Olive Juice by TJ Klune (2)

“Goddammit,” he said hoarsely. “Goddammit.”

“Gentlemen,” Melissa said, apparently unable to read a fucking room. If so, she would have seen David’s posture screaming that right now probably wasn’t the best time. “How are we?”

“Fine,” Phillip said, never taking his eyes off David. “We’re fine.”

“Do we need to pack some of this up to go?” she asked.

“In my experience,” Phillip said, “fish is never good reheated. No offense, please. Our eyes were apparently bigger than our stomachs.”

“It happens,” Melissa said with a jovial little laugh. “I don’t suppose I could interest you in any dessert?”

“No,” Phillip said.

“Coffee?”

“No.”

“Would you like me to clear the plates?”

“That would be fine, thank you.”

And she did just that. She was about to leave when she frowned and looked down at David. “Sir, I seemed to have grabbed a receipt. Was it something you needed?”

Sure enough, the receipt with Matteo’s phone number was stuck partially to the underside of the plate. For a brief, vicious moment, David thought about snagging it back, maybe even saving the number in his phone right in front of Phillip. Hell, maybe he’d even use it. Maybe he’d fuck the kid who apparently had a fetish for sad middle-aged men with a receding hairline and sunken eyes. Or maybe Matteo had thought he was doing his good deed for the day, hitting on the old fart, making him feel good about himself. The number was probably fake.

Even so.

Phillip wouldn’t know that.

He touched the ring in his pocket instead, underneath the table, where no one could see.

“No,” he said. “I don’t need it.”

Her smile widened as if it was the greatest thing she’d ever heard. Then she left.

He didn’t look back up at Phillip. The ring grounded him. God, Alice had been smiling so wide that day, her dress beautiful, and—

“This needs to stop,” Phillip finally said.

David thought about ignoring him.

Instead, he said, “What does?”

“This.” He sounded frustrated. “You. Existing like this. Like you have nothing else. Like everything was taken from you.”

It might as well have been, but David didn’t say that aloud. He wasn’t cruel. At least not anymore. “I don’t know how else to be,” he said, admitting more than he wanted to. “This is all I’ve got right now. I’m sorry if that’s not enough for you.” Okay, yeah, maybe a little cruel.

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”

“Do I?”

“David.”

“I wasn’t the one who texted you,” David said, wondering when he’d been backed into this corner. He felt his hackles rise, like he needed to lash out. Like he needed to scratch and bite and draw blood until Phillip backed away. “I mean—I didn’t try and—”

“No,” Phillip said. “You didn’t. That was me. And I meant it, buddy.”

I want to see you.

“Why?” David asked. “Why do you even—”

“Why?” Phillip asked, sounding incredulous. And here it was, the anger that he hadn’t ever wanted to see again. “You really have to ask me why?”

Which, okay. That probably hadn’t been the best question to ask. But while it hadn’t exactly been radio silence between them, it hadn’t been like this. David’s days were regimented: get up, eat breakfast, don’t drink, go online, check the website’s e-mail to see if any tips had come in, get to work, break for lunch even though he didn’t eat anything, check the e-mail again, go back to work, finish for the day, make dinner, check the e-mail for the last time, scour the Internet for anything remotely similar to Alice’s disappearance (and hadn’t that been a rabbit hole the first couple of years because just how many people disappeared without a trace every year? A staggering number as it had turned out, and only a small percentage of them were ever found), and then go to bed. The next day, it would start all over again. Mondays were the only days that were ever any different, because those were the days he’d call Detective Harper at three on the dot. She’d say, “Detective Harper,” and he’d say, “Hi, it’s David,” and she’d say, “Hey, David, how are you?” like they were just shooting the shit.

He would lie and say he was fine, thank you very much, and then he’d ask the question he dreaded more than anything in the world, not because of the question itself, but because of the answer.

“Any updates?” he’d say on Mondays at three.

This was his life.

So yes, he had to ask why. Why would Phillip want to see him? Why would Phillip want to have any part of his life the way it was now? Why would Phillip even want to be in the same room as David, especially given the things David had said to him at the end of the fourth year, no longer soaked in alcohol but still unable to deal. Those words hurtled at him, each one landing like a bullet to the stomach, saying things like you don’t care as much about her as I do and if you did, you would be doing more and Why do you keep referring to her in the past tense? Why do you always do that? Do you want her to be dead? Is that what you want, you fucking asshole? Is that what this is? Do you want them to find her body just so you can fucking feel better about yourself? It’s like you don’t even care about her. Why aren’t you out there looking, Phillip? Why aren’t you out there trying to find her like I am? Why don’t you love her like I do?

He’d never believed it. He never believed any of what he’d said.

But he’d said it just the same.

And the horror on Phillip’s face at those words was something David would never forget as long as he lived. The anguish, like David had broken him, was enough that David wanted to apologize right then and there and promise to never say anything like that again.

He hadn’t, though.

He’d been cornered then, too, by things like this isn’t healthy, David. This isn’t what she would have wanted for you. You need help. You’re not drinking like you did, and that’s good, but David, you need more than what I can offer. And I want that for you. I want that for you so bad. Please, David. Please let me get some help for you.

It’d all fallen apart then.

And it was David’s fault. He knew that. He knew that better than anyone.

If their roles had been reversed, if it’d been Phillip saying those terrible things, David couldn’t be sure that he would ever want to see him again.

So, yes. He had to ask why. “After everything I’ve done,” he said. “After… just. After.”

“Jesus Christ,” Phillip said, scrubbing his hand over his face. “David, I can’t even—”

“Gentlemen,” Melissa said, and David felt like screaming. “I’ll take this whenever you’re ready. No rush.” She placed a black folder on the table.

Johnny Mathis sang that it was the most wonderful time of the year.

Phillip said, “You can take it now,” with a strained smile on his face as he leaned forward, pulling his wallet out. David didn’t even try and argue over the bill. Phillip pulled a card out and shoved it at Melissa.

“I’ll be right back with this, then,” she said before she swirled away.

“I need you to listen to me,” Phillip said before David could do anything. “Are you listening?”

“Yes,” David said helplessly.

“This… this whole thing, everything, it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t Alice’s fault.”

No. No. “You don’t get it,” David said, shaking his head. “You just don’t get it. I should have—”

“There was nothing you could have done,” Phillip said fiercely. “Yeah, I wish you hadn’t said the shit you said, buddy, and I wish I hadn’t come after you like I had, but I can’t blame you. Even if I thought I could for the longest time, I can’t blame you for that. She wouldn’t either. She wouldn’t want this for you. For either of us.”

“Don’t,” David said, hands in fists on the tabletop. “Don’t do this. Not now. Not here.”

“When should I do it, then, David?” Phillip asked, eyes narrowing. “When would be the perfect time for you, because I am tired.” His voice cracked, and David thought his heart was splitting right down the middle. He could never deal with it very well when Phillip was upset, wanting to hunt down and destroy whatever had hurt him. It’d been worse when it’d been David himself, and he was still filled with such self-loathing at what he’d done. The things he’d said. “I’m tired of—of this. Of all of this. You as you are. Me as I am. Existing separately like that’s the way things should be. It’s shit. It’s fucking shit and you know it. I don’t deserve this. And neither do you.”

“What do you want me to do about it?” David snapped at him, trying to keep himself under control. It’d been a long time since he’d felt anything other than a dull, bittersweet ache in the center of his chest, and he didn’t want any of it. “What exactly do you think I should do?”

“I want you to accept what happened,” Phillip said. “I want you to open your eyes. David. David. She’s—she’s gone, okay? And she’s not—she’s not going to come back—”

David slammed his hand on the table.

Phillip flinched, eyes bright and wet.

Melissa came, opened her mouth, but David glared at her. She looked at Phillip, then back at David, and set the black folder gently on the table, the credit card sticking out the top. She began to back away slowly

Nat King Cole was singing about the little town of Bethlehem.

And David didn’t want to be here anymore.

He wanted to go home.

He wanted to curl up in his bed, the blankets over his head.

More than anything, he wanted it to be March 21, 2012, and he wanted it to be on the phone with her, and before she’d hang up, he’d say, hey, sweetheart, and maybe she’d grumble a little at being called that, but he’d say it anyway, and he’d say, I love you, Alice, I love you, I love you, I love you, and she would probably laugh at him, calling him an old fuddy-duddy, and that he was being silly, but David wouldn’t care. Goddammit, he wouldn’t care. That was what he wanted more than anything in the world. Just to have one more day. Just a little more time.

He stood quickly, knees knocking against the table.

“I have to go,” he said, voice flat.

“No,” Phillip said. “David, can you just sit down—”

People were staring at them now, even Matteo, who was probably regretting hitting on the crazy old guy right now, but David couldn’t find the strength to care. His vision was tunneling, and he needed to get out of here, out of the low lights, the Christmas music singing out overhead, reminding him that he’d sat alone in the dark on the couch on Christmas Day, the TV on in the background, staring off into nothing for hours, his phone turned off. The day had passed by in a blur, and then David had moved onto the next and the next and the next until Phillip had said I want to see you.

He should have said no.

He let himself have one last look at Phillip, I love you more than you could possibly know lodged in his throat, sticky and cloying and unable to get out. He almost tripped over the table leg, but ended up only stumbling before catching himself. People were still staring. They probably thought he was drunk, and he didn’t care. He would never see them again. There were no more staycations after this. He’d never come back here.

He was moving before he even finished the thought.

The hostess, God bless her young and precious heart, had his coat and scarf and umbrella waiting for him, as if she knew he needed to get out as quickly as possible. He grunted at her as he clutched his coat against his chest, trying to get his key fob out, ignoring Phillip saying his name somewhere behind him.

He was in the lobby, shoes squeaking against the floor. The woman with the shaved head smiled at him and asked a question he didn’t quite get, so he just kept on without stopping. The doors slid opened, and cold air slammed into him even as he heard someone chasing after him.

He was in the rain and it was startling how cold it was against his skin. He was soaked as easy as one, two, three, his breath a cloud around his face as he exhaled sharply. He blinked away the water, trying to remember where the fuck he had parked, and he just wanted to go home to his shitty apartment that wasn’t a home, it wasn’t a home, it wasn’t—

“David!”

He didn’t stop.

“David, goddammit!”

There. There was the SUV. He was almost—

“David! David. She was my fucking daughter too!”

And David Greengrass stopped.

Closed his eyes.

Took in a shaky breath.

She’d come in like a hurricane, hadn’t she? David had met Phillip in 1992, and God, they’d just loved each other more than life itself. Maybe David had gotten there first, and quicker than anyone thought, but by the time their friends had given birth to the prettiest little girl in the world the next year, David and Phillip had already been talking about moving in together. They’d been at the hospital when little Alice Marie Hughes had come into the world, all wet and slimy, crying furiously. Ronny and Keesha had been exhausted, but proud. They were so goddamn proud, and when Ronny had clasped him on the arm, a cigar in his mouth, asking if David and Phillip would be her godparents, David had nodded, eyes wide, fingers trembling, Phillip at his side.

“In case you can’t tell by the look on his face,” Phillip had said fondly, “we’d love to.”

Yeah, they’d loved it. They’d loved it so much. Which is why, when Ronny and Keesha had died in a car accident (drunk driver ran a red light, didn’t get a scratch on him, and wasn’t that just the way things worked out?) they’d found out wills had been drafted, naming David and Phillip as who they wanted Alice to go to should anything happen to them.

It was… dangerous. The AIDS crisis was still in the back of everyone’s mind, but then Keesha’s mother had come forward, wide and intimidating as any person David had ever met and said that she couldn’t take care of Alice, not like David and Phillip could. She was living off her pension and had diabetes. Ronny’s parents were dead. No one else was there to care for her.

And maybe they’d hidden Phillip for the longest time, not disclosing their relationship. Maybe David was the only person listed as Alice’s parent, but that was okay. They’d come to that decision together, and when she was two, she came home with them, to their little house that already had a room set aside just for her whenever she came to stay the night, all pinks and princesses and unicorns.

He’d watched her that first night for hours as she slept, sure that if he looked away, she’d disappear as if she’d never been there at all.

The next year, she called him Daddy for the first time. She called Phillip Papa.

They’d both cried.

She was the flower girl at their wedding in the backyard, stamping her feet, glaring at the both of them for daring to be late, and don’t you see my dress, Daddy? Don’t you see how pretty my hair looks, Papa?

Yeah. They’d seen. They’d seen all of it.

And she was seven when they’d sat her down and showed her pictures of where she’d come from, explaining that while he and Phillip were her parents, she also had another set of parents who had loved her very, very much, and were with God now. She looked at the pictures with wide eyes, glancing through all of them, then back up at David and Phillip.

They’d waited.

Finally, she said, “Will I see them again?”

“Yes, sweetheart,” David had said. “You’ll see them again.”

“And you still love me?”

“More than anything in the world,” Phillip had said, a hand in her hair.

“Okay,” she’d said. “Okay.”

And she’d grown. Good God, how she had grown. She went from little girl to awkward, moody tween, to a goddamn beauty queen, this statuesque woman who they loved and were terrified for in equal measure. She was fearless, sarcastic, and oh so funny, with this great, dusky laugh that sounded like she’d been drinking whiskey for years. She got everything she wanted from her fathers; all she had to do was look at them with her big dark eyes and David and Phillip were absolutely helpless.

When she was ten, another girl asked her why her parents were both white and both men when she was black. Who was her mother? Didn’t she know she needed one too? David had been borderline furious, ready to go and berate some little girl he didn’t know, and Phillip was already plotting how to get away with it, but Alice had looked at both of them and laughed, saying she already handled it. “I told her that I was so lucky, God gave me two sets of parents in different colors. And then I told her to mind her own damn business.”

She was twelve when her grandmother passed. She’d cried, but she’d said, “I’m sad, but I’m happy too because I still have you. I didn’t know you could be sad happy.”

When she was thirteen, she told them both that she’d started bleeding. “You know,” she’d said. “Down there.” And of course they’d both freaked out, because they never had to deal with anything like that before. And didn’t that make them the worst parents in the world? Jesus Christ, they weren’t ready for that. She’d sighed, like she was disappointed in the both of them, and then dragged them all to the computer, and they’d sat down for an hour on some bright and flashy website that talked about boybands and which actor had been shirtless where and wasn’t he dreamy (“He really is,” Phillip had said before David had smacked him upside the head), but it’d also had a section for SIGNS FOR YOUR FIRST PERIOD, and they’d both read through it, all three of them grimacing before David had gone to the store with specific instructions on what to buy.

And when she was sixteen, she said to Phillip, “You should adopt me too, because I want it to be real for you like it is for me. Can we do that? It’s 2009. It’s time we get this going, Papa. Get our asses in gear.” There’d been tears for that too. But they’d done just as she’d asked.

She was seventeen when she became a Greengrass, “like, for real, for real, because now I’ve got you both.” And even though they’d had their funny little ceremony when she was still so new in their lives, and Phillip had had his name legally changed a short time later, she’d insisted that they get married, “like, for real, for real,” when it became legalized in the District of Columbia in March of 2010. So they had, riding the train down to get their marriage license, hands clasped, grinning at her as she threw flower petals on the Metro, making sure everyone knew where they were going and what they were doing.

She’d cried that time when they kissed in their tuxes.

And then she graduated, and David and Phillip had been the loudest parents there, because goddammit, their baby girl was walking across that stage, and she was doing so with a 3.75 GPA, and a partial scholarship to George Washington University. Even though they told her she could go anywhere, that she could do anything she wanted to do, she told them she wanted to stay right where she was. When they told her they’d been saving a college fund for her ever since the first day she’d been theirs, so of course she could live on campus if she wanted to and get that full college experience. “Riiight,” she’d said. “And leave the two of you without me? No offense, guys, but we both know you’d be lost without me. I think I’ll stick around for a little while yet to make sure you’ll be okay in the end.”

And she’d kept that promise.

Until March 22, 2012, when her purse was found and she was not.

Oh, the terror they’d both felt then, the unimaginable terror that consumed them both and shattered them into the tiniest of pieces. He remembered, vaguely, how anytime he’d been watching the news or looking online before and there being a story about a woman disappearing or being murdered, and how he’d think to himself, almost absently, Thank God that’s not my daughter, and maybe he’d hug her a little tighter when he’d see her next after that, not even realizing what he was doing. But nothing, nothing could compare to what it felt like to actually have it happen to them. They always thought that. Everyone did. Even if it was unconsciously, everyone thought it: At least it didn’t happen to me.

But then it did happen to them, it did happen to David and to Phillip, and they’d understood then what it meant when people said, “You don’t know what it’s like until it happens to you.” Because they loved her, they loved her more than they loved their own selves, they were her parents, for fuck’s sake, and she was there until she wasn’t, and no one knew, none of their friends or people they considered their family, none of them knew because it hadn’t happened to them yet.

Oh sure, they tried, they hugged David and Phillip, they cried with them, they scoured the city with them, burying the streets with her picture, demanding of everyone that passed, “Have you seen this woman? She’s missing, tell me, have you seen her?”

Everyone would take the flyers, the thousands and thousands of flyers that were printed, and they’d smile sympathetically and shake their heads, and David knew what they were thinking, he fucking knew it.

At least it didn’t happen to me.

The police came for them when they finally got their asses in gear, the trail already days old. He was so angry about that, but in hindsight, he should have expected it. Alice wasn’t dating anyone, her last boyfriend having left for Seattle for school. The parting had been amicable (“He’s just a boy, Daddy,” Alice had said, rolling her eyes. “I’m not sad because I have the rest of my life for boys”), and he had an alibi, so he was cleared. After that, it left the parents, and it was fine, they had to rule everyone out so they could focus, but David was so angry at their intrusiveness. “Have you ever hit your daughter?” they had asked him. “Have you ever put your hands on her?”

“No,” David had said, eyes bulging from his head, convinced that this had to be a nightmare that he could not wake up from. That he was still in his bed, twisting and turning, the sheets tangled against his sweaty skin, and maybe, just maybe, he’d open his eyes, and there would be that moment, that breathtaking moment that is one of the greatest human experiences: waking from a nightmare and realizing it wasn’t real.

“Did she do drugs?” they asked him. “Sleep around? Have men over or stay out late?”

“No.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“The morning she disappeared.”

“How did she seem?”

“Good. She was good. She was….”

“It’s okay. Take your time, Mr. Greengrass.”

“She was happy. She had a paper due that next Friday that she’d worked hard on. She said—she said it’d kicked her ass and she was happy to finally be done with it. She said that. She said she was happy. She was taking the day off to just… be. She was going to get coffee and read in a park somewhere. She did that, sometimes. It was….”

“What was the last thing she said to you?”

And, oh, was that something he’d never forget. The phone call had come the night before, that she’d be late because of the fire farther down the line, but she’d gotten home eventually and had finished that paper, and she’d come down the stairs, crowing loudly how good she was, stopping in front of David and Phillip, who were curled on the couch. She’d finished and it felt good. Then she’d lifted her bare foot and pushed it between them, wiggling her leg back and forth until they moved, something she’d done since she was a little girl. They’d laughed as they always had and separated, and she’d sat down between them, feet in Phillip’s lap, head on David’s shoulder, and that was that.

“I’m going to take tomorrow off,” she’d said after a little while. She sounded soft and sleepy. “Only have one class. Nothing due. I think I earned it.”

“Yeah, sweetheart,” David had said. “You’ve earned it.”

“Take a day,” Phillip had agreed.

Phillip was already at the bookstore and David in his office by the time she’d rolled out of bed. He’d heard her clanking around the kitchen, and then she’d come in, rubbing her eyes and yawning, saying “G’morning, Daddy,” and he’d said, “Morning, sweetheart,” and she’d taken his coffee mug and refilled it for him. He’d thanked her distractedly, never taking his eyes from the laptop.

A little while later, she’d popped her head back in, dressed, hair pulled back and covered in a teal bandana, earrings dangling from her ears, and she’d said, “I’m off! I’ll be back later. I’ve got my phone if you need me, okay?”

And every day for the last six years, David regretted what he’d said next. If he’d known what was to come, if he’d known and there’d been no way to stop it, he’d have gotten up from behind his desk and gone to her. He’d have hugged her tightly, whispering in her ear that she had made him the happiest he’d ever been, that he’d been scared when she’d come to live with them because she’d been so tiny, but that she’d made him a better man, that for the rest of his life, he would always think of himself as a father because she gave that to him. He’d have said that he loved her more than anything in the world.

Instead, he had barely looked up and said, “Have a good day. I’ll see you later.”

Have a good day.

I’ll see you later.

She had smiled at him.

Then she was gone.

Have a good day.

I’ll see you later.

“That was the last thing she said to me,” David had told the police. “And that was the last thing I said to her.”

The detective had smiled sympathetically at him.

And then asked if Alice had ever run off before. Maybe she’d gotten herself into something she couldn’t get out of. “She have a pimp?” the detective had asked.

David had been barely able to stop himself from reaching across the desk and grabbing the detective by the back of his neck and slamming his face against the table. “Would you be asking me these same questions if she was white?” he’d spat.

“Of course, sir,” the detective had said, sounding coolly amused. “Of course we would.”

He hadn’t believed that in the slightest.

He should have taken that as a sign. He and Phillip would learn very quickly that many people were, at best, indifferent to a missing black woman. The worst of them were dismissive. They were on the news in DC and in Virginia and Maryland, but it faded. Within a week. They watched in horror as she went from the second or third story to not even being mentioned at all. They’d been outraged, as had Alice’s friends, and GWU had held a vigil for her, a candlelight vigil, and later, much, much later, David would find the photos from that night of him standing on the stage with his arm around Phillip’s shoulders. Phillip, whose face was pressed against David’s neck while David himself spoke to the large crowd that had stood before him.

And when night came, when they would both be wide-awake and staring at the ceiling, unable to even contemplate sleep even though they were both so, so tired, he would think to himself, You keep going, sweetheart. Wherever you are, you keep going, because your papa and I are coming for you. I will not stop. I will never stop.

One thing that they don’t tell you is that fires can’t burn bright forever.

So even though he wanted to keep on going, and even though he did as best he could, David’s fire faded eventually, and somewhere in the booze-soaked third year, he realized he’d spent the last two days in his office working and not out combing the streets or organizing another search party or scouring the Internet message boards or calling the police, demanding they do more than they’d done.

It’d hit him very hard.

He hadn’t remembered much about the week that followed, too drunk to function.

And there were others, weren’t there? So many others like him and Phillip, parents, children, brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, so many goddamn people who had someone they loved that one day just disappeared. David and Phillip were shocked by just how many people there were like them, how many people who understood their frantic words, their dead eyes, the way their hands shook. Mothers whose daughters had gone to work and had never come home. Sisters whose brothers had gone hiking and had never been seen again.

They never gave up, they said.

And the fire would always burn.

But it wouldn’t burn as bright has it once had.

And that’s when David first felt it.

He breathed.

He ached.

He lived.

And then there were the deaths. Those daily little deaths where it felt like pieces of himself were just sloughing off as the weeks went by, as it got further and further away from March 22, 2012, and then it was March 22, 2013, and there was a renewed interest, and then it died until March 22, 2014, and it got to the point where he lived for the anniversary, because people would care again, people would take a brief moment to give two shits about his missing little girl who, when she turned seven, had decided that she would like to grow up to work with chimpanzees, because she wanted to marry Jane Goodall and they would live in the forest with the chimps and the apes and the monkeys, and they would be happy.

Each of those memories was a death. A tiny, little death.

Then it came to the point where he said the things he couldn’t take back, accusing Phillip of things that weren’t true at all, and he had said the words, wanting to cut and slice and hurt the man standing before him, even if he hadn’t meant any of it.

“I think,” Phillip had gasped, face wet, breath hitching in his chest, “that you need to go. Please.”

And so he’d gone. Because he’d never been able to resist when Phillip said please.

He’d found a shitty apartment, and he’d moved out, and it’d been fine, or so he’d told himself. It was fine because it gave him more time to do what he needed to bring Alice home, to find her and make everything okay again. Once he did that, he’d told himself, then he could move back home and he and Phillip and Alice would be a family again, and maybe one day they’d look back on this and find the strength to laugh about it, laugh at how scared they’d been, about how they’d almost given up hope.

And it would happen, right? After all, there had been those women in Ohio in 2013 who had been rescued from the home where they’d been held for a decade. Alice could be going through the same thing. It was a parent’s worst nightmare, but at least she’d be alive. At least she would be alive and David could deal with all the rest.

He’d known that all it took was him not giving up hope.

That’s all that it would take.

Because the moment he did, the moment he stopped believing in her, that was the moment she was gone for good and there’d be no one else fighting for her.

So yeah, he’d left when Phillip asked him to.

He lived in a shitty apartment.

He called Detective Harper every Monday.

And some days, when he was feeling his lowest, when he thought maybe the fire was about to go out, he’d get on the train with a single lily in his hand and he’d get off at the Foggy Bottom–GWU Metro stop, climbing those stairs until he was out on the sidewalk. He’d see that Whole Foods, and there’d be those little bushes right near them, and he’d put the lily on the ground right where Digger had found her purse. People would stare at him curiously, watching him kneeling with his head bowed, but he’d ignore them. He’d ignore them and he’d think I am breathing, I am aching, I am living, and even though I die these little deaths, you are my daughter and I will never stop.

The fire would burn a little brighter then.

That was the life of David Greengrass.

That was how he breathed.

That was how he ached.

That was how he lived.

That was how he died these little deaths.

When he opened his eyes again, his husband was standing in front of him in the rain outside of the hotel where they’d have their staycations, their little getaways that Alice would tease them for, saying she didn’t want to know what they got up to in the hotel room, that she’d just eaten, Daddy and Papa, that was just guh-ross, did they want to scar her for life?

His husband. Phillip. One of his two great loves.

Who had just yelled that Alice had been his daughter too.

Because she had been.

That might have been David’s biggest mistake out of all of this. That he’d driven away the one person who understood exactly what he was going through, the one person who knew how much it hurt to see her picture. The one person who knew just how devastating having an active imagination could be, able to think of any one of a hundred different scenarios, of the worst possible things that could have been done to their daughter. That she was trapped in a dark room somewhere, held by a monster, and that she would scream for them—

David had been so focused on Alice and his own pain that he’d barely thought of Phillip at all. Oh sure, he’d known Phillip was at his side, and he’d held him when Phillip had cried, but it’d almost been a cursory thing, something that he was required to do. It was terrible. David was terrible.

Phillip had stuck it out much longer than he should have. He’d put up with David’s shit, had rubbed his back as David had vomited alcohol, had stood by David’s side as he’d pleaded for someone to just fucking help Alice come home. He’d done all of that.

And David had repaid him by telling him he hadn’t loved Alice as much as him.

I want to see you.

David wanted to see him too.

More than anything.

He didn’t deserve it.

He didn’t deserve any of it.

And yet here they were.

Standing in the cold, in the rain, on a late winter’s evening, face to face after not having seen each other in almost eight months.

This was what his life had become.

“She was my daughter too,” Phillip growled at him now, as if trying to convince them both that it was true.

“I—”

“No, you listen to me, David. You listen to me right now.”

David closed his mouth.

Water sluiced down Phillip’s face. His skin was pale. His breaths came out in quick little puffs, swirling up around his head.

David had missed him.

He’d missed him so very much.

So he listened.

“She was taken,” Phillip said angrily. “From both of us. I know she was your little girl, and I know that you were close, but you forget that she was my daughter too. She came to you when she scraped her knee, but I was the one who bandaged her up. You’d do the voices when you read her a story, but I would be the one to tuck her in. I was there for the parent-teacher conferences, the time she decided to try cigarettes and threw up all over the carpet, when she told us she’d had sex for the first time and you had to stop me from going to that little fucking asshole’s house and ripping his goddamn dick off. I was there when she took her first step. When she rode her bike without training wheels. When she broke her arm. When she lost her first tooth and then a second one the very next day. When she came to us and told us that she loved us, but she needed to learn what it meant to be black. When she laughed. When she cried. When she was here and when she wasn’t, I was there, David. I was right there with you and you don’t get the monopoly on missing our daughter, because there isn’t a day that goes by that I wouldn’t give anything for her. Anything.”

Maybe it was just the rain, but it looked like Phillip was crying a little. David was surprised to find that after everything, his heart could break just a little bit further. It did, and the pain was bright and glassy, and he took in this great, gasping breath. It felt like the first one in forever, like he just breached the surface after being underwater so long that he thought his lungs would burst.

His shoulders shook.

He bowed his head.

Phillip was breathing just as heavily, still standing right in front of David. They weren’t touching, but it was a near thing, their hands almost brushing together. David didn’t say anything, not because he couldn’t think of a single word, but because he was full of too many of them. He wanted to give Phillip all the words he needed to hear, and he couldn’t decide which one to say first, which one was more important. And maybe he still hated Phillip, just a little, for saying that she wasn’t coming back, because that was the worst thought he’d ever had, the absolute worst. That was the thought that came to him when he was at his lowest, when he was by himself in his shitty apartment, alone with nothing and no one else to distract him. That was the nightmare he didn’t know if he could wake up from. He’d been told once, by a man whose son had been missing for near two decades, that he just about didn’t care anymore, because the not knowing was the worst. “Just give me my son’s body,” he’d said. “Give me my son’s body so I can bury it and make this end. I don’t care if it’s the whole thing or just a hip bone or a skull, just give me something so I can finally say he’s not missing anymore. I’d rather him be dead and back home than not know at all.”

David understood that. He did. He really did. And maybe once or twice, when he thought the same thing that was making him hate Phillip right now, he understood that. Because the not knowing was the worst thing of all.

When you didn’t know, you were stuck in this limbo.

You didn’t know who to focus your anger on.

Your confusion.

Your fear.

Your anguish.

So it went wherever it could, that focus.

And sometimes, it went toward the wrong person.

Phillip was there. Wonderful Phillip. When David had met him for the first time, he’d thought, Hi, hello, who are you and why can’t I wait to find out?

Phillip, who now sagged forward, his forehead against David’s shoulder, their arms at their sides. They were existing in the same space again for the first time in so long, but that didn’t matter, because it was familiar, and it was home, and it was everything David had missed since those toxic words had spilled from his mouth.

He couldn’t pick which words to say, because this seemed like one of the most important moments of his life.

It was Phillip who spoke first. Of course it was. That was always the way of things.

But the words were muffled into David’s shoulder.

“What?” David asked, wincing at how hoarse he sounded.

“Give me your keys.”

“Why?”

“David.”

David did. Their fingers brushed together. It was only a moment, but it felt like hours.

Phillip took a step back. His eyes were red, water on his lashes in little beads. He looked down at the fob in his hand, then back up at David. Back to the fob. He pressed the button, and the SUV beeped somewhere off to their left, the taillights flashing briefly.

“Let’s go.”

David didn’t know what was happening. “Phillip, you don’t—”

But Phillip was already walking away.

David could do nothing but follow.

He didn’t argue when Phillip got into the driver’s seat. He went to the opposite side and slid in, pulling the door shut behind him.

The only sound was the rain on the roof.

He held his wet coat and scarf in his lap. The umbrella went by his feet.

Phillip pulled off his own scarf, which he must have gotten back from the little hostess, tossing it in the backseat. He slid the seat forward, just a little. Fixed the rearview mirror. Gripped the steering wheel and breathed through his nose. Then he reached down, pushed the button, and started the SUV.

The screen lit up in front of them, the lights from the dash bright.

David looked away.

He leaned his head back against the seat, staring out the window.

He felt heavy, waterlogged and tired.

The heater came on.

The SUV began to move.

It wasn’t old. In fact, it was one of the first major things they’d done… after. It’d been at the beginning of year four and he hadn’t had a drink in three months, and there was this lull, this period between this new beginning and the inevitable end, where they’d almost been—well, not happy, and maybe not even content, but something more than what they’d been before. There had maybe been a little smile every now and then, and they’d even made love one morning when the sun was streaming in, the birds calling just outside the open window.

He couldn’t remember how it’d come up, but one day, a Saturday, they’d been at home, and then they’d been on their way to a dealership, trading in something old for something new. He’d haggled on the price, and Phillip had rolled his eyes, but it’d been something, and it felt like a little celebration, and even though he’d felt slightly guilty at the thought, there it was. He’d been through some shit and come out on the other side. He hadn’t woken up needing to count down the hours to when it would be considered socially acceptable for him to have a drink.

It was the eye of the storm, though they hadn’t recognized it then.

David had almost ruined it when they’d been driving back home, the smell of new leather around them. He’d said, “She’ll like this when she gets back.”

The silence that came then had threatened to suffocate them both.

Then Phillip had taken his hand and said, “Yeah. She will. We’ll have to go on a road trip.”

Neither of them had said anything when Phillip had sniffed and wiped his eyes.

David didn’t ask where they were going now. He thought Phillip would drive him back to his shitty apartment and then make his own way home, back to their house, their house where they’d spent the happiest days of their lives. Except it really wasn’t their house, was it? Sure, their names were still on the mortgage, and yeah, they hadn’t exactly talked about divorce, (“I think we just need some space,” Phillip had said tightly on that horrible day. “I think we just need some space from each other to decide what we want.”)

(And then, later, “David, this is Keith. He’s… a friend.”)

Phillip would go back to his (their) house, and they’d continue this strange, sad existence where they were both circling the same sun but stuck in orbits that rarely lined up with each other, making do with fleeting passes in the darkest parts of the night.

He’d said it for the first time in September 1992, that he hadn’t yet gotten his fill of David. It’d been three days, three days they’d spent together. David had been twenty-eight, Phillip a year older, and they’d been introduced at a dinner at a friend’s apartment over Labor Day weekend. They’d both arrived at the same time, which just happened to be fashionably late, and they’d bumped into each other as they walked out of the elevator. Phillip had blushed, and David had been charmed out of his mind. It’d been awkward until they realized they were heading for the same apartment, and it’d gotten even more awkward as they stood, wondering which one of them should knock. And somehow, they’d reached up for the door at the same time, their hands brushing together. They’d both been a little startled, chuckling and looking away.

David had thought, Hi, hello, who are you and why can’t I wait to find out? while finally stuttering out his name. And this man, this enchanting man in front of him had mumbled, “Hi, David. I’m Phillip. Phillip Moore. It’s very nice to meet you. I like your coat.”

Their hosts must have heard them outside the door, because it opened in front of them, Keesha looking back and forth between them before smiling widely and hollering over her shoulder, “Ronny! Looks like they did all the work for us!”

Three days later they were still together.

On that Monday before they both returned to work after the holiday, they’d left Phillip’s apartment for the first time since they’d gotten there the Friday after the dinner. The world looked a little different, the colors a little brighter. They’d found a fruit stand and had bought green apples, the crunchy tang that much sweeter. The sun was bright, the air warm, and everything felt new in a way it hadn’t before.

David was unsure of what was going to happen next, if this was just a onetime (three-day) thing, and when they’d walked back to Phillip’s apartment, he’d fumbled through some excuse about leaving if Phillip had wanted him to. They’d hadn’t kissed yet, they’d slept in the same bed, faces near each other, but that was it. But Phillip had given him that funny little smile and said, “But I haven’t gotten my fill of you,” and David thought his heart might just burst.

Their first kiss had been the following weekend. They’d been out for a drink, sitting in a dark little corner where no one could see them, and Phillip had been laughing at something David had said. He’d thrown his head back, baring his neck, and he’d just laughed. David’s mouth had gone dry, and even before he could think about it, he leaned forward just as Phillip had looked at him again. Their lips had brushed together, and they breathed and breathed, and it was a tremulous thing, the barest hint, a question posed where the answer wasn’t known. But then Phillip had smiled, and David felt it more than saw it, and even though it was probably dangerous for them to do this in public, they weren’t even thinking about that. Not then. Phillip kissed him sweetly, and David had thought, Here. This. This is what I want. This is all that I want.

It wasn’t, though. He hadn’t known there was something more that he could have.

But he found that out later, a phone call from Keesha’s mother waking them in the middle of the night, a teary voice saying, “Oh my lord, oh my sweet lord in heaven, they’ve gone with the angels, they both have, they’ve both gone right on home, but she is still here. God and Jesus saw fit to keep her safe, and they’re gone, but she’s not.”

And she wasn’t. At least not then. It’d take almost two more decades for that to happen.

Eventually, David felt the car come to a stop. It idled for a moment before it shut off.

He sat up.

He was about to thank Phillip for driving him back to his apartment, about to say Phillip could take the car and he would just come by and get it later when he saw where they were.

Home.

At their home.

It wasn’t the little house they first brought her home to, that one with the room with pinks and princesses and unicorns. No, they’d sold that house in 2002 and had moved to this house in Chevy Chase, wanting to give Alice a bigger yard, a better school district. They could afford it. The bookstore was doing well, and they were smart with their money, having saved every cent they could. They even had a college fund set aside for Alice with a nice chunk of change in it. The first day they’d seen the house, the realtor droning on and on about how much curb appeal it had, and would you just look at that front porch, Alice had tugged on her parents’ hands, making them lean down. She’d look up at them with those wide eyes of hers and she said, “I really like this place because it has lilies. Can you buy this house, please?”

Sure enough, there had been the lilies around the side of the house.

They’d made an offer three days later.

And here they had stayed until Alice went missing.

Then it had just been the two of them.

Until David said the things he’d only thought in the blackest part of his heart.

He wanted to ask why they were here. Why Phillip had brought him here.

A little voice in the back of his head asked, Did Keith ever come here? Is this where he kissed Phillip?

Instead, he said the most asinine thing he could think of. “The lawn looks good.”

Phillip snorted. “Get out of the car, David.”

David did.

As he shut the door, he almost took off running. It was a close thing. He almost ran down the short driveway to disappear into the rainy night. It’d be easier, he knew. It’d be easier than coming back ho—here.

He didn’t, though.

Still. It was close.

He held his coat against his chest, the rain cold against his hair and ears and cheeks. Phillip was already around the car and walking up the stone path toward the front door. It was too early for any lilies, and David was grateful for that. He wasn’t sure he could have handled seeing them right at that moment.

Phillip was up the stairs to the porch and almost to the front door before he must have realized he wasn’t being followed. He looked back over his shoulder. David hadn’t moved from where he stood next to the SUV.

“Come on,” Phillip said. “Come on.”

His feet wouldn’t move.

“David. Please.”

That got him moving.

It always did.

His steps were stiff, his knees barely bending, and he probably looked a little awkward and more than a little ridiculous. But he was moving, and that had to count for something.

He stopped at the bottom of the porch, Phillip facing him at the top. There were only four steps that separated them, but it almost felt like it was too much. Like if he took these last steps, there’d be no going back. He didn’t even know what Phillip wanted. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe he just felt sorry for David. Maybe he had boxed up some of David’s books that he’d left. Maybe he wanted to sit David down at the table in the dining room, that mahogany beast they’d found at a specialty shop in Chinatown, and he’d say, “I wanted to see you because I’ve met with an attorney to figure out how to best divide up the assets. I wanted to see you because I think it’s time we end this, David, so we can both finally move on. I want a divorce.”

That scared David, almost as much as anything else ever had.

He deserved it. He wouldn’t blame Phillip for that.

People could survive for only so long in stasis.

Eventually, something had to give.

So, no. He didn’t want to go up those last few steps.

Because if that’s why he was here, if that’s what Phillip wanted, he’d have no choice but to give it to him, and then it would all be over. He’d be left with nothing.

He expected for Phillip to say please again.

He’d do anything for Phillip when he said that.

Even agreeing to end everything.

But Phillip didn’t do that.

He came down one step, then another, then another until he was standing just above David. They watched each other for a moment, eyes searching, David unsure of what he was looking for. But then Phillip reached down and took David’s hand in his, fingers intertwining. David gripped him tightly, and Phillip tugged him along, making David follow him up the stairs.

David did.

The wood creaked under their feet.

The rain pitter-pattered along the overhang above.

They were at the door, and Phillip didn’t let go, even as he fumbled for the keys. David tried to pull away, but Phillip wouldn’t let him.

He took a step out of the way when Phillip pushed the screen door open and watched as he slid the key into the lock. It clicked, and for the first time in a very long time, David watched as the door opened to the home that he’d built with his family, only to watch it crumble down around him.

He was overwhelmed.

He was consumed.

He breathed.

He ached.

He lived.

And God, the little death that followed when the door opened was extraordinary. It felt like he was being twisted inside out, like he was being torn apart and it was too fucking much, he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t fucking—

Phillip pulled him across the threshold.

And yes, he breathed.

It smelled exactly the same, like wood and furniture polish. Like those little cartridges that plugged into the sockets that promised to make a room smell like Hawaii or fresh linens or a forest caught in the throes of autumn.

He was having trouble catching his breath.

Phillip closed the door behind them, still not letting go.

There was a light in the kitchen, and David could see the outline of the table in the dining room. He didn’t want to go in there. He didn’t want to see the papers he would have to sign. He was not above begging and pleading.

But Phillip didn’t lead him there.

No, he pulled David toward the stairs, and up they went, the steps creaking under each step, the one near the middle squeaking obnoxiously as it always had.

And here. Oh, here was their story, set along the stairway on the wall for anyone to see. The framed photographs that were their lives together, showing that this had once been a family home, with a history that went back decades.

Here they were in the midnineties, both of them with terrible pencil-thin mustaches that made them, in Alice’s words, look as if they would hit on a girl by telling her that her hair smelled nice before asking her name.

Here they were, David and Phillip and Ronny and Keesha, and she’d been so pregnant then, looking like she was ready to pop at that very moment. She’d been smiling, radiantly so, but she looked tired, like she was done with everyone and everything. Funnily enough, she’d given birth twenty-three hours later to a little girl with a full head of inky black hair.

Here they were, at a party somewhere, Phillip sitting on David’s lap, both of them smiling, smiling, smiling.

Here they were, at a picnic in the park, Alice atop David’s shoulders, hands in his hair.

Here they were, Alice asleep on Phillip’s chest, face painted like a tiger from her birthday party, eyes closed, a little thin line of drool wetting Phillip’s shirt as she slept, tuckered out from her very special day.

Here they were, the three of them, her diploma in her hands, a wide smile on her face, David and Phillip on either side of her, both of them in ties, their eyes red, their own faces a little puffy.

And here she was, here she always was, she was six and four and twelve and fifteen and eight and seventeen, and she was a baby and a toddler, a little girl and a preteen, and then a teenager until she was a beautiful young woman.

Here she was.

The last picture taken of her.

It was her nineteenth birthday, sixteen days before she disappeared. It was a Saturday. She’d gone out with friends the night before and was going to go out with friends that night as well, but she said that the day was for her daddy and her papa. So they’d woken her up at the asscrack of dawn, banging pots and pans as they climbed the stairs, bellowing out happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy biiiirrrrthday, dear Aaaaaaaaalice, knowing full well she was slightly hungover. She groaned and put her pillow over her face, yelling at them you are both terrible and I hate you so much, but laughing while she said it.

David and Phillip finished big just inside her doorway, smashing the pots and pans together, making as much noise as possible. She sat up then, glaring while hugging the pillow against her chest, and her hair a little funky and her eyes bloodshot, but she was their baby girl, and she was nineteen years old.

I can’t believe you two, she said with a scowl. It’s not even daylight out. You both suck.

David snorted. We both do. Your father is pretty good at—

David Greengrass, Phillip said. If you finish that sentence, you’ll won’t get to have that ever again.

David grinned.

Ewwwww, she cried, lying back down on her bed, pulling her comforter over her face. Old people should not be having sex.

Old, Phillip said, sounding sufficiently outraged. Who are you calling old?

The two of you.

Funny, David said. Especially since this is from a girl who is one year away from not being a teenager anymore. Then come the wrinkles.

Excuse you, she said, throwing the comforter off. Black don’t crack. Don’t be jealous.

Did you hear that, dear, Phillip said with an exaggerated sniff. Black don’t crack.

Whatever shall we do? David asked.

You could get out of my room and let me sleep, she said, squinting at the both of them.

Does that sound like something we should do? Phillip asked David.

Nah, David said easily. That doesn’t sound like something we should do at all. In fact, you should get your butt out of bed, because we’ve got some plans for you.

Plans? she asked them suspiciously.

Great plans, Phillip said. Probably involving greasy bacon and runny eggs, the yolk going just everywhere—

Ugh, she groaned. Kill me now. I’m never drinking again.

Probably a good idea, David said. Especially since you’re underage.

I’m safe.

We know.

You can trust me. I would never do anything stupid.

We know that too. Doesn’t mean it’s legal.

Fine, she muttered. Take your parental guilt trips and get out of my room. I need to take a shower. My mouth tastes like ass.

Funny, your father says the same thing after he—

David Greengrass!

Oh my God, Dad! Get out of my room!

And that was the beginning of their day.

They’d had breakfast and then taken her shopping and spent far too much money on whatever she wanted. A phone. A Coach purse. Shoes. Clothes. Makeup. She got her hair done and her nails done, and it’d been just the three of them, two dads and their daughter, and as they were walking together, Alice between the two of them, her arms through theirs, she told them that she felt like a princess, and that today had been a very good day.

When she leaned up and kissed both of them on the cheek, she said, I love you guys.

And if she decided she didn’t want to go out that night again, no one said a thing. Instead, she decided to put her new clothes away and put on sweats, and they were in the kitchen, eating pizza. She was sitting on the counter, her socked feet dangling toward the floor. She had a devilish smile on her face as she told her papa that she was a woman now, and that if she wanted to stay at a boy’s house overnight, she would, and that was when David had taken the picture. That last picture. Of her soft and safe and happy, wearing a sweatshirt that said she was a DIVA, her pink socks on her little feet, her beautiful hair in an afro, makeup-free and alive and alive and alive, and that was what David remembered. That was what he remembered from that day, that she had been alive and whole and theirs, she was theirs, and when he lowered the camera after taking the photo, he had to swallow past the strange lump in his throat.

Daddy? she asked, a concerned look on her face.

He nodded, unable to speak and unsure as to why.

Phillip smiled softly at him. Your father is just an old sap.

She hopped off the counter and walked toward him, and David looked away, trying to find some way to wipe his eyes without her seeing, but then she stood above him, and he had no choice. He scrubbed his hand over his face and coughed, trying to cover it up as best he could. But these were the two people who knew him best, these were the two people who loved him the most.

These were the two people he’d never fool.

Oh, Daddy, she said, leaning forward. He closed his eyes as she kissed his forehead. Don’t cry. It’s all right. Everything is all right. I’m not going anywhere, okay?

And oh, the lie that had been.

That was the last photo on the wall. Not of her sitting on the counter that David had taken where she’d looked all soft and safe. No. This photo was the one that Phillip had taken of the two of them when she’d kissed his forehead.

That was the last known photo of her, hanging on their wall.

Sixteen days later, it was March 22, 2012.

Six years later, it was what they had left.

That moment.

And then they were past it, at the top of the stairs, and Phillip pulled him down the hall. There was the bathroom on the right, a guest room on the left, then her bathroom and her bedroom, the doors closed, and David thought, No, please no, don’t make me go in there, please don’t make me go in there right now. Because when he’d left, it’d still been a shrine, however unhealthy that’d been. They’d kept the room the same as the day she left it, ready and waiting for the day she finally came home. Every year, they’d bought Christmas presents and birthday presents, stacking them against the far wall. There would be such a party when she came back, they’d whispered to each other in the middle of the night when neither of them could sleep. There would be such a party, with streamers and cake and balloons that said WELCOME HOME and WE MISSED YOU and YOU’RE SAFE YOU’RE SAFE YOU’RE SAFE. Alice would smile and laugh, they’d whispered, and she would clap her hands and do that funny little shimmy she did when she got really excited, like her whole body was the happiest it’d ever been.

Then they’d go through years of gifts, telling the stories of each (this is the scarf I bought you in 2014, and I cried in the middle of the department store, this is the journal I bought for you in 2013, knowing that when you came home, you would have a story to tell) and at the end, when the party was winding down, everything getting quieter, hazier, they would be on the couch, friends milling around the periphery. David and Phillip would be watching her as she approached, and she would be filled with so much life that it would take their breaths away. She’d put her foot between them and wiggle it back and forth just like she always had, and they would make room just for her, because she was the only one who could get between them like this, the only one they would make room for.

And then she’d sit between them, and she’d lay her head on her daddy’s chest, and she’d be clutching her papa’s hand, and she’d yawn, jaw cracking. Then she’d say, “Thank you for my presents, you silly guys. I love you.”

That’s what they’d whispered to each other in their bed late at night, their daughter’s bedroom down the hall, slowly being filled with all the gifts for all the celebrations she had missed.

So, no. He couldn’t go in there. Not now.

Especially considering the little hall closet he had back in his shitty apartment, filled with all the presents he’d bought for her since Phillip kicked him out.

He just couldn’t do it right now.

He wasn’t even sure why he was here.

But Phillip didn’t open her door.

In fact, he passed it right on by with only the slightest of hesitations.

David didn’t think he’d ever felt so relieved about anything in his life.

I’m sorry, sweetheart, he thought to himself. I’m just not ready.

Instead, Phillip led them to his (their) bedroom.

He flipped the switch on the wall, and the light from the ceiling fan above came on, that damn ceiling fan that’d given them so much trouble when they’d installed it on their own. The wiring hadn’t been right, and they’d gotten a little snappy with each other, but they’d figured it out in the end, Alice sitting on their bed, reading off the instructions, giggling at the plaster stuck in their hair, the dust on their faces.

Phillip pulled David into the room, closing the door behind them. There was no one in the house, so David didn’t know what Phillip was hoping to keep out, but he didn’t ask. He allowed Phillip to lead him over to the bed. The comforter was different, forest green instead of sky blue, and there were new lamps on both nightstands, but other than that, everything looked to be the same. David had left most everything for Phillip when he’d moved out. He’d been unwilling to leave Phillip wanting for something that he could just as easily buy secondhand and cheap. His bed in the apartment was a futon, his dresser worn and chipped. It was a half life, he knew, but he’d rather have Phillip keep all their possessions than take away from him.

He remembered the look on Phillip’s face that day when he’d said that. He’d been standing by the door, suitcases packed, struggling to keep himself in check. Phillip had been breathing heavily, eyes stormy, and then David had opened his mouth and he thought Phillip would crack right down the middle. He’d fled rather quickly after that. He felt like he’d been running for a very long time.

They stood near the bed, side by side, hands clasped, both of them still wet despite the heater in the SUV. David had so many things to say (why and how and what do you want from me and I love you, I miss you, I need you, please don’t let me go), but he said none of them, his equilibrium still off, grappling with the fight-or-flight urge heavy in his chest.

Phillip (wonderful Phillip, sweet Phillip, knowing Phillip) said, “I’m going to go get us some towels. I want you to stay right here.”

David nodded dumbly, trying not to flinch when Phillip pulled his hand away. He clenched his jaw to keep from saying something stupid like, “Can I please go with you?” He gripped one of the bedposts so that he couldn’t head for the door, down the stairs, and out of the house back into the rain. He had a thought (when was the last time you drove around DC, just looking for Alice? She could be out there right now and you’re not doing anything about it, my God, what kind of a father are you?) but he pushed it away. That was the guilt talking, he knew. The psychiatrist had told him during one of their very first meetings that guilt had a voice, and it would speak louder than all his other thoughts. It was okay, she’d said, to listen to it sometimes, but he could not let himself be swallowed by it because he might not ever come back.

Phillip backed away from David slowly, never taking his eyes off him, as if he thought the moment he looked away, David would disappear as if he’d never been here at all. He stumbled a little when he reached the bathroom door, and he had to look away, fumbling with the light switch. He was out of sight for only a few moments.

David looked away, toward the bed.

The lamps were lit.

David had always slept on the left side of the bed, Phillip on the right. They had never even really discussed it back when they’d first started. That first night they’d met, that was just how they’d been, curled up in Phillip’s apartment in Silver Spring, the mattress lumpy, the thumpthumpthump of music from a neighbor’s apartment through the thin walls. David had been on the left, Phillip on the right, and it’d been weird just how weird it wasn’t. They hadn’t kissed, though David had been thinking about it for the last hour. They’d just taken off their pants, leaving on their shirts and underwear, and they’d lain on the bed, facing each other, knees drawn up and bumping as they asked all the important questions they could think of (what’s your favorite color? and do you believe in aliens? and in the morning, will you make breakfast with me? I’m warning you right now, I’m kinda stuck on that band Snap! and their song “Rhythm is a Dancer.” You have to sing with me while we make waffles). They’d fallen asleep that way. The next night, it was the same thing. And the night after that.

And every single night they spent together, it was David on the left, Phillip on the right.

Sometimes, Alice had been in the middle.

She had nightmares.

Or she was sad.

Or she just didn’t want to be alone.

The door would creak open at one in the morning and she’d whisper, “Daddy? Papa? Can I stay here with you? I think there’s a gremlin under my bed.”

David would groan, and Phillip would mutter that David should have never let her watch those movies, but they’d always make room because there’d always been room for her. There’d always been—

“David?”

He looked up from the bed. Phillip was standing a little bit away, looking unsure. He held a couple of towels in his hands. He’d taken off his coat and scarf, and he looked drier than David felt.

“Hi,” David croaked out, unsure if Phillip had asked him a question that he’d missed.

Phillip frowned. “You’re shivering.”

And oh, he hadn’t even realized that, but yes, yes he was. In fact, he was shaking, and he realized just how cold he really was, how heavy his wet clothes felt on his shoulders and back and thighs. His socks were wet, something he’d always hated almost more than anything else, and he couldn’t stop his teeth from starting to chatter. He thought maybe he would shake apart right here, right in the middle of the room he’d shared with the love of his life, just down the hall from the other love of his life. He’d break down into tiny little shards right in front of Phillip, and there’d be nothing left of David Greengrass but bits and pieces and the knowledge that he’d let down the two people who mattered the most to him.

“Cold,” he managed to say. “I’m cold.”

“You idiot,” Phillip said. “You stupid, silly man.” He rushed forward, dropping the towels on the bed next to David. “Arms up.”

David didn’t understand.

“Arms up.”

David lifted his arms above his head.

For a moment, he stood there, looking ridiculous, a middle-aged balding man with a slight gut, arms raised while he dripped on the floor. But then Phillip’s hands were on him, pulling the sweater up and over his head. He grimaced when the wet fabric rubbed against his face, too surprised to do anything more than grunt a little in outrage. He was blinded for the briefest of moments before the sweater was up and over his head. He lowered his arms just a little when Phillip couldn’t reach to pull it off the rest of the way, even when he stood on the tips of his toes. The sweater came off completely, and Phillip dropped it to the carpet.

“You’re going to catch a cold,” Phillip scolded as he began to fuss with David’s tie. “You know how you get when you’re sick.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” David mumbled.

“Bullshit. I’ve never met a whinier human being than you when you’re sick. It’s like you’re a child.”

David didn’t know what to say to that. Because they were so far past reminiscing, weren’t they? They had been reveling in it all night long, the memories of their shared life together. David didn’t know why he’d tried to fight it in the first place. It’d been inevitable, really. He could see that now. So he said, “I spent a lot of time on that tie, you know.”

Phillip rolled his eyes, the backs of his fingers brushing along David’s chin. His tongue was poking out from between his teeth, that thing he did when he was really concentrating on something. “It’s not a noose, David. I don’t know why you have to—aha! Got it.” And he had; the knot was coming loose. He pulled the ends back out of the loops, and David remembered how he’d felt, standing in front of the mirror for that hour, practicing what he was going to say to Phillip when he saw him, that everything was fine, that he was fine, that he was okay, thanks for asking, Phillip, how are you? There were things he absolutely forbid himself to say, those things said between longtime lovers, the feeling of familiarity that came with decades of knowing and loving someone. Sure, David had told himself, Phillip texted I want to see you, but that could mean any number of things.

It’d taken two weeks from the day they met before they’d undressed each other with purpose, the tiny bedroom heated, their skin already slick with sweat. There had been fingers on skin, and tongues trailing along chests, cocks gripped in one hand as David slowly jacked them both off, Phillip’s head tossed back as he said, “Yes, please, David, right there, please, just right there—” Later, spunk drying on David’s chest, Phillip had climbed on top of him and rode him right into the fucking mattress, calling his name, hips rolling under David’s bruising grip. David had whited out at the sheer force of his second orgasm, another little death that pulled a rough shout from his throat.

It’d taken him a few minutes to come back into himself, but he had, Phillip stretched out beside him, a grin on his face like he’d known what he’d just done to David. They’d both been a mess, tacky with come and lube, the used condom still on David’s dick, but they’d looked at each other, smiling, smiling, smiling until they were laughing and kissing, and anyone who has ever laughed and kissed would know how impossible it was, how wonderful it felt. David had never laughed and kissed at the same time before, lips scraping together, huffing out sharp breaths, chuckling into someone else’s mouth. He’d never felt so alive, his body so electric.

It wasn’t the same now.

Phillip wasn’t undressing him to fuck him.

It wasn’t passion or urgency.

But there were still the little pinpricks of light when he felt Phillip’s fingers against his skin. There was still the buzzing in his brain as Phillip unbuttoned his dress shirt, one right after the other. It was surreal, this feeling, having Phillip so close after so long. If he wanted to, he could pretend that this was any one of a thousand normal nights they’d had in their life together, Phillip fussing over him and David begrudgingly allowing it even though they both knew he not-so-secretly loved it.

But that wouldn’t be right, would it?

Because they didn’t have normal nights. Not anymore.

They hadn’t in a long time.

Phillip slid the dress shirt off David’s shoulders.

He had an undershirt on, still partially tucked into his dress pants. He looked down between the two of them, his forehead brushing against Phillip’s wet hair. The undershirt was wet, sticking against the gentle slope of his stomach. He’d always been a bigger guy, thick with muscle buried under a thin layer of fat. He’d been hard and soft in all the right places, Phillip had said that first night, and many nights after.

Now, though, his chest was sunken, his arms thin and a little flabby. It wasn’t as bad as it’d been six months ago. He was in better shape now, those nights spent at the gym instead of sleeping starting to pay off. He wasn’t as young as he used to be, so his body had other ideas on how it would react to sudden exercise after it’d been flooded for years with stress and rage. The morning after he’d gone the first time, he thought he was going to die. Everything had hurt, and he’d given a lot of thought to never going back, but then he couldn’t sleep that next night and found himself in the gym again, grunting as he lifted weights, pushing through the incredible burn as he jogged on the treadmill.

So he wasn’t at his worst, but he still wasn’t where he’d been before. He didn’t know if he’d ever be, and he was embarrassed at the sight of himself. There’d been no one else since he’d left this house. He’d hadn’t even thought about it. The last person who’d seen him in any stage of undress had been his doctor, who’d told him to get his ass to the gym if he didn’t want to have a heart attack in the next five years. He hadn’t told Phillip that, not wanting to worry him, but maybe thinking too that Phillip wouldn’t worry because he didn’t care. He had Keith, after all. Keith who would never let himself—

Phillip’s hands were on his belt buckle.

“Whoa,” David said quickly. “It’s not—”

“I’ve seen it all before,” Phillip said, dry as dust.

And—okay. Yeah. That was true. But David was uncomfortable, unsure of what was happening. He’d never been shy, for fuck’s sake, and maybe all Phillip was aiming for was a pity fuck, a once-more-for-old-time’s-sake sort of thing. Maybe they’d collapse in on each other like a dying star and the bed would shake and they’d whisper encouragement in each other’s ears, breath hot and panting, and then tomorrow there would be no waffles while they danced around in their underwear, singing “Rhythm is a Dancer” like they were young men again. Because David knew better than anyone else that you could never go back to the way things once were. All of that was dead and gone, and he could never get that back.

“Fine,” Phillip said, taking a step back. “Just… get out of those clothes. You’ll catch your death in them. I have some sweats you can borrow. I’ll toss everything in the dryer.”

He waited until David nodded slowly before he turned toward the walk-in closet. David watched him walk away, suddenly sure he’d messed something up somewhere. His hands were on his belt and he pulled at it until it cleared the loops. He dropped it on the floor. He played with the hem of his shirt for a moment before gritting his teeth and pulling it up and over his head. He was exposed, more so than he’d been in a long time, and his nipples were hard little pebbles on his chest, gooseflesh prickling along his arms and shoulders.

He picked up the towel off the bed and rubbed it over his hair, and tried not to whimper at that familiar smell of detergent and fabric softener that Phillip always used. He’d never been allowed to touch the laundry, not after he’d accidentally ruined a cashmere cardigan of Alice’s (“Daddy, what part of dry clean only did you not understand?”) (“Honestly, David, did you even feel the fabric when you just threw it in there with your socks?”). They’d teased him a lot about it, and he’d taken it all in stride, but knowing they’d come to him when something needed to be fixed or hung, as the last time Phillip had used a hammer, they’d ended up in the ER for four hours while waiting for a broken thumb to be set, Alice trying to muffle her continuous giggles while her papa sat grumpily next to her, his hand wrapped in a hand towel filled with melting ice. They’d been a team. The three of them.

He left the towel resting on his shoulders as he flushed slightly, hands going to the front of his dress pants. He heard Phillip moving in the closet, and he didn’t dare look up, not knowing if Phillip too was getting undressed. It was intimate, almost unbearably so, and he didn’t know how to deal with it after having let it slip through his fingers with words he hadn’t meant, a culmination of all the fury and the horror he’d felt since he received a phone call on an unusually warm spring afternoon in March.

He pushed down his pants, bending over to push them past his hips and thighs. His boxers were wet and clung to his groin, but he ignored them for now, stepping out of the pants, almost falling over onto the bed as he tried to maintain his balance. He got them off and left them in the growing pile on the floor.

He was almost bare.

His skin itched, and he swallowed thickly.

He glanced up at the closet door. There was a mirror hanging on the inside of it, and he could see Phillip’s reflection inside the closet, and he wasn’t moving. He was standing at one of the sets of drawers, and his eyes were closed, his breaths looking as if they were slow and deliberate. Like he was trying to get himself back under control, like he was—

David looked away.

He wrapped the towel around his waist.

He slid his underwear down from underneath it.

Left them on top of the pile.

And that was it.

He had nothing left to give.

This was everything he had.

But before he could dwell on that, Phillip was back in the room, fully clothed, arms full. He stopped for a moment, staring at David, who tried his very best not to squirm. Something passed over Phillip’s face, something David couldn’t quite figure out. And that somehow made it worse, because hadn’t there been a time when David had known everything about Phillip? Hadn’t he been able to read him like a book? Yeah, there had been. He’d known what Phillip was thinking even before Phillip thought it himself. It was just one of those things.

Here they were, though. Not quite strangers, but not what they’d once been.

“Better?” Phillip asked.

David nodded.

“I have….” He shook his head. “I was going to say that I didn’t know if I had anything that would fit you, but—you’ve lost some weight.”

David wanted to hide. “It’s just—I guess.” He shrugged awkwardly, face hot. “Maybe a little bit.”

Phillip snorted but didn’t say anything. He walked next to David and set down a pair of sweats on the bed next to the second towel. His shoulder brushed David’s, and David took a step back, coughing into his hand, looking anywhere but at Phillip.

“I’ll be in the bathroom,” Phillip said evenly. “Getting changed. These are—just, put these on, okay?”

David nodded, words stuck on the tip of his tongue.

Phillip smiled tightly before he headed toward the bathroom, toeing off those ridiculous shoes and kicking them toward the closet. He closed the door behind him but didn’t lock it.

David didn’t know why that calmed him as much as it did. It was such a little thing.

He dropped the towel and pulled on the sweats. Phillip was right; these wouldn’t have fit him a decade ago, or even three years ago. The sweatshirt was a little tight in his shoulders and a little short on his wrists, but it still hung over his frame loosely. The same with the sweatpants. They were warm and soft, and David was tired. He supposed he’d be staying here, which—well. He’d make it work. Somehow. He’d get the guest room and Phillip would stay here, and maybe he wouldn’t spend the night staring at the ceiling, his brain working hard, pointing out every little thing he could have done differently, lost in one of the many fantasies he had of how life could have been different.

(She’d be a college graduate now, working with this charity or that charity like she’d planned, saving the earth or the whales or the ice caps or the children, any number of things that caught her eye. Chances were, she’d have gone out into the big, wide world on her own, but she’d stay close, and they’d have dinner once, twice, no, three times a week, and it’d be good, because she’d be making a difference. She would be changing things for the better, and the world would be a wonderful place because she was in it.

And maybe on one of these visits, she’d be acting a little strange, nervously wringing her hands together like she was nine again, wanting to ask her fathers for a terrarium so that she could keep the snake she’d found in the backyard. Phillip and David would look at each other knowingly, waiting for her to bring up whatever was on her mind.

Eventually she would, clearing her throat and asking if she could talk to them about something. They’d be done with dinner and moved on to coffee from that fancy Keurig machine that Phillip had insisted on and David didn’t know how to use. She’d sit across from them, maybe blushing a little, the gorgeous color of her skin hiding most of it. She’d tell them that she’d met someone, and that he was interesting, and so goddamn aggravating, but that she’d been seeing him for a few months, and Daddy, get that look off your face, I was going to tell you when I was sure, okay?

And apparently she was sure now, because he was in his residency at MedStar, and that didn’t give them a lot of time to see each other, but Daddy, Papa, he is so handsome, and he makes me laugh, and he pisses me off all at the same time, and I really, really like him, so could you please just be happy for me?

Of course they could. Of course they would.

They’d meet him, and he’d be anxious, shaking their hands while Phillip glared at him, saying how lovely it was to meet the man sleeping with their little girl, and Alice would shriek at him, screaming Papa! Don’t you dare!

It would go better after that.

Maybe they’d break up at some point, and she’d stay at their house in her old room for a week, and they’d make her waffles in the morning while dancing around the kitchen to Snap! every morning. She’d cry a little, sniffling against her daddy’s shoulder while her papa threatened to murder that little asshole.

Or maybe they wouldn’t break up at all.

Maybe they’d stay together, and one day, they’d come over to the house, and she’d be beaming. She would be glowing, and she’d ask if they could tell anything different about her, and David would ask if she got a haircut, much to her dismay, and then Phillip would start screeching, grabbing her hand, the obscenely large diamond on her finger glittering in the light overhead.

They’d give her away, of course.

They’d walk her down the aisle, and it would be David who would be the one crying, because that’s just the way he was with stuff like this. This was his baby girl, his sweetheart, and both Phillip and Alice were the only ones who knew just how big of a softy he was. He’d be crying as they took another step and then another and then another, and right before he’d give her away, right before he gave his daughter to her future husband, she’d lean forward, kissing his tears away, saying, I love you, I love you, I love you.

Those were the dreams he had, late at night.)

(Sometimes, there were the nightmares, where she was begging for him to come get her, that she just wanted to come home, and why wouldn’t he help her? Those were the ones that ripped his heart still beating from his chest.)

The bathroom door opened.

David looked up.

Phillip had changed into his sweats. He carried his clothes in his arms. He hesitated when he saw David sitting on the bed, his face stuttering with something awful for just a second, but he just shook his head. He dropped his own clothes into the hamper next to the bathroom and looked back at David.

David felt out of place. “I’ll go to the guest room,” he said, picking at his sweats. “Or I can just wait until the clothes are dry and then I’ll go back to the apartment.”

“Is that what you want?”

No. It wasn’t. But David didn’t know exactly what he wanted. So he shrugged and looked away.

Phillip sighed. “You’re not driving home tonight, David. Not in this weather, and especially not since you look like you’re ready to collapse. Honestly. You never could take very good care of yourself.”

“That’s what I had you for,” David mumbled before he could stop himself.

“What?” Phillip asked sharply.

David winced and shook his head. “Nothing. I’ll just… the spare room. Sheets on the bed?”

There was no answer.

David looked up.

Phillip’s hands were in fists at his sides, his jaw tense, brow furrowed.

David stood quickly, realizing he was still sitting on Phillip’s (their) bed. He bent down, scooping up his wet clothes, taking a step away from the bed. “I know where the dryer’s at,” he said hastily. “I can do it. You should just—you can go to bed. I’ll—tomorrow, I’ll go back to the apartment tomorrow. Okay? I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“Stop,” Phillip snapped, and David froze in the middle of the room. Phillip rubbed his hands over his face. “Just—stop. You can’t—Jesus. You’re not—” He let out a huff of air, sounding aggravated. Then, “Give me the clothes. I told you I would handle it.”

He knew that look. That look meant that Phillip wasn’t taking any of David’s shit right at that moment, and that whatever he’d said needed to be done would be done. He didn’t even stop Phillip when he stepped forward and grabbed the wet clothes out of David’s hands, tie trailing down, looking defiant, like he expected David to say something.

He was heading toward the door, and David was unsure whether or not he should follow, when his mouth opened all on its own and said, “Wait.”

Phillip stopped in the doorway, glancing back over his shoulder and frowning, eyebrows doing that thing that meant you have three seconds, David Greengrass.

“My wallet. It’s in the pocket. Could you…?”

Phillip nodded and turned back toward him, shuffling the clothes in his arms until he could reach the pants. He started digging through the pockets and it was then David remembered the one thing he should not have forgotten. That even though this night had been an onslaught against the shredded remains of his heart, twisting through him with a dizzying sense of vertigo, he should have remembered.

He knew the moment Phillip found it in the front pocket.

His brow furrowed even further for a moment, then his eyebrows jumped in confusion. Then there was surprise and understanding followed by something fierce, something that almost looked as if it burned like fire.

He pulled David’s wedding ring from the pocket.

The clothes dropped to the floor.

David closed his eyes, not wanting to see the anger on his face, the rage that David would still keep such a thing close to him. Yeah, he’d seen Phillip’s bare finger when he’d arrived tonight and had compartmentalized that away for later when he could break something. He’d still been wearing it last summer, and even though he’d been at the benefit with Keith, David had thought savagely, yes, you’re here with him, but he’s still married to me. He’s still wearing the ring I gave him.

Phillip brought it up to his face to see the inscription inside.

Olive juice.

(“Papa!” Alice cried when Phillip walked through the door. She was three, almost four, and chubby and the most beautiful thing in the world. “Guess what I learned today!”

“What?” Phillip exclaimed, just as bright, winking at David, who leaned against the entryway into the kitchen.

“It’s a secret code,” she said, eyes wide. Phillip picked her up, and she sat in the crook of his arm, hands squishing his face. “Daddy taught me.”

“A secret code?” Phillip gasped. “Tell me.”

She leaned forward, looking him straight in the eye, and said, “Olive juice.”

David snorted when Phillip glanced at him, bewildered, before he looked back at their daughter. “Olive juice,” he said slowly. “Of course, because that means….”

Alice laughed. “Silly Papa. It means I love you. Because it sounds the same.”

“Only when you whisper it,” David reminded her.

“Oh,” she said. “I forgot.” She leaned forward, her forehead pressed against Phillip’s, and she whispered, “Olive juice.”

Phillip grinned and whispered back, “Olive juice too.”

And when it came time to decide what should be engraved on the rings, they didn’t even have to think very long. Because olive juice was theirs, but it was also hers, and it belonged to all of them, their secret code, and it was carved into the rings and worn against their skin day after day after day.)

“Why do you have this?” Phillip asked him quietly.

David didn’t answer.

“David.”

He closed his eyes. “I just—I wanted. I—” He felt helpless. “I wear it. Okay? I wear it because it’s the only thing I have left, and you don’t have to wear yours ever again and that’s okay too. But please don’t take this away from me. Please let me have this. Please. I promise you won’t have to see it, but please give it back to me. It’s mine, and it’s all I have, and I just—I want it. Please. I want it, I want it, I need it. Okay, I need it. I—”

Lips pressed against his own, pushing them back against his teeth. He was shaking, and his face was wet, and everything hurt, but he was being kissed, kissed, kissed. It wasn’t romantic, and it wasn’t sweet, but it felt like breathing, like he ached. Like he was living and dying a thousand little deaths, and he gasped against Phillip’s mouth, trying to pull away and take even more all at the same time.

They stood there, lips together, Phillip’s hand wrapped around his neck, holding David against him, grounding him, anchoring him back down even though he felt like he still might blow away into nothing.

He was being kissed, but he was also still trying to speak, wanting to beg Phillip not to take this last little thing he had left, and Phillip was shushing him, telling him to settle, to calm, David, you need to breathe, just breathe, though his words were a bit hazy. And David did, after a time, breath hitching in his chest, feeling raw and hollow, like everything inside had been scraped out and laid bare.

It went on like that. For a time.

Phillip kissed him and kissed him and kissed him, and one of them was crying or both of them were crying, but it didn’t really matter. He was standing in this house, wearing these clothes, and he was clutching at Phillip, not daring to let him go in case he left and never came back. If this was going to be it, if this was good-bye, then he wanted to take what he could.

Things were starting to become clear again, and he heard Phillip murmuring near his ear, saying, “You sap, you old sap, you stupid, stupid man, why are you like this? Why did we let it get this far? You stupid man. I am so angry with you. I love you so much.”

David tightened his grip as Phillip pulled back a little. He looked at him and he could still see the man he’d been all those years ago, standing in front of an apartment door, both of them fumbling awkwardly, both of them thinking that the other was different, they were different, and something was happening here. Phillip’s eyes were wide and wet, and his bottom lip was trembling like he was holding on as best he could, like he was being brave.

“You’re so stupid!” Phillip cried at him. “How could you be so stupid? You have this. You kept this. I thought you—I thought you didn’t want—” He growled angrily, shaking his head. He jerked one of his arms out of David’s hands, and no, no, no, please, don’t do this, please don’t—

But he wasn’t stepping back. He wasn’t trying to get away from David. He reached up and pulled a chain out from under the sweatshirt, the metal thin and silver.

At the end of it was the matching gold ring.

Olive juice too was engraved on the inside.

She’d been so tickled at the sight of them when she’d seen the rings for the first time. She had laughed, head rocking back, clapping her hands in front of her. “And it’s secret!” she’d squealed. “It’s on the inside and it’s secret!” And then they’d asked if her she would be doing the honor of being the most important part of the wedding by wearing the prettiest dress ever made for a little girl and tossing flower petals for them. And the look on her face when they asked her, the look of joy had been a moment so heartbreakingly sweet that when she’d burst into happy tears a moment later, they were shocked into inaction, just sitting there, watching their daughter sob about how she couldn’t wait to be a flower girl, that she was so excited.

And when they’d been standing in front of their friends in the backyard, she’d been a little shy, standing on top of their feet, pulling on her daddy’s pant leg while he was reciting his vows, asking him if they were almost done because she was hungry, standing on her papa’s shoes, asking him why he was crying, was he all right? And when they’d brought out those rings, she’d shrieked in delight, screaming at everyone that there was a secret on the rings that no one but them would ever know about.

Then they’d kissed.

She’d demanded kisses too.

They gave her all the kisses, of course.

How could they not?

She’d grinned at them on the Metro when they were making it “like, for real, for real,” tossing flowers onto the train, some people grinning at her, some people glaring, but her not giving two shits. She was hollering that her dads were gettin’ hitched, they were tying the knot, and they’d kept the same rings, of course, because olive juice and olive juice too. Their secret code that no one else knew.

She’d said it, sometimes.

On the phone.

When she left the house.

In a text.

Not always. Most of the time it was I love you, Daddy, or love you, Papa, but every now and then, she would just look at them, like she couldn’t believe they were hers, and she’d lean over, a funny little smile on her face, the one that reminded David achingly of Phillip, and she’d whisper, “Olive juice,” and they’d whisper back, “Olive juice too.”

It was on the ring in Phillip’s hand.

It was on the ring on a chain around his neck.

“You left,” Phillip said. “You left me.”

“You told me to,” David said hoarsely. “You told me I had to go.”

“I was angry.”

“I know.”

“You said horrible things, David. You said terrible things to me.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please, can I have it back? Please don’t take it from me. Please, Phillip. Please, can I have it back? Oh, please, oh, please.”

Phillip looked away, making a wounded noise deep in his throat, like he was trying to swallow down a sob. He shook his head, but he didn’t move away, and so David tried not to take that too badly. His eyes kept going to the ring on the chain and he wanted to touch it, to make sure it was real and that he wasn’t dreaming. Because he didn’t think he could stand it if he was here this moment, and the next he’d open his eyes in the shitty apartment on the fucking futon that hurt his back, the walls bare, the hall closet filled with gifts he bought for his daughter who had been taken against her will by someone almost six years before.

And then Phillip’s hand was in his and the ring was too, and David sucked in a deep breath, trying to clear his mind, trying to hold on desperately to the last little pieces of himself. He clutched the ring, and they stood together, chests bumping, cheeks scraping.

But then David took a step back. Phillip didn’t stop him, only watched him as he slid the ring back right where it’d belonged, right where it’d been since the day they’d been married the first time. He felt slightly better, a little more himself, more than he had since he’d taken it off outside the hotel. He wiped his face, tears still on his cheeks, and he didn’t trust himself to speak, knowing his voice would crack more than it already had.

“Why,” Phillip asked him. “Why, David?”

He shook his head, not yet composed.

“Please?” Phillip asked, and goddamn him.

“Why what?”

“Why do you still have that?”

And Phillip had called him a stupid man. “I told you. It’s the only thing I have left of both of you. You can’t take that away from me. I won’t let you.”

Phillip watched him for a moment. Then, “I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t do that to you, buddy.”

“Okay.”

“David?”

He was exhausted. “Yeah.”

“Can you stay with me? Here?”

David didn’t dare ask if he meant now or forever, already nodding even before Phillip finished his question. “Yes. Anything. Yes.”

His face was sore, his eyes felt like they had sand in them. And he was rooted where he stood as Phillip moved toward the bed, stepping around him. He pulled back the comforter, bumping into David, who took a step back.

Phillip climbed into the bed on the right side, and David knew what his next step was, knew what was to be expected of him, but he couldn’t make himself move. He couldn’t find the strength to take those last little steps.

He watched as Phillip sniffled, pulling the comforter up to his chest, leaning back against the pillow, ring resting on his chest. A long few seconds ticked by before Phillip looked up at him and asked, “Are you coming to bed?”

Please don’t let this be a dream, he thought.

He walked around the bed to his side.

He pulled back the comforter.

He got in.

He breathed.

He lived.

He ached.

He died a little death as he sank into the mattress, because it was so good, it felt so good and he never wanted to move again. He hoped Phillip wouldn’t make him. Granted, nothing had been resolved and everything was still up in the air, but he hoped Phillip would just let him stay here, in their bed, so he could sleep and pretend, at least for a little while, that everything was okay.

He turned on his side facing Phillip.

Phillip did the same.

They were twentysomethings again, in their shirts and underwear, asking about aliens and colors and Snap! with waffles.

They were thirtysomething again, in sleep pants and tank tops, and she was there too, and she was reading them a story out of one of her books, about a happy bunny named Mr. Fluff.

They were fortysomething again, in shorts and shirts, and she was between them, wiping her eyes, telling them she didn’t know why she was so upset about what that stupid girl had said about her, they weren’t even friends.

They were older men now, David reaching out and holding Phillip’s secret ring so that it scraped against David’s own. They didn’t speak for the longest time, and David thought maybe it was his turn to talk first. That he should be the one to say what needed to be said. He was scared. He thought maybe it was the scariest thing he’d ever done. But Phillip had still worn his ring, so David thought he could be brave too.

He said, “I feel guilty. Every time I smile. Not that I do it that much anymore. But I do. Feel guilty.”

Phillip narrowed his eyes a little. “Why?”

“Because,” David said, voice breaking. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Because, I think… it’s… A couple of months ago, I got an e-mail. It was from—you know what? I don’t even remember who it was from. It—that doesn’t matter. I was reading it, and there was something stupid in it, and I laughed. I laughed, and after, I thought it might have been the worst thing I’d ever done. That I was just spitting on her and her memory. Because I was laughing.” He took a deep breath and let it out slow. Phillip’s hand covered his that held the rings, holding it tightly. “She was gone, and here I was, sitting in front of a computer, laughing at an e-mail I’d gotten. Like it was nothing. Like she was nothing.”

“That’s not—”

“Just—let me. Let me finish, okay?”

Phillip nodded, blinking rapidly. He sniffled again.

“Every time I smile, every time I laugh, I think I’m doing something wrong. Because I didn’t—I have a daughter. I have a daughter and I lost her and I don’t know where she went. I don’t know what happened to her. I am a parent, and I lost my child, and who am I to smile? Who am I to laugh? I failed her, Phillip. I failed her, and I sometimes, I can’t even breathe at the thought of it.”

“You didn’t,” Phillip said roughly, voice thick with tears. “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t—”

“She’s gone,” he croaked out. “Phillip, our baby girl is gone. I can’t—I’m not—where did she go? Why did she leave? Why did she have to—” He was gasping now, losing the thread he was desperately trying to follow, and Phillip was squeezing his hand tightly, so much so that he thought his fingers might break. But Phillip’s ring was digging into his palm, and it hurt, but it was a good hurt, and he was here. He was really, really here. Like, for real, for real, and she was laughing in his head, she was laughing, because this is for real, for real, silly Daddy. Silly Papa. This is for real, for real.

He cried then.

He was a sap.

This much was known.

But since March 22, 2012, the day Alice Marie Greengrass vanished, her father, David Greengrass, had cried exactly twice.

The first time he’d cried had been two weeks after she’d disappeared, the days before a storm of police, frantic searches, interviews, and sleepless nights. It was two o’clock in the morning, and he found himself in the laundry room, thinking that he might as well get something done before the sun came up and he could head out again. Phillip was sleeping upstairs, having taken an Ambien.

He was standing in front of the washer and dryer, sorting the pile of clothes in front of him. His hands were shaking. He was exhausted, but every time he closed his eyes, he saw her face, and he just couldn’t. He knew Phillip was worried about him, knew that it wouldn’t be long before he intervened, but for now, he was drugged and asleep in their bed, and David was downstairs, unaware of what was about to hit.

He lifted a pair of jeans up from the pile of clothes and just… stopped.

Because they weren’t his jeans, no. They weren’t Phillip’s.

For one, they were too small.

Too skinny.

Too feminine.

He tried to breathe.

He found that he couldn’t.

He tried to set them down.

To turn around and leave.

To forget that he’d ever seen them.

But he couldn’t move.

And it was so stupid, that it would come to this. That he’d been so stoic to the police and to the news media, Phillip tucked at his side, crying into his shoulder. Yeah, there’d been that clip that had been played over and over online where his voice broke when he’d said, “If you have her, please. Please. I beg of you. Please let her come home. Please let our d-d-daughter come home.” He’d almost made it through, but then he’d gotten stuck on that word—daughter—and it was shown again and again and again. How sad, everyone said. That’s just so sad. At least it didn’t happen to me.

Phillip had cried. Phillip had cried almost every day.

David had not.

Until these jeans. These stupid jeans that he always gave Alice shit for, because he’d been there when she’d gotten them. He’d bought them for her, and she’d said, “Daddy, how do these look?” when she’d come out of the dressing room. And he had frowned and said, “Those don’t leave much to the imagination, do they?” She had glared at him and said that she wasn’t going to wear no goddamn mom jeans, no sir, and that she liked the way she felt when she wore them.

“Sure, sweetheart,” he’d said. “And I bet all the punk-ass boys like the way they feel when you wear them too.”

She’d grinned at him, so much like Phillip that David would have argued to anyone that she was theirs, theirs, theirs.

They’d been expensive. He’d almost choked when the girl behind the counter had read the total, and Alice had turned her big eyes toward her father, and she’d said, “Daddy. Listen. I’m about to graduate high school. I’m going to college. I’ve never gotten high. I’ve never killed anyone. I’ve earned this.”

“Yes,” he’d said dryly. “Because going to college and not doing drugs or murdering someone justifies two-hundred-dollar jeans.”

“Glad we agree. Daddy, she needs your credit card. Don’t be rude.”

So of course he did.

It was for Alice, after all.

Eleven months later she was gone.

And two weeks after that, he was holding the damn jeans in the middle of the laundry room in the middle of the night, and right before the dam burst, right before he struggled to breathe as he made the most broken of noises, he had the time to think, oh sweetheart, where are you?

And then he split right down the middle.

Phillip found him the next morning, sleeping fitfully, face still wet, lying on the laundry room floor, clutching a pair of jeans in his hands.

The second time had been the day he’d said those terrible things to Phillip, shredding what they had left into the tiniest of pieces. He didn’t like to think about that day.

And here, now, he cried. For the third time since he’d received a phone call from a kid named Digger at 3:37 on a spring afternoon in March of 2012, David cried.

But this was different than it’d been before.

He’d been alone then.

Now?

Now he broke in the arms of his husband who he hadn’t seen in almost eight months before this late night. His husband, who David had been convinced would have him served with divorce paperwork any day now. His husband, who David had missed almost as much as he’d missed their daughter. There had been nights when, instead of thinking, What is Alice doing right now? he’d thought instead, What is Phillip doing right now? He’d imagined him sitting in front of the TV, legs tucked under him like he did when he wasn’t planning on moving for a while. Or he imagined him in the bookstore, smiling at his customers, glancing every now and then at the poster in the front window that asked HAVE YOU SEEN HER? with a photo of a beautiful smiling young woman underneath.

This was different.

This was different because his face was pressed against a familiar chest, and he was breaking apart, shattering like the thinnest glass, but there were arms wrapped tightly around him, and there was a voice in his ear, and for the longest time, he couldn’t make out what it was saying over the sounds of his sobs, but eventually he heard. Eventually, he heard his husband.

Phillip said, “Oh, honey. Oh, baby. Oh, David. David. David. Shh. It’s okay. It’s okay. Shh shh shh. Honey, I need you to listen to me. Baby, can you do that? David. Shh. Listen to me. She loves you. Wherever she is, she loves you. And I promise you, we won’t stop until we find—until we find something. Maybe it’ll be good. Maybe it won’t. But you have to know she loves you. She doesn’t blame you. You did not fail her. I didn’t fail her. We made mistakes, my love. We made mistakes because we’re human, but Alice… oh, David. Alice was the best thing we’ve ever done, and if the time we had is all we’ll get, if those nineteen years were it, then we made them the best years we could. We loved her. With everything we had. We still do. We always will. And she knew that then. And she knows it now. Just like she knew that all she had to do was turn those eyes on us and she’d get whatever she wanted. She was ours, David. She is ours. I’m sorry for what I said earlier. I’m sorry for saying she was gone. I—I want to believe. I want to believe that one day, she’ll walk in that door and say she was sorry. She was sorry, but that she’d just gotten a little lost, but now she was home, now she was home and she w-wasn’t g-g-going to l-l-leave us again—”

David kissed Phillip, again and again, both of them choking on their tears.

They breathed.

They ached.

They lived.

And there were these little deaths, okay? These little deaths that ripped through them, tearing open festering and rotten wounds, exposing them open to the air around them. They bled as they held on to each other, bled profusely, waiting for the storm to pass.

It took its time.

But eventually, like all things, it did.

The kisses were softer, less frantic.

The tears lessened.

They hurt, a raw, sensitive electric shock that felt like exposed nerves.

And maybe it would never go away. Maybe there would always be this hole inside of them. The not knowing. The mystery. The secret.

But.

They lay side by side, hands clasped between the two of them, neither wanting to let the other go.

Phillip said, “Do you know why? Why I wanted to see you?”

David thought he did. But he asked, “Why?”

Phillip kissed the back of David’s hand. “Because I love you. Because I miss you. Because I lost her, and I don’t want to lose you too.”

David swallowed thickly, the words stuck in his throat again. This time, though, he forced them out. “Everything I said. Everything I did. That day. When I left. I—”

“It’s okay. David, it’s—”

He shook his head furiously. “No. It’s not. It was never okay. No one deserves to hear something like that. Especially you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, okay? I never meant it. I never meant any of it.”

Phillip smiled that funny little smile, though it was brittle. “I know.”

And David believed him. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay. Um. I love you too. So.”

“You better.”

Their eyes were starting to droop.

Then, “Hey, Phillip?”

“Yeah?”

“Why’d you keep it like that?”

“Keep what?”

“The ring. Why’d you wear it around your neck?”

Phillip opened his eyes again. “Because it hurt to see it sometimes. On my finger. To remember… you know. But I also knew that one day, we’d find our way again. I put it on the chain and wore it around my neck. I could always feel it against my chest. Even when I’d forget about it, somehow I always felt it.”

“Oh. I took my ring off for the first time earlier tonight.”

“Not once when you were gone?”

“Not once.”

“Can you…?”

“Can I what?”

“Can you put mine on me again?”

“You want that?”

“Yes. Almost more than anything.”

Almost. Because they both knew what they did want more than anything.

But this was a start.

And so David opened his hand where Phillip’s ring sat. The chain had dented his skin with a strange little pattern. He fumbled with it until he slid the ring off the chain. And in the dark, he slid the ring back on his husband’s finger where it belonged.

Something settled in his heart.

“You need to go back to speak to someone,” Phillip said quietly. “I don’t care if it’s a therapist or a group or what. You can go alone. Or I can go with you. But you have to, David. You have to. You need help. You can’t go on like this. You can’t. It’s killing you. And I need you to be strong. For me. But mostly for her. Both of us have to be. Because if she’s still out there, she’s going to need us to be the best that we can be. It’s the only way. Can you do that? Can you do that for me? For her? I can’t lose you too. I can’t. I just can’t. I haven’t gotten my fill of you yet.”

“Yeah,” David said. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that. I promise. I swear. I’ll do that. Anything you want. Can I come home now? Please? Phillip? Can I please come home now?”

A single tear leaked out from Phillip’s right eye. It trailed over the bridge of his nose before it fell onto the pillow. “I’d like that that very much.”

David kissed him again, slow and sweet.

They were almost asleep when Phillip spoke again. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

“We should make waffles. In the morning. I think I’d like that.”

Then he was gone, eyes fluttering shut.

And before David followed him, before he allowed himself to believe for the first time in a very long time that things might just be okay, he whispered two words.

Two words meant for the man sleeping beside him.

Two words meant for a girl named Alice, out there somewhere in the world.

He was asleep a moment later.

Olive juice.