“I was hoping you could do a cherry blossom tree,” the punk girl says, showing me a photograph she took of a tree in Japan, then running her hand from her back across her ribs and to her belly. She explains her vision, and the tat will be huge and incredibly intricate.

“Give me a few days to work on the design,” I say, and when she leaves I tell my boss, Hector, about her request.

“It’s way more complex than the stuff we usually do,” I tell him.

“Hell yeah. That’s going to take hours. I hope she can sit still for that long,” he says, shaking his head in admiration.

“I hope I can do it,” I say.

“Of course you can. You’re my best artist. Just sketch it out. But you should see my buddy, Ilyas, at Painted Ink in Brooklyn. He can give you some pointers. He’s a real artiste.”

Hector calls Ilyas and sets a time for me, and I’m grateful for the potential guidance and the fact that I just passed another hour without Harley.

But she’s never far from me. She’s a part of me, and when I leave the shop and walk home, my neck is bent the whole time as I scroll through pictures of Harley on my phone. Harley on the Staten Island Ferry this summer, leaning over the deck railing, her long blond hair wild in the sea breeze. Her at the Jane Black show we went to at the Knitting Factory, singing along to her favorite songs from the rock star. Then, this one where she’s all tucked up on my futon, wearing only a long, clingy shirt as she’s reading a book, a worn and tattered paperback about characters in a play that come alive.

Our summer together.

I nearly cave one night when I walk over to her block, stare up five flights to her window, and will her to sense me, to fling open the window, and joyously call me up. Throw her arms around me and tell me I’m forgiven for being a dick. That doesn’t happen, so I sink down to the stoop and park my ass there for a few minutes, drawing in my sketchbook, mapping out the cherry blossom tree.

But I feel like a stalker, so I stand, glancing one more time at her window. The pangs of being near her but not near enough stab like little knives.

I walk away, leaving her alone like she wants, and I wander around Chelsea, stopping in a bodega, grabbing a bag of chips and munching them on my way home. But I don’t want to go home and be without her, so I head for the gym, even though it’s midnight, and I work out for two hours until my body is so tired I have no choice but to crash.

My arms feel empty all through the night. And even though I’m tempted to knock on Sloan’s door to say hi, only to say hi, just to prove I can resist because I’d never ever cheat on Harley for real or in my head again, I know this isn’t about Sloan.

This is about my brothers.

I go to see them the next night.

To their tree.

A delivery truck backs up along Eighth Avenue, ready to unload food to the all-night grocery store near the park, its persistent beeping mingling with the sounds of cab horns that never stop, cell phone conversations that flood the sidewalks, and music filtering out of bars. I cross the street and reach the park on the next block, stopping at the entryway. Abingdon Square Park is tiny, a triangular patch of greenery that straddles the top of Chelsea and the bottom of the Village. There are benches and a circular walkway, and trees and flowers that line the grass. There are no playgrounds or swings, so it’s a park for contemplation. And, to be honest, for late-night drunk pissing, and the homeless, because this is New York, after all. There’s no purity in the city; even a park like this could never be a place of respite.

I head for the tree I planted four years ago for my dead brothers – to remember them. I’ve visited it many times. I even took Harley here a few months ago and she kissed the tree, and I think that was the moment when I knew I was wildly in love with her, and that the love would never stop; it would only grow. And now it’s really growing, and I’m a fucking mess.

I touch the tree. The bark is rough against my hand. But I run my palm along the small trunk, remembering how awful I felt when Will died. How hard it was to tell Harley. How much I miss three people I never knew.

It makes no sense sometimes; how could I miss a baby? But they were my blood, they were the brothers I never knew, and I miss the lost chance. I miss the chance to have been a family.

I grip the branch harder, and then I sink to my knees, the grass cool against my jeans. I lean my forehead on the branch and close my eyes, flashing back to the best piece of advice Michele ever gave me. “You can shut off and shut down, but none of those reactions are ultimately going to heal your heart. What will help you is speaking your truth. But don’t jump to conclusions. Don’t make assumptions. Say only what you know to be true.”

I bite my lip, as if I can hold it all in. But it’s simmering inside me, bubbling up. The ground feels uneven, like it’s swaying and ready to crumble under me. I grab harder onto the branch, trying to hold on. But it’s no use. I can’t hold on. I have to let it out. A thick giant tear that rolls down my cheek. “I’m so fucking scared,” I whisper. “I’m so scared the baby is going to join you, and I don’t know how I’m going to get through this in one piece. Because if I lose someone again, I don’t know that I can handle it.”

A nearby car somewhere slams on its brakes, causing a chain reaction of honking horns.

“You can.”

Someone is speaking to me, and I stand and swivel. I see a guy leaving the park, nodding at me, tipping his cap. “You can,” he says again, and walks off into the night.

I shake my head, because maybe I’m seeing things. Maybe I’m hearing things. But maybe this is the kindness of strangers saying what you need to hear.

Fate. It works like that, right?

I take out my phone and snap a picture of the tree. Then I tap out a message to Harley, speaking my truth.

Harley

“Let me try. Move your fat ass,” Kristen says, bumping my hip.

I roll my eyes as I scoot over on the carpeted floor of our apartment. “Oh my god, how long are you going to make fat jokes? I’m eight weeks. I’m not even showing, beyotch.”

She strokes her chin, adopts a contemplative look. “Hmm. Let’s see. If my calculations are correct, I’m going to make jokes for the next seven months. Now, watch what happens when a pro with the camera takes the shot.”

Kristen is a film major, and I’m not sure that means she takes better cell phone pictures, but I’m just glad to have a partner in crime.

Kristen centers her phone in her line of sight, and snaps a photo of one of the vintage cards. Our coffee table is littered with them.

Kristen has been playing detective with me for a few days now. I started by Googling my father’s first name—John—and San Diego. But, big surprise, I wasn’t able to narrow it down. Then we stopped in a fancy stationery store in the Village and I showed the owner the cards, but she shrugged and said she had no clue where they were from. After that, Kristen pretended to hypnotize me into remembering my grandparents’ names.

The added benefit of playing detective? It helps me to not think about Trey. I have a focus for my too-busy mind. This is a puzzle, this is something to be solved, this is a task that I can figure out.

“All right, the weird owl that’s looking at me is done,” she says, pointing to the card with a raised illustration of an owl with huge eyes.

“That’s what they do. Owls stare.”

“Spoken like an ornithologist. Now that one.” She snaps a picture of an orange fox with a bushy tail. “And how about the hedgie?”

I slide the chubby-hedgehog card across the wood, and she captures its likeness.

“All righty,” she says, wiggling her fingers. “Let’s have Google do its magic.”