Chapter 7
Don’t panic. Stay calm, Harold told
himself. Yet, his heart beat rapidly in
his ears, and his whole body felt shaky.
Harold
took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down, and hurried down the
hall. As he turned a corner, he
collided into a nurse coming the other way.
“Oh,
I’m sorry, miss,” he apologized to the young woman.
“Oh,
uh, that’s okay,” she replied absently.
She looked as if her mind was on something else entirely. Maybe a million other things, by how
stressed out she looked. She was a
petite Spanish woman and might have been pretty if she was more pulled
together. But her black hair hung long
and stringy in a limp ponytail down her back, and her blue scrubs hung
shapelessly over her small frame. Dark
bags hung under her brown eyes, and her face looked tired.
“I
know you must be busy, but I have to ask you something. Have you seen my son, Brian?” Harold asked.
Suddenly,
she looked up, her attention focused directly on him.
“He’s
five years old, almost six, but he’s small for his age. He has dirty blonde hair and blue eyes, and
he was wearing blue jeans, a red sweatshirt, and Sesame Street tennis shoes,”
Harold described.
A
strange expression came over the woman’s face.
“Uh, no, sir, I have not seen him,” she said after a pause, speaking in
her soft Spanish accent.
“Okay,
thanks anyway,” Harold said, hurrying on down the hall.
***
After
an hour of searching, the whole hospital knew of Brian’s disappearance, and no
one had found him. The hospital staff
had promised Harold that they were doing everything possible to track down his
son, but that didn’t help ease his fear much.
Dejectedly,
Harold headed up to the Maternity floor.
He had to tell Jackie what had happened, and that was going to be
tough.
“Hi,
honey,” Jackie called softly from her bed, as Harold came in. He smiled slightly when he saw that she was
holding Taylor in her arms. Jackie
smiled back, but her smile faded when she noticed his trouble expression. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
Harold
sighed and sat down on the edge of her bed.
“Honey, Brian’s missing,” he said bluntly.
A
bewildered expression crossed her face.
“What?!” she cried in alarm.
“What do you mean, missing?”
“Well,
I told you, I left him in a chair in the hall outside the delivery room. When I came out to get him, he was gone,”
Harold said. He left out the part about
the shoe, not wanting to scare Jackie more.
“I looked all over, and I told the hospital staff too. Everyone’s been looking, but he hasn’t been
found yet.”
Jackie
stared at him in shock, tears slowly rising in her eyes. “What do you think happened to him?” she
asked softly.
Harold
shrugged. “I don’t know, sweetie,” he
said sadly. “I don’t know.”
***
By
the next day, Brian had been reported as missing, and the police had been
brought in. They sent out search
parties, but they had no luck.
Harold
and Jackie were a mess. “It’s all my
fault,” Harold wept over and over again.
“I left him alone. Why would I
do such a stupid thing?”
“It’s
not your fault,” Jackie would tell him again and again. “You were in a hurry, and there was nowhere
else for him to go.”
They
wondered constantly what had really happened to their son. Had he ran off and gotten lost? Or had he been kidnapped? Would they ever know?
***
Thirteen
years later
Years
passed, and it seemed as if they would never know the truth as to what had
happened to Brian. After years of
searching, the police had given up.
They told Harold and Jackie that Brian was probably dead, and that his
body might never be found. For a long
time, the family did not accept this, but eventually, they realized that it was
very likely true.
As
their youngest child, Taylor, grew from a baby into a little girl, Harold and
Jackie vowed never to talk to her about Brian.
They made Harry promise too, and the secret of her other brother was
kept from her.
***
Jackie
looked up from the pot of spaghetti she was stirring as she heard the front
door open. Setting down her spoon, she
headed into the living room to see who was there.
Standing
just inside the door was her oldest son, Harry.
“Hey,
Mom,” he said, smiling when he saw her.
“Hi,
honey,” Jackie greeted, hugging him.
“How have you been?”
“I’m
good,” he replied. “Where’s Tay?”
Jackie
looked towards the stairs, as she heard Taylor’s bedroom door open from
upstairs. Moments later, the now
thirteen year old came hurrying down.
“Harry!”
she cried happily, flinging herself into her brother’s arms.
“Hey,
kiddo,” he replied, hugging his little sister tightly. “Happy birthday!”
“Thanks,”
Taylor replied, beaming, as she let go of him.
“Mmm,
smells good in here,” Harry said, nodding at Jackie. “What are we having?”
“Spaghetti,”
Jackie replied. “Taylor’s favorite.”
“Sounds
good,” Harry replied. Grabbing up his
duffel bag, he said, “I’m gonna go upstairs and drop my stuff off.”
“Okay,
honey,” Jackie said. “I’ll be in the
kitchen.”
She
headed back into the kitchen, while Harry went upstairs, Taylor following
behind him.
It
was supposed to be a happy occasion for the family, Taylor’s birthday. And it was happy… for the most part. But even as the oldest three members of the
family celebrated, they could not forget Brian and what had happened to him
exactly thirteen years earlier.
***
