Page 73 of A River of Crows

His face darkened. “I told you. I don’t want to talk about it. Now, do you want to see these pictures or not?”

Sloan scooted over to make room for her brother. “What school did you attend?”

“Cornell.”

Sloan rubbed the cover of the scrapbook. The words Freshman and Sophomore years written in black Sharpie. “Cornell,” she repeated. “Same as Mom.”

“Yeah.” Ridge reached over and turned to the first page. “This is the campus.”

Sloan saw that it wasn’t her brother’s handwriting below the picture. It was tiny, neat, and decorative. She turned the page and saw a photo of a younger Ridge, sitting in his dorm room surrounded by boxes. Big man on campus, day one, the caption read.

Sloan’s brain felt waterlogged. This was a book a mother would make. She lowered her eyes down the page and noticed a photo was missing. All that remained were the four corner tabs and a caption: We were so proud.

Sloan stared at the page until her vision blurred. Whoever was in that missing photo had likely taken Ridge and raised him as their own. “What happened to this picture?”

Ridge shrugged. “Must’ve fallen out somewhere.”

Her eyes bounced to the adjoining page, searching for more clues. Pictures of the dorm room were decorated with Chicago Bulls posters, signed jerseys, and ticket stubs. Whoever raised her brother had money—an expensive college, tickets to Chicago Bulls games. “Since when do you like basketball?”

Ridge scratched his cheek. “I got into it around middle school.”

“I see.” Sloan’s stomach tensed. None of this made sense. Ridge had developed a relationship with his captors. They were obviously terrible people to take a child, but not as terrible as Eddie Daughtry. These pictures, these captions, this life Ridge had lived, proved that.

Sloan turned page after page, looking at pictures of birds, football games, bonfires, and Ridge with various friends. Each photo captioned in the same loving handwriting. Ridge and Tracy, one caption read above a picture of Ridge with a pretty blonde.

“Girlfriend?” Sloan asked.

“She was. Didn’t stick.”

Sloan turned the page. There was a picture of Ridge wearing a suit and American flag tie, standing in a group of other well-dressed students, hands all clasped in front of them. Next to it, Ridge in the same suit and tie, holding a stack of blue “Dole/Kemp” yard signs. Hard at work with the Young Republicans, the caption read, a peeling American flag sticker above it.

Sloan pushed down the sticker’s edges. “You were a Young Republican?”

Ridge gave a curt nod. “Yeah, so?”

Sloan laughed. “Don’t tell Mom and Dad.”

Ridge joined her, but his was a nervous laughter. Did he even know their parent’s political beliefs? He’d left so young and been gone so long, probably not. He probably didn’t even consider them Mom and Dad.

A few pages later, Sloan found a second spot with a missing picture. Home for Christmas, it read, a hand-drawn string of lights looping through the words.

Ridge flipped the page before Sloan had the chance to comment. “Check out the snow we got that January.”

Sloan pressed her back against the couch. This felt just the same as finding out about her father’s secret life all those years ago.

“This is a lot to take in,” she said. “Mind if I take it and look at it later?”

“Oh yeah, you bet.” Ridge closed the book for her. “Be sure you put it somewhere Mom won’t see it.”

“Yeah, of course.” Sloan picked up her drink, downing it in one guzzle.

“What about you?” Ridge asked. “Do you have any pictures?”

“I have some with friends and stuff,” she said. “And Mom has a few scrapbooks of us when we were kids somewhere.”

“I’d love to see them.”

Sloan picked at the tab on her empty can. “I’ll check the attic.”

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