Page 31 of Ghosts Don't Cry

Another pause. “I’m making lasagna.”

The burning in my eyes gets worse. It’s notjustlasagna. It’s my comfort food. The meal she’s made after every heartbreak, every disappointment. After the hearing, she made it every Sunday for three months.

“Mom.” My throat tightens, making the word come out strangled. “I’m okay. You don’t have to?—"

“I know.” Her voice softens, taking on a quality that’s only ever been directed at me. Gentle but firm. The voice that’s soothed every nightmare, every fear, and every moment I thought I couldn’t take one more step. “But I’m your mother, and it’s my job to worry about you.”

Especially when you don’t think you can, is what she doesn’t say. But I hear it anyway.

After we hang up, I find myself at the window, pulling back the curtain to stare out at the morning-gray sky. My forehead rests against the cool glass as I stare in the direction of Cedar Street. I can’t see it from here, my apartment faces east, toward the older part of town. Cedar Street is west, in the part of town where houses have names instead of numbers and cars sit in attached garages.

The distance between us is less than two miles. Nothing really. A ten-minute drive or a twenty-minute walk.

It might as well be an ocean.

Is he there now? I try to picture him in one of those big houses. Does he lie awake remembering the way my hand felt in his? The nights in the factory when it was just us? Or has he moved on?

Maybe he doesn’t think about me at all, and I’m just a girl from his past.

The tattoos surprised me. Not that I could see much of them. I keep coming back to them, replaying the moment I first saw the ink wrapping his throat, and disappearing beneath his collar. The Ronan I knew barely let people look at him, let alone touch him. He wore long sleeves, kept his distance, and moved through the world like someone trying to leave no trace of his existence.

ButthisRonan wears his marks openly. Black ink curved up his neck, there were more on his arms, disappearing beneath rolled sleeves.

I wonder what they mean. Are they prison tattoos? Markers of time served? Or did he get them later, once he was released?

Five years in prison changes people. Iknowthat. I’ve read articles, and watched documentaries. But knowing it intellectually and seeing it … seeinghim... are different things. The boy I loved doesn’t exist anymore, if he ever really did. Maybe he was just a story I told myself. A version of history I needed to believe in.

And this man? I don’t knowhimat all.

Twenty-five minutes after my mom’s call, I hear a key in the lock. Cassidy has her own key, has since college. I have a key to her place too. The door opens, and she appears, still in her pajamas. Her hair is piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and she’s not wearing make up.

She stops in the doorway to my bedroom, taking in my swollen eyes and tear-stained cheeks, then down at the empty box and its contents.

Her expression shifts—concern, understanding, and a flash of anger that isn’t directed at me. She doesn’t say anything, turns away and heads into the kitchen.

The sound of her making coffee fills my apartment. The grind of beans, the hiss of the machine heating up. Sounds that mean comfort and tell me I’m not alone.

She returns a few minutes later with two mugs. She’s added cream to mine, no sugar, exactly how I like it.

“So.” She settles beside me on the bed, careful not to sit on any of the notes. Her shoulder bumps against mine. “What happened?”

I wrap my hands around the mug, letting the heat seep into my palms. “I ran into him on Main.”

“And?” Her voice is gentle, patient. She’ll wait as long as it takes for me to find the words.

“He’s different.” I take a sip, letting the coffee ground me. “Bigger than I remember. Broader. Tattoos everywhere I could see.” I sniff. “But his eyes are the same.”

She picks up ‘The Grapes of Wrath,’ handling it carefully. Her fingers trace the worn spine, but she doesn’t open it.

“Did you talk?”

“Barely.” I take another sip of coffee. “I said ‘you’re back’because apparently that’s all my brain could come up with. He said my name. I asked where he was staying.”

“Did he tell you?”

“Cedar Street.”

Her head snaps up, eyebrows shooting toward her hairline. “Cedar?As intheCedar Street? Where the houses have three-car garages?”