Free Hungry Ghosts by Susan Dunlap

utterly alone. It seemed like only I cared.”
    She laughed.
    â€œTia?”
    â€œSorry, I’m so sorry, really. It’s just that you couldn’t possibly have been more wrong. Gary and John, they never let up. You must know that now, right?”
    â€œNo, I don’t. I’m stunned. I don’t— They— They never said anythingto me. Never let up how? It’s like I’ve walked into an alternate San Francisco and the real one is over to the left somewhere. I didn’t even know you knew my brothers.” I looked down and realized I was digging my fingers into the armrest.
    But Tia wasn’t watching out for her upholstery; her whole attention was on me. Without moving, she seemed to be reaching toward me. “ Know is too strong a term. Except for Gary. John found me the summer between junior and senior years in high school, the year after Mike disappeared. You were still around, so I just assumed you’d know. I was out of college when Gary called. I had the impression he thought he could ferret out more than his brother had.”
    Despite everything, I laughed. “That’s Gary, all right. And Grace? Did my sister hunt you down, too?”
    She eased back in her chair. “Grace was a fluke. She was a resident in the ER when I had my accident. I was so scared I was looking for anything to distract myself. I saw her name and, oddly, remembered you saying that you and Mike were the curly redheads and the rest had the straight black hair. Hers was long, tied back, and dead straight. So I asked. And then she asked.”
    â€œDid she ask you about Mike, too?” Grace had never mentioned this. None of them had.
    â€œOh, Darcy, I don’t remember. They all came at it from different directions.”
    I was still clutching the arm of the chair. I eased my fingers off the fabric. “Tia, this is going to sound silly, but I’d like to know those directions. I’ve spent years searching for Mike. I’ve hired detectives, tracked down his college friends, chased strange red-haired men down city streets, but no one else—” I swallowed. “Well, I assumed no one else did, that they just accepted that he’d gone. It’s because no one ever mentioned his name,so, see, I don’t know who knew what when, if anything.” I swallowed and focused on hooking my hair behind my ears.
    When I was composed enough to face her again, I had the sense that she’d been about to say or do something comforting, then thought better of it. Now she was shifting into the back cushion. She put down the little frog and said, “Sure. I kept a diary back then. I probably wrote down every question, or at least my reaction; my answer, their reaction to me . It’s packed away in a box in my garage downstairs or I’d get it for you.”
    It might have been the awkwardness of my admission or her shifting her weight, either to give me a moment of privacy or maybe because she couldn’t sit in one position longer, but I understood that she was cutting to the chase because there was something else she really wanted to talk about, the things she’d actually invited me here for.
    â€œBut for now,” she said, “here’s what I told them—”
    â€œNo. Tell me what you didn’t tell them.”
    Tia shrugged. “You always did see between the lines. In high school that made me very nervous. I’ll bet it’s had that effect on lots of people.”
    â€œNot so they mentioned.” I grinned.
    She smiled. “Your brother John, the cop, caught me coming out of school. He was—excuse my saying this—young and taken with his authority.”
    â€œOne out of two. John was born middle-aged. Now, probably, he’d admit he loved flashing his badge back then.”
    â€œHe was a cute cop, though, and I didn’t want to seem like a silly high school girl who had a crush on his brother, a guy I barely