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us. I study his face and remember his letter to me. He told me he had done something really bad, but promised me he was okay. I look at his eyes and wonder what he could have done that was so bad, so bad he’d never contact us again. In the beginning, Phil and I speculated about many things, not trusting the perspective of a fourteen-year-old. Teenagers are dramatic. We figured surely he would come around and know that our relief would overshadow our condemnation. He never did, though. Thirteen years.
    Shortly after he disappeared, I remember receiving a letter from Mom telling me Willa Meyer had been killed, blown up in her chicken coop. I wondered. Phil assured me there was no way a fourteen-year-old boy could have gotten back to Summerville. I wanted to believe Phil, but I thought of how Forrest was never the same after Moose was shot, and I wondered. Murder is the only thing I can think of bad enough to keep him away for thirteen years.
    Not a day goes by where I don’t wonder if he’s all right, if he’s still alive, and where he is. Not a day goes by where I don’t want to take him in my arms and tell him everything will be all right.
    He would be twenty-seven now. Twenty-seven. Not just a young man, but a man. I wonder what he looks like now that he’s a man. I wonder what he looked like as he turned from a boy to a man. I wonder if I’d recognize him now. I look at those eyes in the photo. Yes, I’d recognize those eyes.
    I collect my box of photos of Forrest that I keep under my bed and take them to Otto’s Office Supplies, where I photocopy them.
    At home, I cut maybe a hundred black-and-white pictures of people out of the stack of newspapers in our garage, then put Forrest’s eyes everywhere. This is my life, looking for those eyes in crowds, looking for Forrest everywhere.

Jade on the Complications of Past Life Memory
(May 19)
    Aretha loves to go for bike rides. I equipped my mountain bike with this little trailer she can hop on. Sometimes she prefers to run beside me, and that’s okay if we’re not in traffic. I glance back at her. She’s smiling big. Aretha has the best smile.
    I like to wear a metallic gold superhero cape with a dark green J on it when I mountain bike or do anything else involving speed for that matter. Sometimes I blow bubbles, too. People here take themselves so seriously. I see it as my civic duty to help them lighten up.
    We swing by the post office. I pick up my mail and ride down toward the lifts to my condo. I reflect on the benefits of my self-imposed nunnery. It’s my last life. I can’t have any dead weight. Technically I’m enlightened, so who, really, is going to be any kind of match for me? This is okay. I accept this. There’s still so much to enjoy about planet Earth.
    I turn off before I reach the lifts into the parking lot for my condo complex. Aretha jumps off the trailer and runs over to a stunning man who walks out of the condo next to ours, the condo that has been for rent. His head is shaved and his skin is darker than Grace’s. His arms are as wide as his head. I look at those juicy arms and think, He is my Mount Everest . His eyes look familiar to me. Aretha seems to recognize him, too.
    “Friendly?” he calls to me as Aretha closes in on him.
    “Very!” I answer. “And so is my dog.” Shit. I finally meet a hunky guy and I’m wearing a superhero cape.
    “That’s a nice cape.” Ohhh, and those are some nice lips.
    I model it for him, strutting three steps forward, putting my hand on my hip, pivoting, and strutting back. “Thanks, it makes me go faster.”
    “Really?” Clearly, he’s a disbeliever.
    “Really.” Duh, people are always faster if they’re happier.
    Mount Everest walks toward a maroon Pathfinder, but stops to introduce himself. “I’m Josh,” he says, but when I look in his eyes, I finally recognize him.
    No, you’re not! I think. You’re Nisa! I remember you! Nisa! “Nice to meet you, Josh. I’m Jade.” Nisa,