Page 72 of Songbird: Black Kite
After that, I figured the best place to start would be the letters. Her communication had been pretty consistent, so if she had reached out again after she’d seen our concert fifteen years ago, then that was where I’d find her.
Which led me to now. A full day and a half later, rummaging through boxes in my attic like a character in a Victorian era novel, and finding nothing.
Not one more letter, not a postcard or a death threat or anything.
It was like she went to the concert and then dropped off the face of the planet.
Except for that photo. The one on some other woman’s page, Wren’s name written in the caption. It appeared to be the only evidence that Wren Blackburn even existed.
Letting out a sound of pure frustration, I shoved the box to the side and sat back, draping my elbows over my knees as I huffed ragged breaths.
How could she have never written to me again? Was the show that terrible? Did she have a bad time?
Did she even go?
But if she hadn’t—if she’d never made it to the concert that she’d been so fuckin’ excited about, then why the fuck had I been seeing those eyes in my dreams for the last decade or more?
“Hawk?” Alex asked, all the humor gone from his voice now. Lifting my head, I met his concerned gaze as he joined me on the floor. “You wanna tell me what’s going on, buddy?”
“You’ll think it’s stupid,” I muttered, my eyes finding the spilled letters as the back of my neck grew hot.
“Probably,” he agreed lightly, and I rolled my eyes. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t also be helpful. Come on,” he cajoled, jostling me with his shoulder. “Tell Uncle Alex what’s bothering you.”
Figuring I had nothing to lose, I ran a hand down my face to try to drag away some of the sweat and attic grime before I explained.
“I’ve been getting these letters.”
“Yeah, dude. I know. We’ve been going through those boxes for months. Is this about the demos?” he tried. “Are you not happy with the ones you’ve picked?”
“It’s not about the demos. There have been...other letters. From one person in particular that I’ve been finding. The same person sending them. I’ve found four so far, and I was, I don’t know, putting together a story about this person. Getting a feel for their life and their plans. I was invested. But the letters stopped coming, and I got to thinking that maybe I just wasn’t looking hard enough. So I figured I’d dig deeper is all.”
There. That was a plausible excuse for the mania I’d experienced since I’d glimpsed those sad hazel eyes through my computer screen. No need to tell my friend that not only was I seriously fuckin’ invested in the story of Wren’s life that she had begun to weave through her letters, but that I was honestly questioning my sanity because of some half-remembered dreams and one fuzzy photo.
“Hang on,” Alex said, his forehead scrunched in concentration. “Several letters? Should these have gone in the sketchy stalker bin?”
“No, it wasn’t like that. These letters were just friendly. They were conversational. But the things she wrote—”
“There it is,” he cut in, nodding his head sagely. “I knew this was about a chick.”
“For fuck’s sake, Alex. We’re in our forties. Can you call them women?” He only laughed at me. “And it’s not about that. Not really.” Stretching out my cramping legs, I leaned back against the wall, Alex following my lead, the two of us sitting there, in the dirty attic that housed the skeletal remnants of our life’s work, just staring into space.
“Wren’s letters were important to me. They spoke to me in a way that I can’t really describe. I appreciated that she took the time to write, and that she shared so much of herself with me in them.”
But it was even more than that. In those letters, Wren had reached out to me. She’d expressed concern and care that no one else in my life had bothered to do at the time. Even though I didn’t get the letters until almost twenty years later, I appreciated her so much for taking the time. I’d been a fucked-up kid on a path of destruction, and she’d taken the time out of her own busy, difficult life to check on me.
That was a punch to the ribs I hadn’t quite come to terms with yet.
“So what’s the issue, then?” Alex asked, still not understanding my urgency.
“The issue is that her last letter said that she’d gotten tickets to one of our shows. She was stoked, could hardly write in a straight line for how excited she seemed. I was hoping that I’d get another telling me how she’d liked it, but so far...” I gestured around the destroyed room, the last of the boxes all open and ravaged. “Nothing.”
“Huh.”
“That’s it?” I scoffed. “I just told you I’ve spent the last two days searching for a needle in a haystack, chasing down some random fan who sent me a letter twenty years ago, and all you can say ishuh?”
“Hold on, dude. I’m processing.”
I stared at him, watching as he dramatically stroked his chin as though he was some kind of super villain, before he finally turned his head and smiled at me.
