Dorothy had failed to come home Saturday night. Sunday was long and Sunday night was longer still. As Monday wore on into the afternoon I felt old, tired, anxious, and deeply sad. My body was as tight as a trampoline. I couldn’t think straight and didn’t know what to do with myself. Where the fuck was my daughter? I couldn’t picture her anywhere, see her in any situation. I remember after Hannah died I had a picture of her in a kind of spirit world. I knew she wasn’t on this earth with me anymore but I could see in my mind’s eye her face and her body, ethereal to be sure but somehow close to me. Today I could remember the smell of Dorothy’s hair and the smooth skin on her arms but I couldn’t see her wholeness, her whole self, in any setting. It was the oddest feeling I have ever had and very disconcerting.
Two nights. How long could this last before I knew something? How long could this last, this knowing nothing. That question was terrifying. Where are you, Darth? Come home to me.
The phone rang. I jumped as if someone had shocked me. It was Elaine.
“Just checking in, Rex. You doin’ OK?”
`“No, I’m awful. I am totally at loose ends, can’t land anywhere.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Let me know if I can help. If you want company, you know I’m there for you.”
“I do and I appreciate it. I just have to keep moving. Thanks.”
I put the phone down on the dining table and walked quickly out in the yard. It was overcast and still warm. Crows were complaining to each other. A stellar jay hopped brazenly across the front porch rail. My neighbor’s dog barked up into the moist air. I looked, as I had many times before, up the trunks of the one hundred-foot Doug firs that dotted the front yard. Majestic, they were, like scarred columns in a huge cathedral reaching up to the snowy-white clouds, the gray-green-brown trunks, the bright green needles so high up, the intense blue sky.
“Are you up there, God? Where is she?” I took a long, deep breath and dropped my chin to my chest.
I turned back to the empty house and heard the phone buzzing on the dining room table. Three long strides and I was in the front door. The fourth ring, maybe more. I snatched the phone off the table and slammed it to my ear.
“Dad?!”
“My god, Dorothy, are you OK? Where are you? What happened to you?”
“Dad, I’m OK. It’s been a nightmare, but I’m OK. Look, I can’t talk. I’m on the ferry home and I borrowed someone’s cell. Meet me. I love you.”
“I love you too. I’ll be there.”
I nearly jumped out of my skin to get the car keys, run out the front door and into the car. On the way to the ferry, a fifteen-minute drive, I called Evan and Elaine.
“Dorothy is alive, she’s coming home, she’s on the ferry now.” I’m sure I was talking much too loud. I felt as if my whole body was covered with goose bumps. My face tingled like I’d just plunged it into ice water. In the next minute I was too hot.
The green-and-white ferry nudged into the dock, squeaking against the rubber bumpers that guided the rusted metal bow in the last few feet. The foot passengers began to stream off. I scanned every one of them, my eyes big as half dollars. Dorothy, still in her shorts and red cap, looked around the young man in front of her and saw me just as I saw her. She began to run. I jogged to the curb and opened my arms and she crashed into me.
Dorothy was home.