Published September 20, 2005
I distinctly recall one thing from that night, after it was clear that Davy was gone and not just lost or hiding. I’m not sure why it sticks out so prevalently in my mind, except it was a moment of sheer calm, an oasis in the midst of a night consumed by terror. I have tried to write about it so many times, but the words to explain what I felt, what I saw, elude me and I fail. Since this is a book composed of words, I will try to wrangle them into submission, so that perhaps you can understand if not what the moment meant to me, then at least what it involved.
I had returned home after going back to the field with the cops to retrace my steps, to answer questions, to look in vain for Davy. I was dirty and hungry and bone-tired, yet wired at the same time, my mind racing, my nerve endings frayed and sparking. I could smell the nervous energy in the air around me, my body radiating a mixture of sweat and adrenaline. I wanted to fall in bed and forget, but I knew that wouldn’t happen.
So I went looking for someone to talk to. I went looking for the girl next door.
All the lights were on at her house. I went to the door and saw her father on the phone, her mother making coffee and sandwiches for the cops. They looked older than I remembered and I wondered if that was my imagination or if they had, in fact, physically aged that night. I knocked on the door, which was silly. I could’ve walked right in, but I felt like doing so would be an intrusion.
They both looked over and saw me, hope alighting on their faces. Her mother raced to open the door for me; her father hung up the phone.
“Is there news?” They spoke at the same time.
I felt bad disappointing them as I shook my head no. “I was looking for—”
“She’s at your house,” her mother answered, cutting me off. Her face had gone from hopeful to dashed in a moment. “She stayed with Kristy so your parents could help the police.”
“Oh,” I said. “Ok.” I turned to go, but her mother stopped me.
She held out a sandwich. “Are you hungry?”
I was. “No,” I said. “I couldn’t eat right now.” I felt that saying anything else would be disrespectful to my brother. Her mother nodded like I’d given the right answer, and I went back to my own house.
I entered my home like a visitor. The TV was still on. These were the days when the TV signed off at a certain time each night, but that hadn’t happened yet. A rerun of Bonanza was on, but the sound was turned down so I couldn’t hear what Little Joe was saying. Bonanza, I remember thinking, was a show about brothers. I shut off the TV.
The girl next door was not on the couch where I expected her to be. I called her name softly but got no reply. I walked to the kitchen, but she was not there either. Her mother said she’d stayed with Kristy, so I went to Kristy’s room.
The door was cracked, but I pushed it open to find the two of them crammed together in Kristy’s little bed, both huddled under her Holly Hobbie quilt. She had wrapped her arms around my sister and pulled her close. They were both fast asleep, the only sound in the room the rhythm of their breathing.
Just then a helicopter with its tractor beam of a spotlight made a pass over our house, looking for Davy in the one place I was sure he was not. The light filled the room, and I feared it would wake them. But they slept on, undisturbed, as I stood and watched them, timing my own breathing to sync with theirs, feeling my heart slow for perhaps the first time since I’d discovered Davy was missing.
I breathed with the two of them in that little room, bathed briefly in that brilliant light, and I felt . . . restored. Even now with the wisdom of age and ample time to reflect, I can’t explain why or how being there with her in that room, in that moment, brought a peace I couldn’t find elsewhere. It’s a peace I’ve searched for ever since.
See? I have failed to conjure the right words again. Maybe I don’t have the words, or maybe I just don’t want to use them. Except to say, that peace was her. It was her, it was her, it was her.