch a continuation of Brad’s family tree. “Maybe try an 1840 census. Allen should have been about five.”
Brad arrowed back and clicked on the 1840 census. Though the federal census seemed to be set up a bit different from the state census, we did find an entry for a Thomas Kilroy of Concord.
“No Lexington entries,” I said.
We clicked on the census that contained Thomas’s name. It stated that the household of Thomas Kilroy contained one free white male between the ages of twenty-six and forty-five, one free white female between the ages of sixteen and twenty-six, one free white male under the age of ten, and two free white females under the age of ten.
“No names. Bummer.” Brad clicked the download button.
“But the son who’s under ten does match the age range for Allen.” I wrote down the information on the tree with a question mark next to it.
“And now we’re past what we know about the ring. Did it come from Thomas’s family—if he is Allen’s father—or did it come from his wife’s side?”
I tapped my pencil on the notebook page. “We need to search for her name. Her maiden name. That might tell us which way to go.”
We searched the society’s library catalog. The published genealogies of several different families appeared, but none with the heading of Kilroy. “Let’s just take a look at the first couple.” Brad wrote down the call numbers, and we went off to search for the books in the many rows of the seventh floor.
We did find a handful of Kilroys in each book, but none that we could tell matched with Brad’s family of Lexington. After a half hour of searching, Brad rubbed the back of his neck and pressed a button on his phone. “We should go. They close in ten minutes.”
I fanned through one of the genealogies. Black-and-white pictures and the histories of individuals filled the pages. My eye caught the name Kilroy, and I looked, not expecting to find much. “Hey, wait.”
I pointed to an Allen Kilroy. He was off to the left of the family tree, and the genealogy didn’t show a wife or children. Instead, it focused on his sister, Ava, and her children. Brad scooted his chair closer to me and ran his finger up to the parents of Ava and Allen. Father was listed as Thomas Kilroy, born in 1809, and his wife, Amelia Gregory, born in 1815.
I nearly bounced up and down in my seat. “That’s it! That’s him. And look at her last name.”
“I—I can’t believe it. But is this the actual Thomas and Allen we’re looking for? They were fairly common names . . . maybe even Kilroy is a common surname. Look how many we found in all these books.”
My hopes deflated when I looked at Allen’s birth year. I pointed to it, feeling like the sharp pin poking a happily floating balloon. “Eighteen thirty-seven. The birth year doesn’t match the census that links him to Jonathan.”
Brad groaned. “Dead end.” He scooped up his hat, tapped it on his knee. “Unless the genealogy is wrong. It’s someone else’s research—they could have screwed up.”
“Or maybe we have two different Allen Kilroys.”
Brad donned his hat, wiggled it so it fit snug, then stuck his pencil in the side. “Still pretty cool to actually find a Gregory that might be related to me. Hard work, but way cool.”
I agreed.
We gathered up our things, put the genealogies away, thanked the woman who had helped us initially, and went down in the elevator.
“So,” Brad began, “it’s my family—of course I think it’s neat. Is it boring you?”
“Are you kidding? I’m invested now. There’s a story behind the ring in that poem, and I really hope it’s yours.”
“Ours.” He caught my gaze with his own, greener than fresh-cut grass on an early June afternoon. The elevator slowed and brought us back to the ground level. My stomach flipped. “Whether or not the ring I gave you is Liberty Gregory’s, we’re both part of this story now.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it, unable to think of an appropriate response to his words. But that didn’t mean I didn’t like the sound of them.
We exited the elevator and then the building, zipping our jackets against the cool wind as we turned right on Newbury Street. When we got to Clarendon, he paused instead of turning right, back to Commonwealth.
“Still some light left. Up for a walk?”
Something like a shield went up around my heart. The way he’d paused when we were supposed to turn right, the way his eyes almost pleaded with me. “Where?”
He stepped closer to me, and for the first time since we met, I wanted to move away from him instead of toward him. “Do you think you could make it to the finish line with me?”
There was so much I wanted to read in that one question, filled with something akin to desire but laced with hesitancy. I hadn’t thought about ever going back to the finish line. I never wanted to get close to the place of that horrid day, to risk reliving the memories I ran from every night.
“I can’t, Brad.”
I ground my teeth, turned my back to him, and started walking toward Commonwealth. A woman with a stroller walked by and I got a crazy feeling that I needed to protect her—protect her child—from Brad. From the man who wanted to bring me back. I ignored the preposterous feeling and moved on. Maybe I needed to go back to see my shrink.
I felt Brad beside me, keeping up with my fast pace. “You ran this morning, Annie. You didn’t think you could do that. Going back to the finish line might be good for you.”
I whirled on him. “Would going back to Iraq be good for you? Would reliving whatever made you jump a mile when that car backfired be beneficial for your emotional health?”
He blinked, mouth open slightly. I had caught him off guard, and my words had come out harsher than I intended, but I wouldn’t take them back.
Something flashed across his face. Acceptance? Defeat? He held his hands up. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Listen, I appreciate you helping me—you have helped me. But I’m not some run-down house that needs fixing. You can’t just demolish me and then put me back together.” I shoved my hands in the pockets of my jacket, looked at the retreating back of the woman with the stroller. “You’re just pushing too much right now. We still don’t know each other that well, and healing . . . well, it takes time.”
His lips drew straight and I redirected my gaze to his work boots, standing on a crack in the concrete. Wordlessly, I started back toward the Common. Brad followed, silence widening the gap between us.
When we crossed to the Public Garden, he said, “Please, Annie. Don’t be mad. I said I’m sorry.”
“Forget about it.” And deep inside, I knew I should take my own advice. A part of me even thought to apologize for being such a whack job, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. It was who I was, apparently, and if Brad couldn’t understand that much, then maybe we didn’t need to be pursuing whatever this was between us.