Page 54 of Before She Disappeared

I do.

A second chair, slapped down next to the first. Then a pause, as he disappears and I close my eyes, count to a hundred by fives, then when that doesn’t work, by sevens. I’d just hit eighty-four when Stoney reappears with two mugs of coffee.

“Decaf.” He keeps one, hands over the other. He takes up position across from me. We both sip our coffee in silence.

“You married?” I ask him at last. The pressure is easing in my chest, but I grip my coffee mug hard, like an anchor. Another trick. Rattle off five things you can see right now in as much visual detail as possible. “I spy with my little eye” as a grounding exercise. If that doesn’t work, then five things for five senses. The smell of freshly brewed coffee. The sound of the buzzing overhead lights. The feel of the warm mug. The look on Stoney’s impassive face. The taste of regret.

Stoney takes his time answering. “Was. She died. Ovarian cancer.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Had thirty amazing years. Appreciated every minute. Makes me luckier than most.”

“Kids?”

“Three. Two girls and a boy. One of my girls lives in Florida now. Keeps asking me to join her and her family. But this is my home.”

“You grow up here?”

“New Jersey. But moved here when I was in my teens. Close enough.”

“This neighborhood, this bar, these are your memories.”

“I see my Camille everywhere,” Stoney affirms. “And I’m not complaining.”

“Grandkids?”

“Four. Ages three to eight. Two in Florida, two in New York.”

“All three of your kids are married?”

“My two girls. Jerome, my son, died at sixteen. Not easy to be a young Black man. Harder still, when you’re sixteen, stupid, and susceptible to your peers.”

As usual with Stoney, it’s what he doesn’t say that matters most. “Gangs or drugs?” I ask at last.

“Drugs. Broke his mother’s heart.” His father’s, too, but that went without saying.

“Gonna die in this bar?” I ask him.

“That’s the plan.”

“What’s it like?” I whisper. “To know exactly what you want? To know this is your home? To feel like you belong?”

Stoney doesn’t answer, but then, I don’t expect him to.

“You know the family?” His turn to question. “The missing girl, Badeau?”

“No. This is what I do. I look up cold cases involving missing persons. Then I find them.”

“How many?”

“Fourteen.”

“How long?”

“Nine years. More or less.”

“How’d you get started?”

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