Richard Montanari: Play dead

Graciella looked out over the river. "What do you remember most about her?"

Jessica had to think about this. "I guess it would be her voice. She used to sing all the time. I remember that." "What did she sing?"

"All kinds of things. Whatever was popular on the radio, I guess." The songs came back, found their place in Jessica's heart. "What do you remember?"

"My mom's handwriting. She used to send things to my house. Birthdays, Christmas, Easter. I never opened the boxes. I was so mad at her. I didn't even know her, but I hated her. Until the night she called me and explained everything. She was sixteen when she had me. I'm sixteen. Geez, I can't imagine."

Jessica recalled the photographs in the photo cube at Eve's apartment, the high-school shot of Eve in which she looked heavy. She had not been overweight. She had been pregnant.

"When I hung up that night, after talking to my mom, I opened all the boxes she sent me. She sent me this." Graciella held out a sterling silver pendant on a fine chain. It was an angel.

"It's very pretty."

"Thank you." She slipped the pendant over her head, positioned the angel over her heart. "I wonder if you could take me someplace."

"Sure," Jessica said. "Anywhere you want to go."

"I'd like to go where my mother was found."

Jessica looked at the young woman. She seemed to have matured in the past few days. Her hair was brushed, her skin impossibly clear. She wore a white cotton dress. She'd told Jessica she'd worn nothing but black for years. She said she'd never wear black again. Graciella had given the police a full statement about the last moments she had spent in Faerwood. She said that after she stepped onto the stage, and saw the Fire Grotto, she didn't remember anything. All the video equipment had been destroyed in the fire. There was no record of what happened.

"You sure that's a good idea?" Jessica asked. "I mean, there's not much there. It's all been smoothed over. They've planted grass there."

Graciella nodded.

"Plus, you're supposed to meet with your uncle," Jessica added.

"My uncle. It sounds so weird," Graciella said. "Can he meet us there? In the park?"

"Sure," Jessica said. "I'll call."

They drove to Belmont Plateau in silence. Byrne followed in his own car.

Jessica and Byrne watched the young woman cross the street, step into the shallow woods. When she stepped out, Graciella turned to someone on Belmont Avenue, waved. Jessica and Byrne looked.

Enrique Galvez stood next to his car. He wore a dark suit, his hair was trimmed and combed. He looked as nervous as Jessica felt, as fallen and needy as he had looked at the funeral.

When Graciella approached, the two embraced tentatively- strangers, family, blood. They talked a long while.

At noon, with an autumn moon already in the sky, Detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano got into their cars, and headed to the city. "Wow. I'm finally inside Casa di Kevin." They had stopped by Byrne's apartment on the way to the Roundhouse. Incredibly, he asked her if she wanted to come in.

"What are you talking about?" Byrne asked.

"I've never been here before."

"Yes, you have."

"Kevin. Between the two of us, who would you trust on this?"

Byrne looked at her, then out the window, onto Second Street. "You've never been here?"

"No."

"Man." He began to absently straighten up the place. When he was done, he got what he came home for-that being his service weapon and holster. "I have a date with Donna this Friday."

"I know."

Byrne looked coldcocked. "You know?"

"I talk to Donna now and then."

"You talk to my wife?"

"Well, technically, she's your ex-wife. But yeah. Now and then. I mean, we don't coffee klatch, Kevin. We're not swapping Rachael Ray recipes."

Byrne drew a long, rhythmic breath.

"What the hell was that?" Jessica asked.

"What was what?"

"That breath. That was yoga breathing."

"Yoga? I don't think so."

"I tookyoga classes after Sophie was born. I knowyoga breathing."

Byrne said nothing.

Jessica shook her head. "Kevin Byrne doing yoga."

Byrne looked at her. "How much do you want?"

"A thousand dollars. Tens and twenties."

"Okay."

Jessica's phone rang. She answered, took down the information. "We're up," she said. "We have a job. The boss wants us in."

Byrne glanced at his watch, back. "You go on ahead. I have a stop to make."

"Okay," she said. "See you at the house."

The man stood next to the ruin. He seemed thinner than the last time Byrne had seen him. All around him were the bulky brick entrails of another urban casualty. The city had taken the wrecking ball to the abandoned building on Eighth Street.

It was certainly no loss for North Philly. For Robert O'Riordan it was another story.

Byrne wondered how long the man would haunt this place, how long it would be until Caitlin said it was okay for him to go home. Everyone said it gets easier with time, Byrne knew. It never gets easier, it just gets later.

Byrne got out of his car, crossed the road. Robert O'Riordan saw him. At first, Byrne didn't know how O'Riordan was going to react. After a few moments O'Riordan looked at the broken building, then back at Byrne. He nodded.

Byrne walked up next to the man, stood with him, shoulder to shoulder. He didn't know if Robert O'Riordan was a religious man, but Byrne handed him something, a prayer card from Eve Galvez's service. O'Riordan took it. He held it in two hands.

Although they had never met in life, Robert O'Riordan and Eve Galvez were bound by something that would forever transcend this place, something that memory and time could erode, but never erase. Something found in the very heart of mercy.

And so Byrne and he stood, in silence, as the winds gathered leaves in vacant lots. Neither man spoke. Sometimes words were not enough, Kevin Byrne thought. Sometimes they were not even needed.