“Riley. She doesn’t work here anymore. Not since Covid, when she moved back to New Jersey. She never told me about it. I…” Vivian’s voice trails off. She runs her fingers along the top of the secretary. It has one of those drop-down lids, which she pulls down now.
It’s nearly identical to the one she searched through in the Knox, when Michael caught her. Now, he gives her a questioning look, one eyebrow peaked like a mountaintop.
“I…There could be something here. Something…about my family,” she says breathlessly.
She quickly pops out the dovetail drawer to the left, and Michael follows her lead, removing the one to the right. She runs her fingers along the wood adjacent to the column, looking for the same notch she’d previously found, but there is none. He does the same, running his fingers on the opposite side.
“It’s here,” he says, sounding excited.
She checks where he’s pointing. “You’re right! We just need a pin.”
“It’s a shame you’re not wearing a hairpin today,” Michael teases. He looks around. “Here, we can use this paper clip.” Heundoes the paper clip from the CAD drawings and extends the clip, so it has a long tentacle. “You do the honors.”
She inserts the clip into the notch, and it clicks into place, ejecting the column. She grasps the edge, pulling it out. It’s a deep wooden document folder, and she holds her breath as she peers inside.
“It’s empty,” she says, disappointment lacing her words. She turns it to show him as her shoulders collapse.
He takes the holder from her and turns it upside down, as if that will magically make something appear.
“Wait. Look here. I think this slides up.” He’s pulling on the back edge of the holder, and as the wood shifts, it reveals a false bottom. He takes a quick look inside and hands the holder back to her.
“Is there something in it?” she asks.
“See for yourself.”
She slips her fingers into the small false space, and they hit something paperlike. Very, very carefully, she tugs it out. It’s a scroll. Her heart quickening, she places the scroll onto the flat surface of the secretary.
Michael holds on to one end, while Vivian unrolls the other.
It’s the schedule of beneficiaries.
Taylor
Six Months After the Fire
One October day, the weather turns a page, the unusually hot autumn switching to a brisk, proper fall. With it comes a reality check. Taylor dons a repurposed Lingua Franca cashmere sweater and knocks on Sam’s door.
“I’m ready,” she says.
They walk quickly, with intention, though he is just mimicking her pace. If she stops even a moment, she thinks, she might not keep going.
It takes mere minutes from their apartment to reach Greenwich Lane, yet inside her, emotions layer, like thick coats of paint. As they turn the corner, they pass a lion sculpture seemingly guarding the street’s entrance—a detail she never noticed before. She never got close enough to notice.
The tears are fresh on her face, and Sam gives her shoulders a squeeze.
They make their way past redbrick townhouses. Trees on both sides lean forward to meet in a spidery canopy, their leaves partially fallen. A boy whizzes by on a scooter, his mother scampering behind. There is that contained sense of neighborhood, offamily order, canvases created: dinners and routines, Saturday playdates and Sunday morning pancakes. Lives lived—not lives lost.
Finally, they reach number 2, and only then does it hit Taylor that claustrophobia has not walked along with them.
Like the rest of the street, this townhouse emanates peace. A set of three stairs lead up to the wooden front door; the street-level windows don wrought iron grilles and window boxes filled with autumn’s mums and kale. Gray suede-looking drapes cascade down on the inside. Below, on the basement level, are a set of half-size windows not covered with any type of metal grille. The glass is clouded, as if covered with an opaque cloth. These windows are too small, she supposes, to need security bars; nobody would be able to break in through them.
And nobody could break out.
Taylor recalls what her father had once told her: The building itself was like a giant chimney. She can see that now, the way it rises, the outer brick walls like the outline of a smokestack. The furniture inside like logs, fuel for the fire roasting within. The roof: an unfortunately closed flute.
“You okay?” Sam asks, and she shrugs. They stand shoulder to shoulder, closer than they need to.
Taylor tries to put herself on the other side of the small basement window, in the moment that claimed her mother’s life, a moment with which she is now all too familiar: the choke of the thick smoke, the singeing heat, the ominous crackle of things burning.
