Page 19 of What Boys Learn

Maybe he was right. Once I had the photos side by side, the barefoot girl didn’t look like a Scarlatti. She just looked like a slim, scared girl. A girl who was back home now, hopefully.

“Forward it to me,” he said.

“Why?”

“I’ll show you. But first you’ll have to give me back my phone.”

“Okay.”

A moment later, he opened the photo and moved it directly into the Google search bar. The image-based results showed a bunch of girls who looked nothing like the girl I’d seen.

“The search engine is focusing on her shirt, which you can evidently buy from some place called Zara. It can’t get a read on her face. Anyway, Google basically wants to sell you shit.”

“I didn’t realize you could search for a person that way.”

He shrugged. “We’re basically living in a totalitarian state.”

He slid his phone into his back pocket.

“Pizza,” I said, remembering. “It’ll taste better if you microwave it. I’ll join you in a minute.”

The garbage cans were located near the entrance to the basement, with its shared laundry room, next to our downstairs neighbor’s door. He was just coming out as I deposited my bag. Skunky smoke trailed behind him.

“Hey. Abby, right? You guys settling in okay?”

I tried not to make any rash judgments about his stringy hair or the egg yolk–colored stain on his dark Led Zeppelin shirt.

“Sort of.”

“Cool.”

I couldn’t tell how old he was, but if he was using a word like “cool” it meant he was probably closer to my age than Benjamin’s.

“I’m David, by the way.”

“You told me. The first time we met. When you apologized in advance for playing your music loud.” I heard my own tone—the voice of a mom who wasn’t going to be fun to live underneath.

“Well, come down and say hi anytime. And tell Benjamin I’ll show him another chord if he comes over again.”

“Benjamin’s come by?”

“Yeah, couple of times since you moved in.”

Couple of times? Another sign I couldn’t keep perfect tabs on my son’s location at every time, day or night.

I returned with a stack of shiny mail in my hand and set it on the counter. At this point, it should have been junk mail only, because our forwarding order would take a few more days, and yet I was cautious, and rightly so. A small white envelope slipped out from between two electronics store flyers.

My heart sped up, as it always did when I saw an envelope like this. Name and prisoner number in small, neat capitals in the upper left-hand corner. American flag in the right. I ripped it open and read the message, expecting some variation on what I’d received about every six months for years:I could use some help, you know. Most guys get visitors. Or:So I’ve got some new ideas about an appeal. Or:Never thought it was fair you inherited money from Dad and I only got a fraction. What Ewan didn’t realize was that our father had left him zilch. I’d taken $5,000 from my $18,000 inheritance and moved it into an account for him back in 2014, because I hated to see him getting nothing.

It was Ewan’s fault he was still locked up. Regardless of what he’d done as a violent and remorseless eighteenyear-old, only the minor charges had stuck. With good behavior, he might have been out within a few years. But Ewan had never been good. His first prison fights were with fellow convicts. Then he broke a guard’s rib. A year later, he gave another guard a concussion. Most infuriating to me was the time he attacked the prison dentist, who’d made the mistake of turning his back halfway through a routine exam.

Ewan’s requests for money were galling. But his new focus, over the last three years, was worse.

Must be about thirteen now.

Must be getting taller.

Must be almost ready to drive.