I think about it for a moment, trying to remember my rationale for rejecting Luca back then. “You read his letters,” I remind her. “He was mean and offensive, and I didn’t want him leaving comments like that on my Facebook page where everyone could see it.”
There was also something about writing a letter and putting it in the mailbox that I enjoyed, and I was afraid that if Luca and I found a way to talk outside of those letters, it would be over. I wasn’t ready to put an end to that era. I guess I’m still not ready, seeing as now I’m on a plane to find him after not hearing from him for two years.
“I guess that’s fair. Still, I would have at least added him for a minute just to see what he looked like. In fact, I’ve Facebook-stalked almost every person I’ve ever emailed at work.”
“Seriously? Why?”
“I like to put a face to the name.”
“I admit that I’m curious now. Do you think he deleted his Facebook page just to make it harder to find him?”
Anne nods. “And probably paid to have his information removed from PeopleFinder. Either that, or Luca Pichler isn’t his real name.”
“It has to be his real name. That’s the name the elementary school gave me when we started the pen pal program.”
“True. If that’s the case, then he really put in effort to make himself hard to find.”
“That’s okay,” I say. “We don’t need Facebook or public records to find him. We’ll stalk him the old-fashioned way.”
I kind of wish I had thought of doing this sooner, but I figured there was a reason behind him cutting me off: his wife. It probably would have been a little weird if some random woman (me) showed up at their door looking for Luca. Then again, maybe he’s still with her. Maybe it will still be weird. I have no idea what I’m walking into.
“This is going to be so much fun,” Anne says. She places the letters back into the folder and then tucks it into my backpack while we wait for the plane to land. There are still plenty more letters to read at the airport tomorrow night.
* * *
“What if this is a bad idea? What if he moved back into his childhood home, and when I show up at his door, he has me arrested for stalking him? Or worse. What if I get pepper sprayed?”
“Highly unlikely,” she says. “Besides, I bet he had to do a little stalking of his own to figure out where you work now.”
I think about Luca going through all the trouble that Anne and I are going through to find him. I wonder what his motivations are, and why I’m finally hearing from him after two years. Why now? It feels a little like whiplash to be forgotten for so long just to hear from him again and still not be able to write back. I guess ‘forgotten’ might not be the right word, though. We had both moved away and I imagined he had moved on with his life. Meanwhile, he was always lurking in the back of my mind in some way or another.
It doesn’t seem fair that it’s so hard to find him now. I imagine it was probably a little easier for him, seeing as my name and face are on the news every morning.
Anne got me up early to track him down, and now here we are at eight in the morning, standing in front of the house he grew up in. It’s a pale blue house with white shutters. There’s a mailbox on the corner of the lot. I wonder if this is the same mailbox that housed the countless letters I sent to this address over the years.
“It couldn’t be that hard,” I say. “All he had to do was look up my name and find every weather report I’ve ever done. He didn’t have to fly all the way to Miami to figure that out.”
“Well, he’s not giving you much of a choice but to do it this way.”
“I’m sure that will go over well in court. ‘It’s not my fault, your honor; he gave me no choice but to stalk him!’”
Anne rolls her eyes. “Calm down. The worst that will happen is he’ll get a restraining order against you. And I doubt he’d even do that. Why go out of his way to find you and write to you if he was going to freak out and get a restraining order?”
I know that she’s right, but I’m stalling. I take a deep breath and watch the house a moment longer. I try to picture Luca as a kid running out that front door and heading to the mailbox to see if there was anything for him. I wonder if he was excited to check the mail like I was. There were times when I wondered if he actually hated me. Some of his letters were so mean, and so personal, that I wondered why he even bothered writing to me at all. Sometimes he even threatened not to write to me again, but he never made good on those threats.
I wonder if he was just an angry kid. It sure seemed like it sometimes, but maybe he simply enjoyed messing with me. I picture him getting older and still coming through that front door to check the mail, looking for my letters. It’s hard to imagine since I don’t know what he looks like. I picture him differently every time he comes through the door. Sometimes he has blond hair, sometimes brown. Sometimes he’s tall, and sometimes he’s short.
“Are you scared?” Anne asks the question quietly, pulling me out of my daydream.
“A little bit.”
“No one is going to pepper spray you. Just go up and knock. You’re probably freaking them out just standing there and staring at their house.”
I sigh, and force myself to take the steps up to the front porch. I ring the doorbell and hold my breath.
A woman appears on the other side of the screen door. She pushes it open and stares at us expectantly. “Can I help you?”
“Hi,” I say, struggling to find my voice. “I was wondering if you know anything about the family who lived in this house before you.”
