Alexander Woodward, Alicia Bryan, Allan Byers, Bailey Deane.
I toggle over to the sex offender registry next, to see if they’re there. Then I highlight their name if anything unusual pops up and move on to the next one, repeating the process all over again.
It’s tedious, mind-numbing work, but with no suspects and no leads, this is where I am right now. This is all that’s left.
Some of these names seem vaguely familiar, and I know I’ve searched them before. After a while, you start running into the same people over and over again. There are regulars at these things, and they always find me, somehow, introducing themselves again or just assuming I should remember them. Expecting me to engage with their questions and their small talk, as if I am nothing more than an author at their book club.
As if I should be asking them how they feel about my story, about the unresolved ending. About their opinions of it all.
It’s the little things that bother me the most: The way their fingers rest gently on my arm, like they’re afraid I might break. The way their heads cock to the side like curious puppies and how their murmurs always dip a few octaves too low so I have to lean in close, strain to hear. The floral perfume dabbed beneath their ears and their warm, stale breath making my stomach churn.
“I can’t even imagine,” they’d say at last, “the pain you’ve endured.”
And they’re right: They can’t imagine. There is no way to imagine it until you’re right in the thick of it, living it, and by then, it’s too late.
The violence has come for you, too.
I can hear Roscoe snoring at my feet, his breath rhythmic and peaceful, until the charms on his collar clank as he lifts his head and stares at the front door. My heart sinks, watching him get up, trot over, and sit patiently by the window as a shadow of a man appears outside. I squeeze my eyes shut, take a deep breath, and lift my hand to my chest, my fingers massaging the outlines of the necklace hidden beneath my shirt. Then I make my way to the door.
I know who it is before I hear the knock.
“Good morning,” I say, opening the door and staring at my husband, realizing too late that it’s already well past noon. “What a surprise.”
“Hey,” Ben says, his eyes looking anywhere but into mine. “Can I come in?”
I open it wider and gesture for him to come inside. There’s a rigid politeness in his posture, as if we were strangers. As if he didn’t used to live in this very house; as if his lips haven’t touched every inch of my skin, his fingers haven’t explored every birthmark and blemish and scar. He leans down and pets Roscoe, whispering good boy over and over again. I watch their interaction, natural and calm, and wish Roscoe would curl back his lip, bare his teeth. Give my husband a menacing snarl for leaving him, leaving us.
Instead, he licks Ben’s fingers.
“What can I do for you?” I ask, crossing my arms tight against my chest.
“Just checking in. Today, you know.”
“Yeah. I know.”
Today. Day three hundred and sixty-five. One full year since our final day with Mason. One year since I read him that story and tucked him in tight; since I climbed into bed next to Ben and closed my eyes, drifted so easily into that long, still slumber, blissfully unaware of the hell that waited for us on the other side of dawn.
“Still not sleeping, huh?”
I try not to let the comment hurt—he doesn’t mean it like that, I know he doesn’t—but still, I hate it when he sees me like this.
“How can you tell?”
I try to crack a smile, show him that I’m kidding, but I’m not quite sure how it comes out. Maybe a bit deranged, because he doesn’t smile back.
It started as a desperate need to stay awake in case Mason came back. Someone had taken my baby, after all. Someone had taken him from me, and I had slept through it all. What kind of mother does that? What kind of mother doesn’t wake up? I felt like I should have known—I should have had some kind of primal feeling that something was happening, something was wrong—but I didn’t. I didn’t feel anything. So for those first few nights, I told myself I’d stay awake, just in case. That maybe, in the middle of the night, I’d peek into his nursery, and there he’d be: sitting up straight in his crib like he never even left. That he would crack that gummy little smile when he saw me. That he would reach for me, fingers curled around his favorite stuffed animal, and finally feel safe.
I wanted to be awake for that—no, I needed to be awake for that.