“And am I . . . I—” I looked over at Noah and for some reason felt a rising warmth in my cheeks. “Married?”
The detective shook his head. “Not that we can find.”
“No kids?”
He shook his head again.
“Parents?”
“Yes, you have two parents. They live in KwaZulu Natal.”
“Wow! That’s great. I’m sure they’ve been really worried about me, wondering where I am. I’ll phone them as soon as I can. And do I have any siblings?”
“No.”
“I’m an only child, I must be close to my parents,” I said, feeling thrilled by this information.
“All the information you need is in here.” Detective Ndaba handed me the file. There wasn’t a lot of information in there at all, though. “It’s very thin,” I said. “Is this my life?”
“We only looked for the basics. I’m sure when you start remembering and learning about your life you’ll find it to be much fuller than this,” he said with a warm smile. And of course, he was right. My file was certainly going to be much fuller than this. Thirty years on this planet would make for a very full file indeed.
“Thank you so much, Detective.” Noah stepped forward and shook the detective’s hand, and I threw my arms around him and gave him a hug before he turned to go.
“Wait, how did you find me in the end?” I called after him.
“Well, we ran your prints and got a hit, but we also found a missing person report. It was filed today.”
“By who?”
“His name is in the file. I can’t remember it. But he lives in the same building you do. Apartment 4C, right above you.”
I flipped the file open and scanned the words on the page until I found it. “Eugene Bester,” I read.
“That’s the one.”
“Eugene,” I repeated. “He must be a friend of mine. Shame, he must have been worried,” I said to Noah as the detective walked back to his car. I clutched the file to my chest, a sense of building exhilaration made me feel like I could grow wings and fly, but then that feeling quickly disappeared. “I’m going to be honest, though, I don’t really like my name.”
“It’s not that bad,” Noah insisted. “It could be a lot worse.”
I eyed him incredulously. “How could it possibly be worse than that?”
“It could be . . .” He paused and thought about it. “X A 12, or something.”
I smiled. “Who would name their child that? You just made that up.”
“I didn’t. I’m sure my sister told me that Elon Musk named his kid that.”
I scrunched my face up. “But Zen. Zen Small. If you’d asked me to choose any name for myself ten minutes ago, it would not have been that.”
“Let me see the file.” Noah held out his hand and I passed it to him. He walked over to the coffee table and placed it down. He grabbed a pencil and started drawing on one of the pages.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Hang on.” He held his hand up, silencing me, as if he was deep in concentration. And then when he was done, he pushed the paper towards me and I bent in to read it.
“Zoe?” I read out loud.
“It’s a partial anagram.”
“Zoe,” I repeated. “Zo-eee. I kind of love that.”
“Zoe,” Noah said, and this time, something about the way he said it, about the way it sounded coming out of his mouth, I knew! I just knew it was right!
“ZOE! That should be my name. My name should be Zoe!” I said excitedly. “My name is Zoe and I’m a graphic designer, or a copywriter, or something cool like that!”
Noah smiled. “Makes sense, Zoe.”
“Oh my God. That is the first time you’ve said my name—well, the name I’ve just given myself, which is so much better than Zen. So maybe my parents didn’t have the most up-to-date ideas when it came to naming, but I love this. Zoe!”
“It suits you,” Noah said, his face so bright with that smile spread across it. “So, shall we go to your apartment?”
“Now?” I asked.
“Aren’t you desperate to see what Zoe’s life looks like?”
“I am, but are you okay with that? I mean, it’s seven and it’s getting late and—”
“I’d love to!” He reached for his car keys, and a thought came to me.
“Wait, I bet that key on my keyring is for my apartment.” I rushed back to the room and picked up the strange keyring with the small, single key on.