Lisa Miscione - Twice

There was something beautiful and something ugly about what he’d said, something almost Gothic in its romance, its utter selflessness, and something sick about it, too.

As she left the gallery, she saw the twins peeking around a wall to look at her. They were beautiful children, but there was something old in their eyes. She knelt down and they came to her, each of them hugging her in turn.

“Remember what I told you, Lola,” Lydia said, releasing her. “You, too, Nathaniel.”

“You lose the giver, not the gift,” said Lola obediently. And Nathaniel nodded uncertainly. Lydia wasn’t sure that they understood yet the meaning of what she’d told them that night, but she believed that they might one day. She knew what it was like to go through life without parents; she hoped that her words would come back to them on the tough days and give them comfort.

When the ferry had docked and the gate opened, Hector handed her a piece of paper with a number on it and pointed toward the east.

“You got ten minutes. Don’t hold us up. You’ll get me in trouble,” he said. The other men, on the boat and on the shore, even the priest, all had their eyes on her. They were all curious, but no one asked any questions.

It was a dead place. There were no shading branches or grassy lanes lined with flowers, only black dirt paths and anemic trees scattered among the graves. She made her way on a rough walkway, through the maze of small white stone markers. No names, only numbers. And Lydia couldn’t believe how many there were. Hector had told her that there were between 750,000 and a million graves here. There were layers of them-the workers buried coffin on top of coffin-and Lydia felt unspeakably sad. Prisoners, indigents, orphans, and unknowns… all these lost souls. She thought of Rain and all the people below the subways who had helped them and wondered if most of them wouldn’t end up here like this. What path do you take that leads you to this end? She only knew the answer for one of them.

Across a vista of open grass, Lydia could see the ruins of old abandoned buildings, a hospital, a reformatory, a house. All once served a function for the city, now nameless and abandoned like the dead surrounding them.

She came upon the fresh grave with Jed McIntyre’s serial number on it and she reflected on why she’d come. It wasn’t to see him dead in the ground, as one might imagine. It wasn’t even for a sense of closure to the reign of terror he’d had over her life. She did not come to cry for her mother or for herself.

From a pocket of her long black cashmere coat, she removed the letter that Agent Goban had given her from Rebecca Helms’s crime scene. It had been opened and read by the people at the scene. But Lydia had never opened it. The letters she had received from him over the years had been like missives of reassurance that he was locked away. She didn’t need them anymore. She removed that pile now from another pocket and placed his most recent letter on top. She bent to pick up a rock she found by the path and she laid the letters on the earth, placed the rock on top to weight them down, and stood again.

She was here to give him back everything he had given her, all his pain, all his hatred, all his terror, all his letters. All the ugly parts of himself that she had allowed to become parts of her, she wanted him to have. For good. That was all. She turned away and walked back down the path toward the ferry.

When the ferry returned to the pier, Lydia saw Jeffrey standing on the dock. A gull screamed above her and a bell clanged in the wind as she approached him. He wore faded jeans and a gray hooded sweatshirt underneath his distressed leather jacket. His nose and cheeks were pink, as though he’d been standing in the cold for a while.

“You followed me,” she said, trying to sound disapproving.

“You lied to me,” he answered simply.

She shrugged. It was true. She couldn’t argue.

“I had to come alone.”

He nodded his understanding. “Did you get what you wanted?”

“I have what I want,” she said, reaching for his hand. “I just left some things I didn’t need behind.”

She turned to look as though she might see those things waving there at her like flags, but there was nothing. Just the murky water and the flat, dead island.

He raised her hand to his cheek and held it there. And she knew with clarity in that moment that the past was dead, the future just a fantasy. It was only the present that lived and breathed. It was all they had. And it was all they needed.

The following texts and Web sites were invaluable in the writing of this novel: The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City (Chicago Review Press) by Jennifer Toth; The Tunnel: The Underground Homeless of New York City (Yale University Press) by Margaret Morton; The Making of New York ( www.nysl.nysed.gov ); The New York Geneological and Biological Society ( www.nygbs.org ); Forgotten New York ( www.forgotten-ny.com ); and Ectopic Pregnancy Trust ( www.ectopic.org ).

Special thanks to Larry Labriola, New York City Police Department Narcotics Detective (ret.) for his patient answers to my million questions on NYPD policy and procedures and to Dr. Thomas Walter M.D., F.A.C.O.G., for his invaluable insights on ectopic pregnancy.

However, in spite of my careful research, I’m sure I’ve gotten something wrong along the way and I know I’ve taken artistic license as the narrative dictates. Either way, don’t blame my sources! All mistakes, intentional or otherwise, are mine.

With every book I write, the list of people to whom I am thankful grows longer. If I were to name here all of those who have bolstered and helped me in the process of completing this novel, I’m afraid I could go on for pages. Or worse, in the listing of them, I would neglect someone crucial. So I’ll just say that I have been blessed with an amazing network of family and friends without whom I would be pretty lost. They know who they are.

I am most especially grateful to my wonderful husband, Jeffrey Unger, for his love, encouragement, patience, and tireless efforts as first reader, webmaster, and publicist; my agent, Elaine Markson, and her assistant Gary Johnson for their unflagging support; Kelley Ragland for her brilliant editing; and associate editor Ben Sevier and all the people at St. Martin’s who work so hard and achieve such wonderful results.

Lisa Unger, writing as Lisa Miscione, is an award-winning New York Times , USA Today , and international bestselling author. Her novels have been published in more than twenty-six countries around the world. She was born in New Haven, Connecticut (1970) but grew up in the Netherlands, England, and New Jersey. A graduate of the New School for Social Research, Lisa spent many years living and working in New York City. She then left a career in publicity to pursue her dream of becoming a full-time author. She now lives in Florida with her husband and daughter. She is at work on her next novel.