The shock I felt upon hearing that my best friend for over ten years wasn’t who I thought she was lasted less than a week. By the time my birthday rolled around, I had a rather lengthy list of questions that I wanted to ask her. However, I hadn’t seen her all that week – either she had gone to Missouri, like she had said she would, or she was laying low until she judged that it was safe enough to show her face.

But that wasn’t something I had the time – or the inclination – to worry about right now. I was due at my mother’s house for dinner – something I normally tried to get out of, being that I worked with my mother and therefore didn’t feel the need to spend the evening with her, but I had a slightly ulterior motive this time.

“Happy birthday, Rosaria,” Ma said as I walked into her kitchen. She stood in front of the cooktop, her back to me, stirring something in a large pot. She looked back over her shoulder at me and smiled. “Genevieve isn’t here?”

“She had to go to Kansas City with her mom,” I replied. “What’s for dinner?”

Ma laughed. “Oh Ria, you’re just like your father – always thinking with your stomach.”

“I do not,” I said in mock indignation.

“Mom’s right,” my sister Katia said as she walked in. She stopped and looked at me. “And really, with all the food you eat, I’m surprised you’re still as thin as you are…”

“Katia, be nice to your sister – it’s her birthday after all,” Ma scolded.

“Yeah, Kate – I’d actually like to get through one family dinner without either you or Mahalia ripping on me,” I said.

“Rosaria, that goes for you too,” Ma scolded. “Honestly, the two of you…”

After dinner – fettuccine and Tuscan meatballs, with chocolate and cherry fudge cake for dessert – I followed my mother into the living room; Mahalia and Katia had disappeared upstairs to Katia’s room. “Ma, would I be able to borrow some of your CDs?” I asked as she sat down on the couch and turned the TV on.

“Which ones?” she asked.

I let out a quiet sigh. “Your Hanson CDs. Before you say anything, I know that today isn’t the best day for me to be asking, but I want to know more about them. And a good starting point is their music. I’ve never heard any of it – you never played it when we were growing up, and I don’t recall hearing any of their songs on the radio. And you never told us anything about them. I honestly wouldn’t know the first place to look.” That last part was a lie, and I damn well knew it – I had a veritable font of information at my disposal, in the form of one Jordan Taylor Hanson. Still, my mother wasn’t to know that, and I wasn’t about to tell her that I – or Gen, for that matter – was more or less seeing things.

“Oh, I suppose,” she said, sounding rather reluctant. “But please be careful with them. They’re in your old bedroom.”

I nodded my thanks and headed upstairs to my old room. It was right at the back of the house, two rooms away from the bathroom, and was filled with assorted junk, most of which belonged to me. What I had been unable to fit into my poky Hyundai Excel the day I’d moved out of home, I had left behind. Sitting on my old desk was a dark blue cardboard box that had a white adhesive label with ‘Rhiannon Chalmers’ written on it in black marker stuck to its side. I stepped up to the desk and lifted off the lid of the box, revealing seven plastic CD jewel cases, a hardcover notebook and a pile of newspaper clippings. Satisfied that I had found what I had gone upstairs to get, I closed the box and headed back downstairs.

At home later that evening, I liberated my laptop from its usual home on my desk and carried it into the living room. Instead of sitting on the couch like I normally did, I sat myself down on the floor, my laptop on the rug before me, and I began the process of loading each album into iTunes.

“What’re you doing?”

“Jesus Christ!” I yelled, dropping the CD case that I’d been holding. Looking up, I saw Taylor crouched down in front of me, a mildly amused smile on his face. “God Taylor, don’t scare me like that!”

“Sorry Ria.” I smiled upon hearing my favourite nickname; he had taken to calling me that lately, claiming it to be easier than saying my full first name. He scooted around to sit next to me and picked up one of the CDs I had already loaded into iTunes. “I haven’t seen this in so long,” he said, sounding wistful. The CD he held was called This Time Around. “It was the last album we ever recorded together.”

“What song should I play?” I asked. “I’ve never heard any of your music before; my mother wouldn’t play it in the house when I was growing up.”

“Not to sound conceited, but you’re in for a treat,” Taylor said; he grinned for the first time that I had seen and pulled my laptop toward him. “Hmm…play This Time Around.”

“As you command,” I joked, and skipped through the tracks to find the one that he had requested, pressing the space bar on the keyboard to play it. As the song played, I noted that Taylor had closed his eyes, and was tapping his fingertips on the floor to the beat. I could already tell that he liked the song a lot.

“So where is my little sister tonight?” Taylor asked as a song called Runaway Run started; I turned the volume down a little so that we could have a proper conversation.

“Kansas City,” I replied. “Or that’s what she tells me every year, anyway. She’ll be back either late tonight or early tomorrow morning – stoned out of her brain, if I figure correctly.”

“I wish she didn’t have to do that,” he said quietly. He shook his head, seemingly in dismay. “So how has your birthday been so far?”

“Oh, not bad.” I chuckled. “You know, it’s funny – if my mother hadn’t gone to that concert, I most likely would have been born at the end of January 2001, rather than on October twenty-second.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “I don’t think my mother was expecting to have to go to the hospital on what should have been one of the best nights of her life.” I drew my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. “Seeing her favourite band in concert for the first time – and last time, as it turned out – having a great time until all hell well and truly broke loose…” I sighed. “But yeah, today’s been pretty good. I had to work today, so my mother is giving me the day off tomorrow to make up for it.”

The two of us talked until late. As the clock on the wall above the TV chimed midnight, I heard a loud knocking on the apartment door, and a voice yelling through from the corridor.

“Rosaria, I know you’re up – open the damn door!” I heard Gen yelling. “I don’t have my keys!”

“You’d better hide until I can calm her down,” I said as I gathered up my mother’s CDs and my laptop, and carried them through to my room. “She might not take kindly to the fact that you’ve been here all night.”

“Good point,” Taylor agreed; he had followed me. “Would I be able to use your computer?”

“Yeah, sure. Just keep the volume down.” He nodded his agreement, and I left my room, closing the door behind me. The pounding at the door had grown even louder, and for some reason I could hear Gen crying. “Jesus Gen, hold your fucking horses!” I yelled as I ran to the door and opened it. “It was unlocked you idiot, why didn’t you come in?”

“I don’t know,” Gen replied; she had calmed down rather quickly, I felt. She had semi-dried tears on her cheeks, and her blue eyes were red-rimmed and slightly bloodshot. “I just thought that this late, it’d be locked. That’s all.”

“Well, it wasn’t. Here, come on; wash your face and I’ll make you some coffee.”

“Thanks Ria.” She gave me a tremulous smile and headed through into the bathroom; I soon heard the water running, and I walked into the kitchen. I quickly had a pot of espresso coffee brewing, and was pouring the dark liquid into two large mugs as Gen emerged from the bathroom. She carried a washcloth with her; as she sat down at the small table in the corner of the kitchen, she pressed it over her eyes.

“How are you feeling?” I asked as I spooned sugar into one of the mugs – Gen liked her coffee black and rather strong, while I preferred a little milk and a good deal of sugar. It helped take away some of the bitterness.

Gen let out a bitter laugh and took the washcloth away from her eyes so that she could see me. “I feel like I’ve had my heart ripped out of my chest, kicked around and then shoved back in.” She gave a quiet sigh. “I honestly can’t believe it’s been twenty-five years…”

I didn’t say anything as I sat down across from her and slid her coffee across the table. “How’s your mom holding up?”

“As well as anyone can expect, for someone who lost both their only son and their husband within thirteen months of one another.” She put the washcloth down on the table and took her coffee mug into both hands. “I wish she would move out of that house. It’s just too big, now that I’ve moved out. I mean, it was a big house even when I was still at home, but at least it was the two of us. Now that she’s the only one still there…” She shook her head. “I just wish I could talk some sense into her, but she’s stubborn as all hell. Walker family trait, I’m afraid.”

You mean Hanson family trait, I almost said, but I held my tongue. I doubted that Gen would take kindly to my interrogation on a night like tonight. I have to stop calling her that – her name is Zoë, I reminded myself.

We sat there in silence, drinking our coffee, until around three in the morning. “I had better get some sleep if I’m going to be up for work this morning,” Gen said as she got up from the table. “Thanks for listening, Ria – I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome, Gen,” I replied.

---

“Your name isn’t really Gen Walker, is it?”

Gen looked up from reading the newspaper; her glasses were perched on the very end of her nose. I had chosen to wait until Saturday to begin questioning my roommate, as Arcana was closed on the weekends.

“I beg your pardon?” she asked.

“‘Gen Walker’ is just an alias, isn’t it?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Rosaria.”

“You do, and you damn well know it.” I got up from the table. “Where’s your driver’s licence?”

“It’s in my wallet, where it usually is,” Gen replied. She closed the newspaper and set it aside. “What is wrong with you?” she asked me as I got up and headed to the kitchen counter, where Gen’s wallet sat next to her cell phone.

“Oh, nothing,” I said nonchalantly. I snapped Gen’s wallet open and pawed through the cards, old train and bus tickets and numerous assorted bits and pieces, finally pulling her driver’s licence out into the open. I flipped it over – the back of it had been staring me in the face – and examined it.

The name on it read Zoë Genevieve Hanson.

“I knew it!” I crowed triumphantly. “Now I know why you never let me see your licence. It wasn’t because your licence photo always looks like shit – it’s because Gen Walker isn’t even your real name.”

Gen stalked over and snatched her licence and wallet from my hands. “I’ll ask you not to go poking around in my belongings, Rosaria,” she said, glaring at me. With that, she turned her back and left the kitchen. Moments later, I heard her bedroom door slamming closed.

“That was really the wrong way to go about it, Ria.”

I looked over to see Taylor sitting at the table in Gen’s spot. He had one eyebrow raised at me, his blue eyes stormy. He didn’t look very happy.

“Well, pardon me for wanting to know the truth, Jordan,” I said, addressing him by his first name.

He obviously chose to ignore this. “When she’s calmed down, apologise to her. Then ask her nicely why she’s kept who she is a secret.”

“You don’t know?”

“No. Though I do have a rough idea of why she chose to adopt my father’s name as her surname.”

I gave Gen about two hours to calm herself, remembering that it had taken her about that long to cool down the last time she got angry, before venturing over to her room and knocking on her bedroom door. “Gen?” I asked. “Can I talk to you, please?”

“No.”

“Gen, c’mon – I know you’re pissed off. I would be too. But you can’t ignore me forever, you know. We do work together.”

There was quiet for a little while. Finally, Gen’s door opened, and she looked through the gap at me. “I didn’t want you to find out that way,” she said quietly. “I…I wanted to tell you myself, but I didn’t know how.”

I could hardly blame her for that. “Look, Gen…if it’s any consolation, I’m sorry for being such a bitch. But you know how I get when I’ve got a theory about something.” I cocked an eyebrow. “So what do you want me to call you now?”

“I’d prefer it if you just kept calling me Gen. There is only one person now who I want to call me Zoë, and that’s my mother.” She opened the door wider. “I suppose you know now why I bolted when I saw that article.”

“Yeah.”

“It just…it triggered something in me. I know I wasn’t even three when he died, but I do remember it pretty damn well. And seeing that article…it felt like I was losing him all over again.” She shook her head. “And the worst part is that I never got to say goodbye.”

“What if you had that chance?” I turned slightly away, toward the living room, and nodded to Taylor, who had moved from his seat at the table to the couch. He got up and crossed the apartment to where I stood.

Gen now had tears in her eyes. “I would give anything to be able to see him again,” she said quietly.

“Come out here,” I said, and Gen opened the door fully. She took just one step before she stopped in her track. Her mouth dropped wide open.

“Hey Zo,” Taylor said quietly. He gave his youngest sister a small smile.

“Taylor?” Gen whispered.