Chapter 21 The Life Before Mine
If there was one thing I knew for certain about my father’s past, it was where he went to college.
He had mentioned it once years ago in passing, like it was just another unimportant detail in a life he preferred not to look back on. At the time, I hadn’t cared.
But it mattered now. Everything did.
So I started there.
I opened my laptop and typed the name into the search bar: UC Berkeley.
From there, I disappeared into the dusty corners of the internet, scanned alumni pages, archived newsletters, and half-broken directories from another century.
I narrowed the year range.
Graduation: 1999.
There he was.
Brandon Richards. Finance major. Honors List.
It was proof that he had once lived fully, before he turned into the man who sat across from me at dinner, empty behind the eyes and absent in every way that mattered.
Next, I searched for her.
“Brandon Richards + Ines + UC Berkeley.”
Nothing.
I widened the search.
“Ines + University of California Berkeley + 2000.”
“Ines + UC Berkeley.”
“Ines + student + 2001.”
The internet gave me garbage and ghosts, old forum posts, dead links, empty alumni pages filled with smiling strangers who were not her.
So I changed tactics. Local history. I typed in: Berkeley newspaper archive.
The screen loaded into decades of scanned issues, headlines, classifieds, announcements, blurry photographs. I clicked into a digitized archive called The Berkeley Chronicle.
The site took an eternity to load. A digital graveyard of newsprint and lives.
I started at the year they graduated.
1999.
Then 2000.
Birth announcements. Engagement notices. School concerts. Weddings.
And then something caught my eye.
My breath hitched.
ENGAGEMENT ANNOUNCEMENT — JULY 2000
Brandon Richards and Ines Laurent
The families of Brandon Richards and Ines Laurent are pleased to announce the engagement of their children...
The screen blurred.
Them. Together. Engaged.
Her face, young and radiant, the same smile from the photograph in his office. His arm wrapped around her waist, possessive, familiar.
The caption beneath read:
The couple met while studying in Berkeley and plan to wed later this year.
I scrolled. A wedding announcement followed a few months later.
WEDDING BELLS AUGUST 25, 2000
Brandon Richards and Ines Laurent, both alumni of UC Berkeley, were married Saturday afternoon in a private ceremony attended by close friends and family.
I stared at the date.
August 25, 2000.
My mind did the math before my heart was ready for it.
My birthday: May 25, 2001.
Ten months.
They had been married ten months before I was born.
Not a secret affair.
Not an accident.
My chest tightened and I kept scrolling.
Then I found myself.
BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT — MAY 25, 2001
A daughter, Ashley Richards, was born to Brandon and Ines Richards early Tuesday morning.
I touched my name on the screen like it might disappear.
And then I kept going.
TRAGEDY STRIKES LOCAL HOME — DECEMBER 13, 2001
Ines Richards, 24, was found deceased following a home invasion on Tuesday...
No suspect has been apprehended. Community members and friends have expressed condolences to grieving husband Brandon Richards…
My chest collapsed inward like something had punched through it.
Six months.
She lived six months after giving birth to me.
Six months she held me.
Six months I had a mother.
With shaking hands I scrolled again, because my hands would not let me stop.
OBITUARY – IN MEMORY OF INES RICHARDS
Beloved wife.
Devoted mother.
Daughter gone too soon.
The laptop slid from my hands onto the bed like it had burned me.
Home invasion. Murder. No suspect.
I lay flat on my back and stared at the ceiling until it blurred into nothing.
Ten minutes.
That’s how long it took for my hope to exist and die. Deep down, I had hoped, stupidly and quietly, that maybe she was still out there. Maybe I would find a trail. A name in a database. A woman who disappeared and then resurfaced somewhere warm and alive.
Instead…
I found a grave.
My fingers curled into the sheets.
A question surfaced then.
Where did Marissa fit into this?
Because she hadn’t been mentioned.
Not once.
Not as sister.
Not as family.
Not as anything.