Page 89 of If Anything Happens To Me

And it did. But not what I thought it would be.

He didn’t kiss me.

“Feel like seeing some birds?” he asked.

“Always,” I said.

“I know somewhere we can go. We have to turn it back into the place we always loved. The place we know better than anyone,” he said.

He didn’t have to tell me where it was. I just knew, as surely as I had ever known anything before. We climbed into the dinghy and set the sails. The wind was at our backs, and long and slow, we sailed downwind back to shore. We went to my house, and I ran upstairs to change. I grabbed my Sibley birds guide, my binoculars, and a sun hat. I had hardly used them in months.

Twenty minutes later, we drove into the Braided Woods.

We had to drive past the grave. It was unavoidable, in order to get to our real destination. I was relieved to see that the yellow crime scene tape had been taken down—for the second time. It had been there for three investigations—Fitch’s murder of Eloise, his attempted murder of Iris, and his eventual capture. Now those rock croppings, the stately boulders, that granite crevice, the white pines, and the red oaks could return to their ancient loveliness. The terror was over.

Matt drove the Jeep to the place we had always gone, the site of endless birding happiness: the location of the blind. Sunlight shimmered through the leaves overhead. July was beautiful in its own way, but most people would say it wasn’t the most exciting time for birding. Nesting was over; the first broods had been hatched. Fall migration was at least a month from starting—that would begin in August, a good month before it was fall on the calendar. There weren’t too many rarities around now; the possibility of seeing a life bird—a first-time sighting—was low.

But summer birds were alluring, too. Two different osprey families had built nests at Hubbard’s Point. But here in the woods, this was an excellent time to concentrate on identifying sparrows and finches, the less flashy “backyard birds” that tend to look so much alike.

At first, their dun-colored plumage looked dull. But the more you gazed, the more you saw shades of chestnut, mahogany, silver-gray, molten gold. You’d notice white eye rings and wing bars, black masks, pointed bills, cone-shaped bills. When Matt and I entered the blind, sat down on two of the tree stumps that we had always used as makeshift benches, I was looking forward to settling in, focusing on learning more about species I had been seeing forever.

“Hey,” he said, reaching for a piece of paper wedged into the blind’s weathered wood.

“What is it?” I asked.

Matt unfolded the paper. It was unlined, three-by-five inches, torn from one of the Moleskine notebooks most of us used to keep notes about our birding excursions. I leaned closer and saw Chris’s handwriting.

Oli, Matt, both of you.

I’m sure you’re going to see this sooner or later. I know our main birding time is during migration. We did it in spring, and we will do it this coming fall. That’s going to remind me of last year. It’ll remind you, too.

It’s when we were all together for the last time. You two, me and Eloise, Adalyn, and Fitch.

“Me and Eloise”—Hurts to write that.

Hurts to write “Fitch,” too.

I know I haven’t been around much. I wasn’t there for you, with you, when the stuff with Fitch went down. I still can’t believe it. Did you have any idea about him? I didn’t. I drove to the prison yesterday and sat outside for a long time. I wanted to visit him, ask him why he did it. Can he even have visitors? I have no idea.

He killed Eloise, that’s the thing. So why would I ever want to sit there and listen to him say anything?

It’s hard with friends, to see the worst in them when you’ve always seen only the best. When that’s all you thought there was. I don’t want to say I held him on a pedestal, but I imagined us going through school together. Black Hall, but maybe even college and med school. I pictured us becoming doctors and supporting each other’s practice and research.

I thought we’d be birding together our whole lives.

All of us—I thought we’d be hanging out in this blind for a million more migrations. I am dreading fall—next time I’m here, it will remind me of last October. The ninth. The last time I saw her. Can we come here together that day? Can we look for owls? She loved owls. That might make it better. If anything can make it better.

See you,

Chris

Matt and I sat in the blind, not speaking for a long time. I thought about October. It was still months from now. October 9 was an anniversary that would come every year. I had been pushing the thought away, dreading it, but somehow Chris’s note made it possible for me to let it in. Days ticked by, month after month. That was the way of life. Good memories, unwanted memories. Eloise and I had learned that when we had lost our parents.

Now I was learning it all over again, and so were our friends.

“I like his idea,” Matt said. “Meeting him here that day.”

I nodded. “He’s right. Being together might make it better.”

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