Prologue

 Where does a story truly begin? In life, there are seldom clear-cut beginnings, those moments when we can, in looking back, say that everything started. Yet there are moments when fate intersects with our daily lives, setting in motion a sequence of events whose outcome we could never have foreseen.  It’s nearly twoA.M., and I’m wide awake. Earlier, after crawling into bed, I tossed and turned for almost an hour before I finally gave up. Now I’m sitting at my desk, pen in hand, wondering about my own intersection¹ with fate. This is not unusual for me. Lately, it seems it’s all I can think about.  Aside from the steady ticking of a clock that sits on the bookshelf, it’s quiet in the house. My wife is asleep upstairs, and as I stare at the lines on the yellow legal pad before me, I realize that I don’t know where to start. Not because I’m unsure of my story, but because I’m not sure why I feel compelled to tell it in the first place. What can be achieved by unearthing² the past? After all, the events I’m about to describe happened thirteen years ago, and I suppose a case can be made that they really began two long years before that. But as I sit, I know I must try to tell it, if for no other reason than to finally put this all behind me.

My memories of this period are aided by a few things: a diary I’ve kept since I was a boy, a folder³ of yellowed newspaper articles, my own investigation⁴, and, of course, public records. There’s also the fact that I’ve relived the events of this particular story hundreds of times in my mind; they are seared in my memory. But framed simply by those things, this story would be incomplete. There were others involved, and though I was a witness to some of the events, I was not present for all of them. I realize that it’s impossible to re-create every feeling or every thought in another person’s life, but for better or for worse, that’s what I will attempt to do.

? ? ?

This is, above all, a love story, and like so many love stories, the love story of Miles Ryan and Sarah Andrews is rooted in tragedy. At the same time, it is also a story of forgiveness, and when you’re finished, I hope you’ll understand the challenges that Miles Ryan and Sarah Andrews faced. I hope you’ll understand the decisions they made, both good and bad, just as I hope you will eventually understand mine.

But let me be clear: This isn’t simply the story of Sarah Andrews and Miles Ryan. If there is a beginning to this story, it lies with Missy Ryan, high school sweetheart of a deputy sheriff in a small southern town.  Missy Ryan, like her husband, Miles, grew up in New Bern. From all accounts, she was both charming and kind, and Miles had loved her for all of his adult life.  She had dark brown hair and even darker eyes, and I’ve been told she spoke⁵ with an accent that made men from other parts of the country go weak in the knees.  She laughed easily, listened with interest, and often touched the arm of whomever she was talking to, as if issuing an invitation to be part of her world. And, like most southern women, her will was stronger than was noticeable at first. She, not Miles, ran the household; as a general rule, Miles’s friends were the husbands of Missy’s friends, and their life was centered around their family.

In high school, Missy was a cheerleader. As a sophomore⁶, she was both popular and lovely, and although she knew of Miles Ryan, he was a year older than she and they hadn’t had any classes together. It didn’t matter. Introduced by friends, they began meeting during lunch break and talking after football games, and eventually made arrangements to meet at a party during homecoming weekend.  Soon they were inseparable, and by the time he asked her to the prom a few months later, they were in love.

There are those, I know, who scoff⁷ at the idea that real love can exist at such a young age. For Miles and Missy, however, it did, and it was in some ways more powerful than love experienced by older people, since it wasn’t tempered by the realities of life. They dated throughout Miles’s junior and senior years, and when he went off to college at North Carolina State, they remained faithful to each other while Missy moved toward her own graduation. She joined him at NCSU the following year, and when he proposed over dinner three years later, she cried and said yes and spent the next hour on the phone calling her family and telling them the good news, while Miles ate the rest of his meal alone. Miles stayed in Raleigh until Missy completed her degree, and their wedding in New Bern filled the church.

Missy took a job as a loan officer at Wachovia Bank, and Miles began his training to become a deputy sheriff. She was two months pregnant when Miles started working for Craven County, patrolling the streets that had always been their home. Like many young couples, they bought their first home, and when their son, Jonah, was born in January 1981, Missy took one look at the bundled newborn and knew motherhood was the best thing that had ever happened to her.  Though Jonah didn’t sleep through the night until he was six months old and there were times she wanted to scream at him the same way he was screaming at her, Missy loved him more than she’d ever imagined possible.  She was a wonderful mother. She quit her job to stay home with Jonah full-time⁸, read him stories, played with him, and took him to play groups. She could spend hours simply watching him. By the time he was five, Missy realized she wanted another baby, and she and Miles began trying again. The seven years they were married were the happiest years of both their lives.

But in August of 1986, when she was twenty-nine years old, Missy Ryan was killed.

Her death dimmed the light in Jonah’s eyes; it haunted Miles for two years. It paved the way for all that was to come next.

So, as I said, this is Missy’s story, just as it is the story of Miles and Sarah. And it is my story as well.

I, too, played a role in all that happened.

1 intersection   

n.交集，十字路口，交叉点；[计算机] 交集

参考例句：

• There is a stop sign at an intersection.在交叉路口处有停车标志。
• Bridges are used to avoid the intersection of a railway and a highway.桥用来避免铁路和公路直接交叉。

2 unearthing   

发掘或挖出某物( unearth的现在分词 )； 搜寻到某事物，发现并披露

参考例句：

• And unearthing the past often means literally and studying the evidence. 通常，探寻往事在字面上即意味着——刨根究底。
• The unearthing of "Peking Man" was a remarkable discovery. “北京人”的出土是个非凡的发现。

3 folder   

n.纸夹，文件夹

参考例句：

• Peter returned the plan and charts to their folder.彼得把这份计划和表格放回文件夹中。
• He draws the document from its folder.他把文件从硬纸夹里抽出来。

4 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

5 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

6 sophomore   

n.大学二年级生；adj.第二年的

参考例句：

• He is in his sophomore year.他在读二年级。
• I'm a college sophomore majoring in English.我是一名英语专业的大二学生。

7 scoff   

n.嘲笑，笑柄，愚弄；v.嘲笑，嘲弄，愚弄，狼吞虎咽

参考例句：

• You are not supposed to scoff at religion.你不该嘲弄宗教。
• He was the scoff of the town.他成为全城的笑柄。

8 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。