Loss

By: Emily Amsel

Part 2

She stood in the middle of the street talking to a shame-faced Tommy when a car took the corner too hard and Elle jerked around, then backed across the street, no, not attempting to hide. The vehicle was a silvery white sedan, and while she had seen it many times before, it never evoked such dread. Usually it was only annoyance, as Kara always had some dig to make about the state of house. During the last pick up, she sneezed and informed Elle it was all the dust, better get to the spring cleaning.

The tires gave a millisecond of screech when she stopped, and the whole vehicle rocked when she got out. Her eyes locked with Elle’s and she spat, “Get over here!” as if to a recalcitrant teenager. Elle bit back her reply and walked to the other woman, shoulders square, eyes downcast. She did not allow her hands to tighten into fists.

“Why the fuck weren’t you watching him?” Kara barked, and her volume had to be for the benefit for everyone on the street so they would know who to blame.

“I’m sorry,” Elle said.

“Fuck your sorry! You should have been watching my kid!”

Elle took a long inhale. “Can we please not do this outside?”

“Why not? They’re all going to be watching when the cops take you away in cuffs!”

Now Elle’s breathing came in sharper gasps, and she had to work to steady herself in hopes that Hugh would come to her rescue. She recalled their fourth date, when she asked him about the reasons for his divorce in case it was something like infidelity. Instead, Hugh’s expression became that of someone who just realized he swallowed a piece of plastic.

“Things were already fragile and the postpartum time was tough,” he had said. “The depression was ugly and she said things that just can’t be taken back.”

He wasn’t coming to save her from this beast.

“Are you finished?” was all she said to Kara, who stalked into the house and shrieked for Hugh before the door was closed.

Elle kept her shoulders square and her face neutral as she walked in after her. Hugh was coming in from the back, a hangdog expression on his face. He knew what was coming and thought he deserved it.

“Did you call the cops yet or are you too fucking stupid to do that too?”

“Stop, please,” Hugh said, so quietly Elle almost couldn’t hear. Miraculously, Kara’s bodyseemed to unclench.

“Why wasn’t she watching him?” Kara said, her tone now at a reasonable level, though she did not hold back on the venom dripping from her words.

“He was right out back,” Hugh said.

“He’s five.”

“I thought he was still playing soccer,” Elle said. “He’s never left the back yard on his own before.”

Kara threw a glare over her shoulder. “When was the last time you saw him?”

Elle swallowed, her mouth so dry. No, he hadn’t been there when she looked out the window, but she couldn’t see the patio from there. If Justin was playing with that spinny toy he liked or his trike—he was too big for it now, but liked to pretend he was working on it—she wouldn’t have been able to see him.

“I saw him before I left,” Hugh said, and Elle was able to breathe again. “I called out I was running to the hardware store and he waved at me. He was running around the grass.”

Something nagged at Elle, but was drowned out by Kara berating Hugh for not calling the police yet. He took out his phone and Elle stepped into the back yard, staring out while she tried to let the thought come to her.

“Where’s his soccer ball?” she muttered.

She crossed the lawn, still yellowed from a wet winter with little sun. Not great for soccer, even with the light plastic ball, but Justin’s boundless energy more than made up for it. Considering its purple and blinding green color scheme, it should have been easy to spot. Nope, not in the bushes, not among the tree roots, not in the leaves mulching on the ground. Then he took it with him . . . to the park? No, someone would have spotted him by now. Damn it, where was it?

Since it was better than dealing with Kara, she kept looking for the ball until the quality of light faded. Dusk already, Hugh should be preparing dinner, she should be showering and using the vitamin enriched leave-in conditioner on her hair. Justin was supposed to be packing his bag with the toys he wanted to take over to his mother’s for the next week.

She made her way back to the house, her pace slowing the closer she got. Zeno’s arrow said you could divide a task unto infinity, but in real life, each step brought you closer to the finish line.

They were in the living room and the kitchen, but the open concept meant there were no walls toimpede Kara’s death stare. There wasn’t enough strength in her to face them, and Elle hid away in the bathroom and sat down on the toilet lid. Her heart hurt, an ache that pierced it deep inside.

I should have checked. It would have taken five seconds. I should have checked. I should have checked!

The doorbell rang. That would be the police.

She plastered a smile on her face before she went out, then remembered how inappropriate that would be for the occasion. She didn’t have to hide what was inside of her—she couldn’t. People always thought the stepmom did it, and Elle read the stories. Sometimes they were right.

It wasn’t just one cop but a duo, and the first thing the older one said was that the neighborhood was being organized into search teams ready way to comb every nook and cranny with emergency lights. The older one pulled Hugh and Kara aside while the younger one asked for a quiet place to talk, and Elle took him into the office. Younger was relative, as he was still older than Elle, wearing for a uniform with the name Lacome on his breast, and it dimly occurred how close that was to the face lotion her mother liked.

“When was the last time you saw the child?” he asked.

“Not since one o’clock,” she said.

Elle went through it all, working on the flowerbeds while Hugh was busy with the dishwasher.

She had watched him all morning. It was his father’s turn to keep an eye on him.

“Do you often leave him by himself for extended periods of time?” he asked with an icy coolness.

“His father was ten feet away,” she said. “He’s always obeyed the rule about staying in the back yard. There was no reason to think he’d go off on his own.”

“How about neighbors? Is there anyone he might go off to see?”

“He’s friends with Deion Boudreau, but their family is out of town this weekend. The Golds have a girl Justin’s age, but I talked to them earlier. They haven’t seen him.”

He nodded, his eyes never leaving her face. They were hard and dark and dripped with contempt.

Perhaps it was her own guilt projecting, but she didn’t think so.

Tears dripped down her cheeks and she roughly wiped them away. She was shaking, and she sat down on the nearest surface, an end table, and knocked off the box of tissues. Her old anxiety habit was picking at her fingernails, but she tucked them under her legs. It would be too easilymistaken for guilt.

Officer Face Cream asked more questions and Elle did answer, but she didn’t process what was said by either of them. By the time he was done, a white van had pulled up outside, and the people coming out wore hi-vis vests. Who organized this sort of thing?

“The soccer ball he was playing with is gone too,” Elle offered, and Lacome said “Really?” and walked off to the older officer.

“He could be hurt,” Kara said. “He must be or he’d be home by now!” She whirled towards

Hugh. “You both should be charged for this.”

“Stop,” Hugh said, and it was about fucking time. “A month ago, I went to pick him up and he was out front with his bike while you were napping on the couch.”

She threw her hands in the air, fingers hooked as if trying to tear something. “I had a migraine!”

With that, she marched outside. Elle swallowed her own scream—there was something about anger, it was an acceptable emotion, it made you feel justified in what you’ve done even if it was wrong—but she couldn’t muster it. This woman was going through the worst pain a person could experience, and at least some of the blame belonged to Elle.

Elle walked until she hit a chair, the recliner she hated because it didn’t flow with the rest of the décor. She sat in it and squeezed the fake-leather wrapped cushioning until she felt something tear. The piece of crap finally made itself useful.

Why haven’t they found him yet?

It was a long time she sat there, staring at the television hung over the mantle that reflected a glossy black room back at her. A warm hand closed over hers and it was like being jerked from a sound sleep, and she saw Hugh next to her, sitting on the arm rest, his eyes as vacant as she felt.

She leaned against him and squeezed his leg, perhaps too hard, his eyebrows faintly pinched together.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have checked on him.”

“Maybe.”

Not quite the response she’d been looking for, but he shook his head.

“It should have been all right,” he said. “It was twenty minutes. I’ve left him watching something on TV while I showered, or playing inside while I went to mow the lawn. It should have been all right!”He said this last quietly, but with emphasis on the first and last pair of words in the sentence, as if arguing with reality that this wasn’t fair. Hugh always promised he wouldn’t be a helicopter parent, he’d let his kid grow up without fearing the world. Since she wasn’t a parent herself, Elle couldn’t quite understand what that meant. Presumably that a five year old could be left alone for twenty minutes.

“You should go lie down for a little while,” he said. “I’ll get you if anything happens.”

She opened her mouth to protest, it seemed the proper thing to do, and the tacky taste in her mouth made her grimace. Perhaps it wasn’t a bad idea, but first she went to the kitchen for a drink of water, and through the bay window she spotted the lights bobbing through the woods.

What were they supposed to see in the dark that she missed in the daytime?

It couldn’t have been six hours. They should have been pausing the movie so Justin could get in his pajamas. No bath tonight, so it would take five minutes.

She trudged up the stairs to her room and the second she saw her bed, her knees threatened to buckle, and she threw herself down on it and buried her face in the bedspread. Her mouth puckered and throat clenched as she released the agony burrowed in her chest. Muffled as it was, her crying sounded like screams.

When they got Justin back, she would grip him by the shoulders and apologize for the terror he must have felt. It’s my fault, she’d tell him. I’m supposed to help protect you and I let myself get distracted. I screwed up. You’re a good kid. I love you.

He’d been wary of her when they first met, but only for about twenty minutes. Then the floodgates opened and he chattered about trucks and basketball and the scary Halloween song he’d been watching—it was March and she saw the video later, the scariest thing in it was a cartoon spider. At least, that was what Hugh said he was talking about. Justin was a toddler and every word was a guess.

Elle crawled up to the pillow and curled on her side, face hot. Sleep was out of the question, but she lay with a headache forming in her temples and listened to the voices downstairs, the opening and closing of the door. No excitement, no exclamations of relief, so nothing she cared to respond to.

The throbbing of her head grew to the point where the pain flashed across her vision. She dragged herself to the bathroom, and the clock on the wall indicated it was after nine o’clock.

Nine! Justin didn’t even get to stay up that late on New Year’s Eve.

She took some aspirin and crawled downstairs to find Hugh, outside in his heavy coat, sitting on the bench on the patio.“It’s your turn,” she said. “Go rest for a couple of hours. I’ll wait here.”

He continued to sit, staring out at the back yard. He blinked, head moving back and forth, blinked again, and she began to think he hadn’t heard her.

“All right,” he said, voice slow. “Kara’s still out there. She’s more scared than angry now. If she comes back, tell her to take five on the couch or something.”

He got to his feet, swayed. He seemed smaller than he used to.

“Leave your coat,” Elle said, and he took it off and handed it over.

He went in, she sat down. It had been hours since she checked her phone, and she distantly remembered plugging it in one of the kitchen outlets. Had Hugh told his parents yet? Should she do it in his place? No, they’d want to talk to him and he needed to rest. Leslie was going to be pissed he didn’t call her straight away so she could hop on a plane from Florida. Gary she didn’t know as well, since in spite of living forty miles away, he’d only been to visit once since Elle and Hugh married.

A shape appeared in the darkness, flashlight pointed at the ground, and it solidified into Kara, whose expression somehow appeared more vacant than Hugh’s. Her hair draped over her face like a mourning veil, and with her pale skin she appeared to be a wraith haunting the night. When her eyes met Elle’s, they did not burn, only glistening. She walked straight up to Elle and blinded her with the flashlight, but it seemed to be carelessness rather than malice as she clicked it off before she went to sit down beside her.

“Where’s Hugh?” Kara mumbled.

“I told him to rest for a little while.”

“Oh.”

Elle’s heart started beating audibly—to herself, at any rate. She was awkward around her husband’s ex at the best of times, and she could hear the silence between them. It sounded like a high pitched whine.

“Should I call Hugh’s parents?” she asked, her voice the same frequency as the ringing in her ears.

Kara seemed to choke on her own spit. “I can’t deal with my own parents. I sure as hell don’t want to deal with them right now.”“No, neither do I.”

“Are they still living completely separate lives but refusing to divorce?”

“They certainly are. They won’t do holidays together and complain because we have to choose one or the other. They’re not Catholic. I don’t understand why they don’t bite the bullet.”

It would have been easy for Kara to keep the conversation going, sharing her own stories and criticisms of the in-laws, but she did not. Perhaps could not. Being friendly (if critical) during pickups was one thing, but actual kindness towards the woman who lost her son?

“You should go get some rest,” Elle said once again. “I’ll stay out here to wait for news.”

Kara’s eyes shut just a fraction too long to be a blink. “I suppose I will.”

It took several more seconds before she actually got to her feet and shuffled inside, the sliding glass door whispering shut, as if she was afraid to make noise.

Elle pulled up the hood of the coat and slid her knees underneath the puffy lining. A pair of light beams flashed in the treetops, bouncing out of sight. Once, she heard the distant shout of a two syllable name, and she let out a shuddery breath. No crying. She swallowed a painful lump in her throat.

It was cold, in the high forties, a little boy shouldn’t be out in this. Elle wasn’t a touchy-feely person with anyone, but when she saw Justin again, she would fold him into her arms until he was warm again. She could see him shivering, wearing only a long-sleeved shirt because he peeled his jacket off by midmorning. She embraced him and he stared up at her with big, wet eyes.

“Daddy,” he wept in a minuscule voice.

Elle jerked, on her feet before she realized she was dozing. Just a dream, but she stretched to listen in case they were finally bringing him home. The wind rustled the still mostly-naked tree branches. No more flashlight beams in sight. Midnight was approaching.

Inside, Kara was awake and on her phone, and the conversation indicated she was talking to her mother. Elle went upstairs to find Hugh and he was sitting on the bed, his phone in his hand on speaker. The deep bellow could only belong to Gary.

“—told me the second it happened! What is wrong with you? I’m coming down there!”

“Dad, you can’t drive at night.”“Well if you told me earlier, this wouldn’t be a problem. I’m getting my keys—”

Hugh stood, his free hand a fist. “I swear to fucking god, if you show up at my door, I’m not letting you in.”

Elle shut herself into the bathroom and turned on the shower to drown out the rest of the conversation. She cleaned herself fast and stepped out to find some clean clothes, and Hugh was sitting on the bed again, his phone abandoned at his side.

“Is he coming?” she asked through her clenched teeth. Gary refused to have his cataracts treated because he didn’t want the doctors lasering into his brain, as he put it.

“He finally agreed not to,” Hugh said in a rough voice. “He won’t tell Mom. I’ll have to call Mom in the morning. Fuck.”

“They must have mentioned Justin’s name on the news,” Elle said.

“I suppose. I didn’t think my dad would turn off his alternative news long enough to catch something actually happening.”

He put his head in his hands and began to weep, softly, like nothing she’d ever heard from him.

Funny how things could physically hurt when a person had received no actual damage.

More tears came to her eyes, but she could not give in, it wasn’t her child, she had no right to fall apart. She put her arms around him and held him until the tears stopped, and then for a long while after. Maybe they would have stayed forever if raised voices hadn’t thundered downstairs,

Kara’s most prominent among them. A cell phone rested face down on the floor, and she was white, frantic, the tendons in her neck sticking out. Hugh put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her from the man in front of her dressed in an orange hi-vis vest and a heavy coat and gloves. His lips were pursed, as if he was holding back what he really wanted to say to her because no one would be that cruel at such a moment.

“Some of the volunteers are still out,” he said to Hugh, a reminder that these were people from the area who came to help, not paid professionals. “Most of us are stopping for the night, but we will resume in the morning—early, right after sunrise.”

“They can’t!” Kara choked out.

“There are still people out there,” Hugh said. He pushed her into the chair, and she gave no resistance. Kara checked the walls, the ceiling, the chairs, the carpet underneath her feet. She’d been in their home before, but never such unfamiliar territory.

“I’m sorry about this,” Hugh said to the hi-vis man. “She’s terrified. We all are.”“I can appreciate that,” the man said evenly. “We’d still appreciate respect when we’re trying to help you.”

“Of course, thank you for everything.”

Hugh looked down at Kara, but while she had stopped her bewildered glances, she seemed to have become unplugged.

“Thank you,” Elle added. “Everyone must need a cup of coffee. I’ll make a pot and anyone who wants one can come in to get it.”

“I’m sure you’ll have a few takers,” hi-vis man said, his tone noticeably thawed. He went outside to spread the word and Elle pulled out the coffee machine. They had plenty of the cheap brand they kept for when party guests overstayed their welcome, but the good stuff was down to some flakes in the bag. It was on the shopping list for next week. Surely they wouldn’t be . . .

Elle shut her eyes and took a deep breath, then got to work on the coffee. When she got back to the living room with the first two cups, Kara was crying against Hugh’s shoulder, him with on arm gingerly patting her back. Elle’s nose twitched at the embrace, but she only put the mugs on the table and sat next to them.

“You only like cream in your coffee, right?” she asked Kara.

She peeled herself away from Hugh. “Yes. I actually haven’t been drinking it lately. It’s giving me anxiety.”

Kara took the proffered mug and sucked down half of the liquid, likely under the assumption that it couldn’t make her feel worse.

Some of the men—and the one woman who was still out there—came in and drained the carafe, and Elle made another. The night crawled on. Every time the door opened, they all looked towards it, but they never had anything to report.

“What was her name?” Kara asked in a hoarse whisper. “The girl you went out with on the ‘marathon bad date’? The one that led to us meeting at the bar?”

“Oh,” Hugh said. “Shane.”

“That’s it. I knew it was a guy’s name. She made you get her tickets for a play, and go to dinner beforehand, and—”

“She hated the restaurant’s ‘vibes’ and made me take her somewhere else, and the wait was solong we missed that stupid play.”

“How have I not heard about this?” Elle asked. The name was familiar from the time she and

Hugh laid out all their exes, but all he said was she was too high-maintenance, and how after dumping her and drowning his sorrows, he met the woman who would become the mother of his child.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell her,” Kara said, and for the first time during that unending night, she looked Elle in the eye. “Shane wasn’t even her real name. Just what she called herself. She was a self-proclaimed astral forecaster.”

Elle’s mouth dropped open. “Why was this held back from me? I told you about my ex who lied about being in the army, and you don’t tell me you dated a psychic?”

“First of all, she insisted she was not a psychic,” Hugh said. “Secondly, I honestly forgot about that part. I only went out with her for three weeks. We were never exclusive.”

“Why’d she choose Shane?”

“She said it was the name she divined for herself.”

“Who the fuck would divine Shane for anyone?” Kara said. It wasn’t quite a smile on her face, but likely the best she could muster. “I don’t know why I’m thinking of her now.”

Maybe she could astral forecast where Justin is. But Elle did not say it out loud. It was less palatable than the coffee.

Another man came in looking for something to drink. Elle got up to make another pot.

At ever long last, the morning came, and the promised reinforcements did arrive, dozens of them being organized by what she assumed were plainclothes police. They had pictures of Justin on their phone and most were being sent to the woods and the park, but others were being sent into neighborhoods to knock on doors and hand out flyers. It was all so terribly well organized, and

Elle wished she could thank who had done it.

Her phone gave off a screaming buzz, the Amber Alert that had all the last known details. Blue t- shirt, jeans, brown hair and eyes, the birthmark that disappeared under his tan. Everyone in the county would know Justin’s face before the end of the day.

Each step came heavier than the last, and the stairs were nearly impossible, at one point requiring her to pull herself along the railing. She fixed her eyes forward as she passed by Justin’s room and made it into her own to collapse on the bed. Though normally she did not sleep on her stomach with her face pressed into the pillow, the second her eyes were closed, she was out,blissful nothingness enveloping her. To think, she used to be scared about dying and the cessation of existence.