31. There Is No Language That’s Meaningless

There Is No Language That's Meaningless

I fall asleep, on the floor.

I'm freezing when I wake up. It must be the middle of the night. My arms and legs are covered in goose bumps. My neck creaking awake.

I've looked through the photo albums. I've scoured his high school yearbook from senior year. There were 630 girls in his graduating class, but there was no Cory. Female or male. I don't have it in me to go through the other 3,000 students at the school, not knowing what I'll figure out, even if I happen upon someone named Cory.

So, I stand up to put the photo albums back on the shelf, back in their place, to put all his belongings that I've gone through next to the framed photographs.

Which is when I see it still on that shelf. A thin book. A thin book on which one of those photographs is perched. A thin book I almost missed.

I pull it down off the shelf and stare at its maroon cover.

Jabberwocky: The Midwood High School Literary Review.

I start turning the pages until I land on the table of contents. I'm searching for my father's name—a story he would have written, or an essay—something to explain why he kept this journal.

I don't find my father's name there, but I do see Joseph D. Goddard. My uncle Joe, and a short story that he wrote called "The Shortstop."

It makes me smile, thinking of him writing a story. It feels so off-brand that I almost turn to read it. But then I zero in on another name.

Another name that catches my attention. I see two pieces (a poem and a short story) by someone named Cordelia Ryan.

I hold on the name Cordelia. Cory could be short for Cordelia, couldn't it? This could be Cory. It also, of course, could not be.

It's the closest I've come tonight, so I turn to page eight, to read her story, which she's entitled "The Children Go."

But under the title there is a note I close in on. It's a short note, handwritten, all in lowercase. Except for his initials. Except for my father's initials.

LSN—

in case i don't say it later,

they're all for you

My heart starts racing as I keep flipping through the journal. As I flip until I get to the masthead.

As I flip until I find it. CORDELIA G. RYAN. EDITOR IN CHIEF .

There is a photograph beneath her name. A small black-and-white photograph of a young woman sitting on a bench, smiling at the camera in her wire-rim glasses and wrap dress and this long, unruly hair. Her face may be small in the photograph, the curls covering too much of her eyes. I need to turn on the light to see her more clearly.

But I recognize her face, her pretty and familiar face, even before the light goes on. I recognize her before I'm even sure that I do.

Grace.