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I’m not a self-conscious person, but I’ve also never had a man of his caliber interested in me.

I like the way he takes over and does things so I don’t have to. He always seems to know the right things to do and say.

“You remind me of my sister,” I say.

Leo’s eyebrows shoot up. His mouth is full, but he speaks around his food. “How is that?”

“My gran always says to take the compliment and shut up.”

He chokes on his sip of Coke. I laugh as he pounds his chest with a fist, eyes watering.

“How do you imagine her?”

“Who? Piper?”

He nods.

“Charming. She’d wear dresses in winter…she’d be into live music and eating oysters, and she’d buy the trendy toothpaste—you know, the one that’s two bucks more.” I lick my lips. It feels good to talk about her with someone other than Gran.

“She’d throw dinner parties but forget to cook the dinner…” I laugh dryly. “But it would be the funnest party because she’d have some ridiculous solution like making pancakes. Everyone would be eating pancakes in formal wear.”

“What would one of your dinner parties be like?”

He had me there. I hadn’t really…had I ever pictured myself hosting a dinner party of any sort?In my daydreams, I attend Piper’s parties.

“Well…they would be costume parties…jolly gnomes. Or like a sad winter party where everyone has to come in wrinkled clothes and bring a Crock-Pot of soup.”

“I’d like to come to one of your parties.”

“Oh? And what soup would you bring?”

“I’d bring a big pot of Campbell’s chicken noodle and then innocently eat the better homemade soups.”

I don’t tell him that Campbell’s chicken noodle is my comfort food—that and a Hungry Man meal. Instead, I start crying like an idiot. I grab a handful of napkins to sop up the flood.

He must not notice my sudden onslaught of tears, because he says, “Do you want to get a drink after this? I know a place up the street.”

I’m so embarrassed I can’t look at him. I thought I had my emotions under control after all these years. I manage a nod. Leo, the pier, a nearby homeless man with his dog—they are all blurs of color. Maybe he does notice, because he gets me more napkins, and I pull myself together enough to take a couple more bites of my food.

The bar that he takes me to is called The Honky Tonk. It’s nestled between a mattress store and a teriyaki restaurant in an eighties-esque shopping plaza. The stools at the bar are bolted down, and the cracked red leather leaks stuffing. Leo orders me a vodka ginger and himself a bourbon. I must look distraught because he rubs my back in big circles and asks me if I’m okay.

I’m not. Everything that has to do with Piper is weighing on me. I’m not doing enough, I’ve been distracted by my feelings for Leo. I feel like I’m walking around wearing a coat of wet fur. Her murderer is Jude Fields, D hall resident, considered not competent to stand trial. I want to blurt it out, ask him questions,touch his beard, taste his drink. My head is in a tangle with my heart.

He takes my hand and squeezes it.

“Why don’t you think she’s alive?”

I shake my head. “I know…” My voice cracks. “I know that she’s dead. If she weren’t, she would have come back. She would never leave her son.”

My voice is strong for how weak I feel. I’ve told Piper’s story to therapists with such regularity that my execution is expert. Telling Leo feels different than the other times. He’s not sitting across a desk with a pen and paper, for one.

Leo’s expression gently pushes me for details. But we’re in a noisy bar that smells like beer and has questionable stains on the carpet. We’re sitting at the bar—knee to knee. His head is bent toward me, and our joined hands are resting on my thigh.

“What do you think happened to her?” His tone is gentle, but the topic is violent and gutting. I can’t talk about Piper without thinking about her death. And since there were no bones, no grave, no answers—no closure—all I could ever do was imagine the many ways she could have died.

It is a sad reality that a person can be anything and everything and still be defined by the horrific way in which they left this life.

I finish my drink and plonk the glass down on the bar top. “You’ll think I’m crazy.” I’m not drunk yet, and I’d rather not let him see me that way.