Thursday, June 7
IN MED SCHOOL, DURING A rotation in addiction medicine, Peter had attended a series of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Members had gathered around long tables, introduced themselves one at a time, then said a few words about how their recovery was going. People drew on each other’s experience, strength, and hope, and honesty was a mainstay of the program. Listening to their stories, Peter had judged the process astonishing. Here were people whose addictions had dragged them to the very brink, robbing them of everything they held dear while riding roughshod over their often tragic efforts to free themselves of their compulsions. And yet, with the help of the group, they gave up drinking with apparent ease, many of them living out the balance of their lives without ever touching—or desiring—another drop of alcohol.
From what Peter could tell, the bereavement group functioned along similar principles. The meetings were moderated by a big, balding man who seemed familiar to Peter. He introduced himself as Roger Mullen—and again Peter felt that twitch of familiarity, the details lingering just out of reach—then went through what Peter assumed was a standard preamble: stating the group’s aims, outlining the benefits members could expect from honest and patient participation, finishing up with a reminder to turn off all beepers and cell phones. Then, in the fashion of the AA meetings Peter had attended, Mullen told everyone why he believed he was qualified to chair the meeting.
“Though the circumstances of my participation in this group may be fundamentally different from yours,” he said in a voice that was deep and hollow, “I’ve attended dozens of these gatherings in the three years since my son’s disappearance,”—and in that moment Peter made the connection— “and I believe I can function as a guide to the healing benefits I mentioned earlier.”
It came to Peter in a rush. Roger Mullen’s six-year-old boy had been abducted from his home. The details were sketchy, but Peter recalled that David and Mullen’s boy had attended the same daycare for a few months when David was about five. Dana had usually driven David back and forth, but Peter had done it a few times before they switched to a different center. That was where he’d seen Roger Mullen. The man had looked twenty years younger then, but Peter remembered those striking blue eyes. Thinking of it now, he seemed to recall Dana telling him that David and the Mullen boy—Jason, that was his name—had been close. Yeah, Dave had been upset when they switched him to the new place. Poor kid, really got attached to people.
“I have no proof that my son is dead,” Mullen was saying, “but common sense, and my heart, tell me that he is. Though I’ve never given up hope, to continue believing he’ll turn up one day has become unbearable. So I grieve for him.”
The room was silent, all eyes on Mullen, standing at the head of a single long table surrounded by the eight other participants that included Peter in this small, cement-floored church basement with the stations of the cross on the wall.
Now Mullen sat, the scrape of his metal chair breaking the spell. He looked at Peter and said, “For the benefit of our new member, Peter Croft, why don’t we introduce ourselves and fill him in briefly on why we’re all here.” He shifted his gaze to the woman seated to his right, giving her a somber smile.
Peter could feel the pain in this room in his chest, a low G-force pressing in on him, making it difficult to breathe.
The woman looked across the table at him. “My name is Emily McGowan,” she told him. “Welcome to the group, Peter.” Peter thanked her and she said, “My son Sheldon was visiting a friend’s house last August. I told him to be home in an hour. There was another boy there, an older boy, and he found a handgun in a closet. For fun he aimed it at Sheldon and pulled the trigger. The gun was loaded. Sheldon was eight.” Her eyes welled with tears and the woman next to her clutched her hand. Then that woman looked at Peter and told her story.
Before they were halfway around the table, Peter decided he’d made a terrible mistake. He could see nothing healing in this public exhumation of grief, a process that could yield only more grief, and he wanted to leave, was on the verge of doing so, when Mullen said, “Maybe that’s enough for now,” looking directly at Peter as he said it. Then: “Peter, why don’t you tell us about your boy.”
Peter felt caught, the tension in his muscles refusing to abate.
“You’re here now,” Mullen said. “Why not give it a shot?”
Peter swallowed hard. His feelings for his son were deeply personal. He had no idea what he’d expected to achieve in coming here, but breaking down in front of a bunch of strangers was not a part of it.
“Please,” Mullen said. “The first time’s the hardest. Just take your time.”
Peter glanced at the exit, then back at Mullen. “David had leukemia—”
“I’m sorry,” Mullen said. “That’s not what I meant. I meant, tell us about your son.”
Something warm welled up in Peter. He looked down at his hands and said, “David was born by emergency Cesarean section. I was a mess. Knowing as much as I did about Obstetrics—I’m an anesthesiologist—I was beside myself. I should have been barred from the whole process. He was coming out the wrong way, facing up instead of down, and they tried to get him flipped around with forceps. But his heart rate dropped and they decided to operate.” Peter could feel himself flushing. “We had to change rooms and things weren’t moving fast enough for me. Suddenly I found myself alone in the delivery suite with my wife, the poor thing in agony and terrified, and I decided I’d lift her onto the stretcher to save a little time. But I forgot about the catheter in her bladder, and when I shifted her over, it popped out. The balloon on the end tore her urethra. Then everything went into overdrive. She had an epidural they topped up for the surgery, and I sat by Dana at the head of the table with my face buried in her neck and I wept and prayed and made promises to whatever gods might be listening. I didn’t look up again until I heard that precious little cry. And when they handed him to me wrapped in a blanket and he opened his eyes and looked at me, I knew why I was alive.” Peter glanced at all the smiling faces and said, “Now I’m not so sure.”
But he felt better.
And when Mullen said, “Tell us more,” Peter did, his words scarcely able to keep up with the rush of memories.
He spent another ten minutes talking about his son, then a couple of other people shared some of the ways in which they were attempting to move on. In contrast to the introductions, the balance of the session was mostly upbeat, and Peter found himself settling in, a comfortable feeling of belonging blooming inside him.
* * *
Mullen approached him at the break, offering his hand to be shaken. Peter took it, surprised by its gentle warmth. Mullen was a tall man with the powerful build of a laborer, his huge hand swallowing Peter’s whole. Peter recalled Dana saying he was a miner, working underground at Inco. He offered Peter a coffee and Peter declined, telling Mullen he’d never developed a taste for it.
“A doctor who doesn’t drink coffee,” Mullen said.
“Or golf.”
Mullen smiled, deep dimples showing now, giving him a boyish look. “So what do you think?” he said.
“To be honest,” Peter said, “I was ready to bolt.”
“I caught that.”
“But it’s alright. I can see how it might help.”
“Glad to hear it,” Mullen said. “Everyone has something unique to bring to the process. I know it’s helped me a lot.”
“It’s got to be tough,” Peter said. “Your situation.”
Mullen nodded and looked away, his smile dimming. “I still hope I’ll find him,” he said. “It’s impossible not to. Just last Sunday I spent the whole day driving around town just...looking for him. I can’t count the number of times I’ve done that.”
“I’m sure I’d do the same thing.”
“Every once in a while I’ll think I’ve spotted him,” Mullen said, the smile gone now. “What a feeling that is. I’ve embarrassed myself more than once with that one.” He returned his gaze to Peter. “The thing is, the times I think I’ve found him? He’s still six years old. The way I remember him. He’d be almost ten now.”
“It must be hard.”
“No harder than what you’re going through.”
“I believe it is. I was just thinking about that the other day. I feel for you, Roger. I really do.”
“Thanks, Peter. And thanks for hanging in. Your listening just now has already helped me.”
“Any time.”
Mullen set his empty coffee cup on the table by the chrome urn. “Shall we get back to it?”
“Sounds good to me.”
* * *
On the drive home that night, Peter tried to recall the details of the Mullen abduction. At the time it had been big news, the first incident of its kind in Sudbury that hadn’t eventually turned out to be just a deadbeat dad or a simple runaway. According to the FBI, who’d been called in to assist, this had been a bold, calculated abduction most likely perpetrated by an intelligent white male between the ages of twenty and thirty-five who had no connection to the Mullen family.
It occurred to Peter as he pulled into the driveway that he hadn’t forgotten as much as he’d thought about Jason Mullen’s disappearance; he’d simply put it out of his mind. Just like the MISSING posters he’d walked past so many times at the hospital. It was sad, it was horrible, but thank God it was somebody else’s kid.
But he had thought about it, he realized now, for months afterward. Not in any concrete way, particularly once the newsworthiness of the crime began to fade. It had been more of a heightened wariness: a frequent, sometimes impatient reinforcement with David of the rule that he must never wander off in a public place—and a gut-ripping panic on those occasions that he did; locking the doors at night, then lying awake fretting that he hadn’t; letting David sleep with Dana and him nearly every time he asked. The details of the abduction had merely been supplanted—by fear, by loss of innocence. One of the things that had first attracted him to Sudbury was the low incidence of major crimes. As in any growing city, there were homicides from time to time, but among people who invited that sort of thing: the criminal element, the druggies downtown. And the sporadic break-ins that occurred rarely amounted to more than a few stolen stereo components. It had seemed a community in which, even if monsters existed, they never came to your home.
One of them came to Roger Mullen’s home, though. And when it came, it was only seven short blocks from Peter’s house. It made him wonder if the crime had been random or carefully premeditated. If what he remembered of the police profile was correct, it was likely the abduction had been planned, Mullen’s boy chosen for some reason.
Once inside, Peter found himself back at the computer. He started where he’d left off, the Child Find site and that beaming face with the round blue eyes, curly blond hair and dimples bookending a delighted smile. He stared at the boy for a long time, little Clayton Dolan, feeling that same baseless connection, that same gnawing desire to find him where his parents, local law enforcement, and the FBI had failed. Then he opened a new window and typed FBI, missing children into the search window. Another page popped up, this one entitled, Kidnapping and Missing Persons Investigations.
More photos, dozens of them. Kids from all over North America, their names listed next to their photos. He had no idea so many went missing every year. It struck him as he scrolled from face to face that each wore a sunny smile, each unaware of what would soon be coming for them.
Peter found himself imagining how Roger Mullen and his wife must have felt when they woke to find their son missing, and he pushed away from the computer, his capacity for grief exhausted. He stood abruptly, that queasy feeling of pause flaring again, a sensation akin to teetering on a high ledge, and he turned his mind quickly to filling the hours before sleep.
He settled in front of the TV in the bedroom, a can of pop on the night stand beside him and a bowl of cheese-flavored popcorn on his lap. Munching his snack, he remembered the countless evenings he’d shared a big bowl of the stuff with David, the two of them cozied up to a movie or The Simpsons, and watched the news through shimmering prisms of tears.
* * *
Despite a restless sleep, Peter awoke refreshed, a forgotten bud of optimism blooming in his chest. He’d always loved his job, the people he worked with, and he looked forward to immersing himself in that environment again. He’d been allowing his grief and his sunless home to entomb him; and this morning, though little had changed, he just...felt better, like a man with a protracted viral illness that breaks all of a sudden.
He showered briskly and got dressed, chased a toasted bagel with a glass of orange juice, then hustled out to the garage and backed the car into the driveway. The day was sunny, almost blindingly so, and he came close to running over an old doll walking a scruffy Pomeranian past the house. The woman clutched her bony breast and shot him a withering look, then dragged the yapping mutt along behind her. Peter rolled down his window to shout an apology, but the woman just waved him off. He left the window open, enjoying the cool morning air, and performed a careful shoulder check in each direction before trying again.
As he cleared the neighbor’s hedge, sunshine beat through the rear passenger-side window, flooding the spot where David always sat, dutifully attaching his seat belt, chastising his dad when he forgot to do up his own. The warm beam of light was broken by four candied finger smears on the glass, and Peter learned that his brother Colin had been correct: You really didn’t need things like this jumping out at you, breaking your heart all over again.
He left the car where it was, the engine still running, and went back into the house, tears filming his eyes. He found a bottle of window cleaner under the kitchen sink and a roll of paper towels in the linen closet. He doused the finger smears with the tart-smelling liquid and polished the glass with a wad of paper towels, scrubbing it until it squeaked. Then he did it again. When the window sparkled he tossed the cleaner and the paper towels into the trunk and backed carefully into the street.
He wept quietly as he drove, and when the hospital came into view he considered driving past, void now of any desire to pursue the charade of his life. In that moment hopelessness deconstructed him, leaving an empty shell.
But duty pulled him, even now, and he turned into the doctors’ lot and parked in the farthest spot, overlooking Ramsey Lake. There was a Dairy Queen napkin in the glove box—another stab in the heart—and he used it to dry his eyes. Then he waited, staring without seeing at the mirrored surface of the lake. When he could feel his body again, he climbed out of the car and went inside. Wendell had given him an easy room again, a list of vasectomies with a surgeon he liked.
He’d get it over with and go home.
* * *
In med school Peter had chummed with a guy named Trevor Ryan, a brilliant student who went on to become an emergentologist. One beery night in second year, Trevor had introduced him to the film Easy Rider, a Jack Nicholson classic Trevor said he’d seen the night it opened, July 1969 at the Britannia drive-in theater.
Peter spotted the film in the Drama section at the video store and decided to rent it. Work had turned into a nightmare, his list running late, recovery room full to overflowing, and at the end of the day he’d gotten stuck doing an emergency bowel resection on an elderly cancer patient who almost died on the table. Peter was worn out. A good movie, and reliving old times, seemed like a good idea. So did a few beers.
He picked up a club sandwich at Eddie’s and settled in with the movie and a cold beer, Nicholson actually wringing a few chuckles out of him. After that he watched old re-runs, the images blurring without meaning one into the next.
Around midnight he got up to go to the bathroom. On his way back he stopped outside David’s bedroom, noticing that some of the paint had come off the door when his brother peeled off the stickers David had collected there.
He put his hand on the cool chrome knob for the first time since he and Colin had stripped the room. It was empty in there now, nothing but a box spring and mattress, David’s vacant dresser, and a gaping, dusty closet.
Peter turned the knob, easing the door open...and for an instant all was as it had been, the curtains drawn against the night, David peacefully sleeping under his comforter, only his precious head showing in the glow of his computer screen, David’s version of a night light. Peter had done this every night of his son’s abbreviated life, looking in on him after he fell asleep, thanking God from the doorway for the privilege of being his dad.
The room was empty, of course, that instant, in spite of its vividness, existing only in Peter’s memory. As he lay on David’s stripped bed, he remembered something he’d heard at the bereavement meeting—It’s okay to hurt—and he wept into the quilted fabric until exhaustion claimed him.
* * *
Dana had always been the one with the vivid dreams, terrifying ones involving snakes, which she feared and detested, violent storms or enraged psychopaths chasing her or David. Peter’s dreams, the ones he recalled, were generally more mundane. A recurring theme was one of himself trying to reach some unknown destination, but stuck in a maze of hallways or endlessly branching tunnels. Only rarely did he have a dream that upset him or woke him up.
He knew he was dreaming now, though it seemed more like a trance, but he couldn’t snap himself out of it. In one respect he didn’t want to wake up. He was with David—and this part seemed so real—David lying beside him, spooned against his chest in a room that was strange yet eerily familiar. It was dark in here, the only light a pale glow from beyond the partially open door, but as his eyes adjusted, Peter realized they were on the upper level of a child’s bunk bed.
His son was terrified—the knowledge came to Peter through a kind of psychic osmosis—and now he was terrified, too. He tightened his grip on his son, the familiarity of this room triggering a memory...this was where death had come for them, but instead of taking them both, it had taken only David, torn him from Peter’s arms.
He said, “David?” and David hissed, “Shh,” as the door sighed open on silent hinges. Now a figure appeared—backlit, faceless, a hunched silhouette pausing in the doorway, listening with a hunter’s patience. Peter could smell it, wet and feral, a savage odor that doubled his terror. It was coming for David, and Peter tightened his grip on his son, powerless to do anything but wait.
Then the figure turned its head, just for an instant, and the dim light found its face—chiseled, baleful, sockets of pure night where there should have been eyes—and David whispered, “Do you see?” and Peter awoke dripping sweat in the dark of his son’s pillaged bedroom. He felt a tingling on his wrist, and when he looked, David was standing there in his funeral suit, touching him, terror etched on his young face. And when he saw his father looking he was gone, and Peter’s skin crawled in cold handfuls.