“Up where?” I had no idea what she was talking about.
“It needs to be perfect. I can do it without the Lutz boys. I can get to the bridge all by myself.”
When I realized she was talking about climbing around on a bridge at night, I was like, “Nope, sorry. Whatever that’s about, no way. You’re not in any condition to go anywhere, Addison.” And then I reached out, and I just took her harness. It was right there, on the coat peg. I shook it at her—I felt like I had to give her some kind of a warning.
“You should go to bed. I’m tucking you in, okay? And I’m taking this to make sure you don’t do anything stupid.”
She just shrugged. She wasn’t bothered by me at all. “You think I need that harness? That’s a funny joke, Zach. I wear that harness to be friendly. I wear that so other people think that I care.”
I decided that she was bluffing. We finished our tea, and I tucked her in. I guess she was just playing me, but I didn’t realize that. I told her I was taking this night as a truce. “Let’s get breakfast together tomorrow. I miss you, baby.” It was the last thing I ever said to her.
When I left with the harness, I’d gotten her into bed. Even if she hadn’t changed, she looked peaceful, with her eyes heavy, like she was about to drop off to sleep. Of course I didn’t think she was heading out. If I’d thought that she’d leave the apartment, I’d never have left. If she’d tried to get even close to the bridge, I’d have chased her down.
Why would anyone in her right mind do what she did? Right, I know that answer. She wasn’t in her right mind. And I’ve probably said too much. But whatever, I’m innocent. Taking the harness—that wasn’t to goad her. Yes, I was with her that night, but there wasn’t one thing that I said that provoked what she did next. Not one thing.
LINCOLN REED: After the party, I drove around to cool my head. In the end, I found myself down on Front Street. I parked and stayed in my car a while. But then I couldn’t deal with it. I watched the light from her apartment. I thought about calling her. Then I had a sense that she wasn’t alone up there. Cheba, I figured. Or Zach.
I fell asleep in my car. When I woke up an hour or so later, maybe around midnight, I saw that she’d been calling me. My phone kept lighting up over and over like a firefly. I figured whoever had been with her must have left.
I’m not sure why I didn’t pick up. I was still angry, maybe. But less so.
She kept calling. Again and again and again. By the time I did answer, she was on the scaffold above the bridge. But she didn’t tell me that. She sounded so close in my ear. I heard sirens and the usual white noise. I figured she was just out on her roof or fire escape. She always liked to find the outdoor space.
“I had to run away from the party,” I said.
“Me, too. I couldn’t deal. I’m so sorry you had to see that portrait that way. Or any way.”
“It’s all right, it’s all right.”
“It’s not, Lincoln. It’s not.”
She was saying all of this to me from on the scaffold, which—every time I think about it, makes it all so hard to process.
“I love you, Lincoln Reed,” was the next thing she said. Plain and simple. You want to know something? It was the first time she ever said it.
I couldn’t say it back. I mean, not on a phone. I should have. Why didn’t I just say it? I loved her so much. She was the love of my life. But I didn’t.
The cops believe I must have just hung up when she fell. So if she screamed, I wouldn’t have heard. I would never have forgotten the sound of that scream. So I’m glad I never heard it. I know without a shadow of a doubt that it was an accident. But if I’d told her I loved her, if I’d said I was coming to join her up there, I know in my heart it wouldn’t have happened.
I guess I will always have to think about that.
LUCY LIM: Ida Grimes had such a profound impact on Addy’s own life, and yet she was so outside everyone’s reach. She wasn’t alive, and there was so little information about her. It always itched at me, I was always digging for something, some little nugget about her.
But it wasn’t until the summer, after Addison had died, that this nice old lady who worked at the Providence chapter of the New England Historical Society found the newsprint of the death notice, and I learned that the Grimes family lived about ten miles away from North Lyn. The article also said that Ida used to take art lessons from Calliope Saunders. This was likely the “Miss Cal” who’d lived at Addy’s grandparents’ house.
Attached to the clipping, there was a picture of a girl, posed in exactly the position that Addison had always sketched her.
Ida Grimes photograph. Photo credit unknown; courtesy of Lucy Lim.
MICHAEL FRANTIN: Ginny and I had been married just the year before. We were in New York City for our one-year anniversary. We went back to the bridge, and we were standing right on the pedestrian path. Just holding hands at the very spot where I’d proposed.
GINNY FRANTIN: It was a warm night, with only a breath of a breeze. The girl came spiraling down out of the darkness like a falling star. She must have been all the way up on the scaffolding above us before we even got to the bridge. Suddenly a body was flying down and past us, like Peter Pan. Until she hit the water, I figured it was a daredevil jump, you know? A bungee jump, or that kind of a thing. She was silent, too. Which made it seem more on purpose.
MICHAEL FRANTIN: She was wearing a loose white dress. It billowed out all around her against the night sky. Is it wrong to say that it was enchanting? I’m sure that sounds overly romantic or something, but it didn’t look morbid. It looked like a movie or a dream.
LUCY LIM: Lincoln and I always talk about it, how Addy just didn’t have that regular human dose of fear. I can imagine that other version so clearly, her toes on the edge, her dark eyes staring deep down into the water, needing to feel the dare. Another day, she might have jumped. But not that night. No, I don’t think Addy had organized a jump that night. But I think that when she slipped and fell, she would have decided right then that the accident was, in some way, intentional.
Addy wouldn’t have blamed anyone, wouldn’t have thought about how we all had failed her, although we had. She would have pushed as deep as she could have into the experience, knowing that her death was imminent and rising up to meet her—and I bet she probably would have been thinking, “It’s a perfect summer night, there’s not a cloud in the sky, I told the only boy I ever loved that I loved him, and now I’m hurtling into the most perfect New York death I ever could have imagined for myself.”