Through all of it, I have to bite my tongue to keep from screaming. All we’re doing is wasting time.
“I shouldn’t have let him out of my sight. I should have beenpaying attention. It’s my fault,” Margot says. She’s sitting in the middle of the couch, my mom and aunt on either side of her. Browning and Gonzales sit in the antique chairs across the hundred-pound coffee table. Despite bringing cups for everyone, no one has touched Paige’s coffee but Holden, who has been here almost as long as Jasper has been gone. He sticks close to Paige, touching her arm each time her frustration pushes her to the brink or picking up takeout so we don’t forget to eat.
“Rehashing the past won’t bring you any peace,” Gonzales says. He’s gentle, more so than his partner, the gruff Browning. His tone is not condescending when it easily could be. “And it won’t help find Jasper.”
Margot nods, sniffling and swatting tears from her eyes as if frustrated they’re falling.
“We’ve got another search party heading out in an hour,” Holden says. “We’re combing the woods past the creek in case he managed to swim across.”
“He was scared of the creek. He wouldn’t cross it,” I say.
“No stone left unturned, yeah?” he asks.
“It’s entirely possible,” Browning begins, “that he simply wandered off.” I can tell he doesn’t mean it to come out so sharp, but there isn’t a way to sugarcoat those words.
They always say that in the TV shows, too. People vanish without a trace. They leave, and they don’t tell a soul they’re doing it. It just happens.
“Larry,” Holden says, his voice hard.
“Wandered off?” I ask, aware my tone is hard and not caring. “He’s seven. He knows he isn’t supposed to go past the driveway.”
“All I’m saying is that kids do things like this. They lose track of time or simply don’t care enough to keep track of it,” Browning says.
“He didn’t leave,” I say. On the couch, Paige reaches over to push my mother back down as she starts to stand, presumably to tell me not to argue with authority.
But all I can see are the detectives in the doorways of other families’ houses, saying the same things about their missing kids. Writing them off before they’ve even been given a chance.
“No one’s saying he did.” Except he is, without explicitly doing it.
Anger burns up my throat, but before I can spew it at Browning, Gonzales speaks.
“We shouldn’t assume the worst,” he says, glancing between Browning and me. To my mom and Paige, “His description has been sent out to every officer in the county. I have deputies canvassing and interviewing neighbors and a missing child alert out through the state.” Gonzales looks among us all. To my mom, “Diana, you said your husband lives out of state?”
“Ex-husband,” Mom says. “And yes. He was in Boston for a show, but he already has a ticket booked for the red-eye out tonight.”
I shouldn’t be shocked that my dad is on his way, but the news hauls me back in time to another emergency.
My father doesn’t fit into our world. The days after the hospital are a blur, my mind still fogged by the medication, and the round-the-clock attention. Paige is in from Blackridge and settles easily into a routine with my mom and Margot. Someone is on Jasper duty, someone watches me, and the last keeps the house from burning down.
And then there’s my dad. Fluttering about, unsure.
He’s asked me about a hundred times how I’m feeling. How I’m doing. And the answer is always the same: I don’t have an answer. Maybe I’d be honest with Margot, or Harper herself, but I can’t bring myself to say the words to him.
That I wish it had been me.
And then, after six awkward days, he comes to sit on the end of my bed.
“Hey, kiddo,” he says. A part of me recognizes how hard he’s trying, but the rest of me sees how many years he didn’t. “I’ve got to head back.”
An uncomfortable feeling swirls inside me. Like as much as I might miss him when he’s gone, I’ll be more relieved than anything. And there will be guilt at that relief.
I hold my tongue. My dad’s chin dips, and he cracks his knuckles; I remember that about him, the nervous tic.
“Unless you need me,” he adds, and I can tell he both hopes I do and hopes I don’t. We’re alike in our confounding feelings. “If you want, I can stay—”
“It’s okay,” I say. My voice comes out as a croak after days of disuse. “You can go.”
He pushes to his feet. Hesitates, then leans over, pressing a kiss to my forehead.
