“Honey?” she asks. “I’m sorry to interrupt but there’s someone here to see you.”

She opens the door just as Robert Bortham swivels around in his chair and faces us. Unlike many home offices, his desk is facing away from the door and looking out of the window at the birch trees.

As I stand debating whether or not I should bring up his past in front of his wife, she solves the dilemma for me by closing the door and politely disappearing back outside.

“How can I help you?” he asks, getting up from behind the chair. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember you from class. Which one are you in again?”

“We’re not your students,” I say, clearing my throat. “I’m actually here to talk to you about something that happened a long time ago.”

“Okay…” he says slowly, drawing out the word as he speaks.

He furrows his brow and waits for me to continue.

Enough already, Olive, I say to myself. Stop prolonging this anymore than necessary. Just say it already.

“My name is Olive Kernes,” I mumble. Clearing my throat, I add, “Owen Kernes is my brother.”

I search his face for an inkling of confirmation but his expression remains flat.

Did I make a mistake?

Is this the wrong person?

“You used to go by the name Pink Eye,” I continue with newfound urgency. “You were very close friends with him back then.”

He still doesn’t react.

But he also doesn’t look surprised.

“Please, I’m not the police, I just have some questions about something that happened to Owen’s girlfriend…are you Pink Eye?”

The walls of his office are lined with bookcases and he runs his fingers along the spines of the books for a moment before descending onto the worn couch across from his desk.

“I haven’t heard that name in many years,” he says slowly.

“But you are Pink Eye?” Sydney asks.

He gives her a slight nod.

“I was…once.”

When his wife comes in and brings us glasses of water and a bowl of cookies, I see his whole body tense up.

“My wife and I are very close, but she doesn’t know anything about my old life,” he explains. “And I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Yes, of course,” I agree.

“So, you were friends with my brother?” I ask.

“Yes. We were very close. But his arrest, the one he got all of that time for, that was a big wakeup call for me. That’s when I stopped associating with all of our old friends and moved to Pennsylvania to my grandmother’s house. That’s when I really started focusing on school and ended up getting a PhD in psychology.”

“And that’s what you do now? Teach?” Sydney asks.

“Teach and do research. I also maintain a practice part-time, focusing on people dealing with post-traumatic stress.”