I pulled through the intersection, my hands shaking slightly on the steering wheel. «That’s quite a coincidence.»
«Is it?» he leaned forward again. «What do you remember about the accident?»
«Not much. I was found on a highway about 50 miles outside the city. No ID, no wallet. No one reported me missing. The police figured I was a runaway, maybe hitchhiking. Head trauma wiped out everything before that day.»
«‘Fifty miles outside the city,'» he repeated. «That’s the same highway my brother was traveling when he disappeared.»
I pulled over to the curb and put the car in park. My heart was pounding. «Look, Mr….»
«Westfield. Logan Westfield.»
«Mr. Westfield, I think you might be mistaken. I mean, what are the odds?»
«My brother’s name was Ezra,» he said quietly.
The words hit me like a physical blow. I turned around in my seat to face him fully. «What did you say?»
«My brother. His name was Ezra Westfield. He was 17 when he disappeared. And you—» He pulled out his phone and scrolled through photos. «You look exactly like our father did at your age.»
He showed me the screen. It was an old family photo: parents with two boys, one maybe 19, one 17. The younger boy had my eyes, my nose, my mouth. It was like looking at a picture of myself from 25 years ago.
«That’s impossible,» I whispered.
«Is it?» Logan’s voice was gentle now, hopeful. «Why do you think you chose ‘Ezra’ to be your name? Can’t it be that maybe, just maybe, something inside you said that was your real name?»
I stared at the photo until my eyes watered. The resemblance was undeniable, but my mind was reeling. «This doesn’t make sense,» I said. «If I had a family, wouldn’t someone have reported me missing? Wouldn’t someone have been looking for me?»
«We were,» Logan said, his voice thick with emotion. «God, Ezra, we never stopped looking. The police, private investigators, search teams… we spent years trying to find you.»
«Then why didn’t they? I was in the hospital for months. My picture was in the papers.»
Logan’s face fell. «You were found 50 miles away, in a different county, a different police department, different newspapers. And,» he paused, choosing his words carefully, «our parents died in another car accident six months after you disappeared. I was in college, barely keeping it together. The search got complicated.»
The weight of his words settled over me like a blanket. «Your parents died?»
«Our parents,» he corrected gently. «And yes, they were driving back from meeting with another private investigator when it happened. They never gave up hope of finding you.»
I felt something crack inside my chest. All these years, I’d wondered about my family, imagined parents who might be looking for me, siblings who missed me. I’d never considered that they might be gone. «I’m sorry,» I said. «I’m so sorry.»
«Don’t apologize. None of this was your fault.» Logan leaned forward. «Ezra, do you remember anything, anything at all before the accident?»
I closed my eyes and tried to reach back into the darkness that was my past. «Sometimes I have dreams, fragments. A woman’s voice singing, the smell of chocolate cake, a dog, maybe. But the doctors said those might just be my brain trying to fill in the gaps.»
«Mom used to sing while she cooked, and we had a golden retriever named Buster. You loved that dog.» A flash of something—warm fur, a wet nose, the sound of barking—flickered through my mind and was gone.
«I… maybe? I don’t know.»
«What about this?» Logan pulled out his wallet and showed me another photo. Two boys building a snowman, both grinning at the camera. «Christmas, 1998. You were 16.»
I studied the photo. The younger boy’s smile was familiar, but in the way that your own reflection is familiar. You know it’s you, but you can’t quite explain how. «I want to believe you. But what if you’re wrong? What if this is just some incredible coincidence?»
«Then we’ll find out for sure. A DNA test. It’ll take a few days, but we’ll know definitively.»
I looked at him, this well-dressed stranger who claimed to be my brother, and felt something I hadn’t felt in months: hope. It was terrifying.
«Why were you in a taxi? You look like you could afford a car service.»
Logan smiled, the first real smile I’d seen from him, and it looked so much like mine. «My car’s in the shop. I was supposed to take a ride-share, but the app wasn’t working, so I called a cab. If I hadn’t…» He shook his head. «Twenty-five years of searching, and I find you because my phone app glitched.»
«If you found me,» I corrected. «We don’t know anything for sure yet.»
«No,» he agreed, «but Ezra, I hope we do. I really hope we do.»
I looked at the meter, which had been running this whole time. «Your fare’s going to be expensive if we keep sitting here.»
«I don’t care about the fare,» Logan said. «Can I ask you something?»
«Sure.»
«Are you… are you okay? I mean, your living situation, job, everything?»
I felt heat rise in my cheeks. «I’m between places right now. The taxi thing is temporary.»
Logan’s expression softened. «You’re… you’re homeless.» It wasn’t a question, and I didn’t deny it.
«It’s not permanent. I’m working on it.»
«Jesus, Ezra, how long?»
«Three months.»
«Look, I don’t need charity.»
«It’s not charity if you’re my brother. And even if you’re not, no one should be sleeping in their car.» I wanted to argue, to maintain what little dignity I had left, but I was tired. So tired of pretending I was okay, of acting like sleeping in a taxi was a choice rather than a necessity.
«What do you want to do?» I asked.
«First, we get that DNA test. Then, regardless of the results, we get you somewhere safe to stay while we figure this out.»
«I can’t afford…»
«I can,» Logan said simply. «Let me help you. Please.»
I looked at this stranger who might be my brother, who was offering me hope and help in equal measure, and made a decision that would change everything. «Okay. Let’s find out who I really am.»
Logan insisted on paying for a hotel room that night. Nothing fancy, but clean and warm, with a bed that didn’t require me to fold myself into a pretzel. I hadn’t slept on an actual mattress in months, and I woke up feeling more human than I had in ages.
He picked me up the next morning in a rental car, and we drove to a clinic that specialized in DNA testing. The process was simple—a cheek swab and some paperwork—but the implications felt enormous. «Results in three to five business days,» the technician said, handing us a receipt.
«What do we do until then?» I asked as we walked back to the car.
«We investigate. I’ve kept everything from the search for you. Police reports, newspaper clippings, private investigator files. Maybe something will trigger a memory.»
Logan’s apartment was in one of those converted warehouse buildings downtown: exposed brick, high ceilings, the kind of place that screamed success. It was a far cry from the studio I’d lost and light years away from sleeping in my taxi. «You’ve done well for yourself,» I said, looking around.
«Besides the inheritance, I got lucky. Started a software company right out of college, sold it five years ago. But Ezra, if you are my brother, half of everything I have is yours. Our parents left us equal shares of their estate.»
«I don’t want your money,» I said quickly.
«It’s not my money. It’s our money. Our parents worked their whole lives to build something for their sons. Both of their sons.» He led me to a spare bedroom that had been converted into an office. On a desk in the corner sat a thick, well-worn, grey metal filing cabinet.
«This is my search for you. Well, it was. I stopped actively looking about five years ago.»
«You stopped?» I asked, surprised.
Logan sat down heavily in his desk chair. «I had to stop. It was consuming me. Twenty years of leads, dead ends, and false hopes. My relationships were failing because I was obsessed with finding a ghost. My career was suffering because I spent more time investigating sightings than working.» He opened the filing cabinet, revealing organized sections with labeled dividers: Police Reports, Private Investigators, Sightings, Hospitals.
«My therapist said I needed to accept that you were probably dead. That continuing the search was preventing me from living my own life. And I tried to,» he said softly. «God, how I tried. I locked all this away and promised myself I wouldn’t open it again. I started dating seriously, thought about getting married, tried to build a life that didn’t revolve around searching for you.»
«What changed?»
Logan looked at me with an expression that mixed guilt and hope. «Nothing changed. That’s why when I saw you today, when you said your name was Ezra, it was like the universe was telling me I was right to never really give up. Even when I stopped actively searching, part of me always knew you were out there.»
We were silent for a moment. «What happened? The day I disappeared?»
«You’d had a fight with Dad. I don’t even remember what it was about. Something stupid, the way teenage fights always are. You stormed out, said you were going to walk to your friend’s house across town. That was the last time anyone saw you.»
«I was walking?»
«For about two miles, then a neighbor saw you get into a car. They couldn’t see the driver or get a license plate, but they were sure it was you.»
«So someone picked me up.»
«That’s what we always assumed. The police investigated every registered sex offender in a 50-mile radius, checked with all your friends, interviewed everyone at school. Nothing.»
