She took her time pulling her suitcase out of the back of her SUV and walked slowly to the porch. The door was unlocked, so she let herself in. “Hello?” she called. “I’m here! Where are you?”
Her mother came blustering around the corner, wearing a painting smock and holding paint brushes in both hands.
“Eliza, I’m so glad you’re here! Come on. Gina just called. I’ve got the phone on speaker.”
“Mom, wait. How is she?” Eliza asked.
Her mother turned around and smiled. “Eliza, she’s wonderful. I feel like I’m getting to know her for the first time. She sounds so . . . so alive.”
Eliza hugged her mom, ignoring the fact that she was likely getting paint all over her clothes. “I’m so glad, Mom.”
The call with Gina was strained at first. Eliza tried to be supportive, asking Gina questions about how she was faring. What was she doing to stay busy? Was she attending group therapy? Was she allowed to leave Hazelwood’s campus? After ten minutes of rather uncomfortable conversation, Beverly asked Gina to hold on and pulled Eliza into the kitchen.
“You have got to stop this,” her mother said.
“Stop what?” Eliza wrinkled her eyebrows at her mom, her arms crossing her chest.
“Stop treating your sister like she’s your patient. What’s with all the questions? She’s doing great. I told you that. Why don’t you try and talk to her like a sister? Like someone who isn’t a mental-health professional doing a follow-up interview?”
Eliza sighed, forcing the tension out of her shoulders. “You’re right, Mom. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me. Just go back in there and be her sister.”
It was a novel idea. And yet Eliza wasn’t sure how. She’d never really been Gina’s sister, save their earliest years of childhood. It seemed odd to try to start now.
“Eliza, she wants so much to have your approval. I know you’re only asking questions because you care; just take it easy on her. Maybe ask her something not rehab related? There are times to be tough and times to be nice. You were tough when the situation required it, but now? She just needs nice.”
“How do I ask her something not related to rehab? She’s in rehab. What else does she know?”
“But your questions sound so clinical. Ask her about her friends, the view from her window—anything!”
When they went back into the other room, Eliza asked Gina to tell her about the friends she’d made. The longer they talked, the easier it became. After a small pause in the conversation, Gina said, “I’m supposed to tell you how much I appreciate what you did. I mean, I’m supposed to tell you as a part of my therapy, but I also want to tell you because I really mean it. Three months ago,” she continued, “I was in a really dark place. I’m not sure I would have gotten out if you hadn’t been willing to fight for me. So . . . thanks.”
Eliza took a deep breath. “You’re welcome.”
“And also,” Gina said, “I don’t want you to feel like you have to look out for me anymore. I mean, I’ve got this. I’m not going back to where I was.”
“I’m your sister, Gina,” Eliza said. “How am I supposed to stop looking out for you?”
“Look out for me because we’re sisters and that’s what sisters do. But you don’t have to worry anymore. Not like you did before.”
It was incredible how different Gina sounded. She really was a different person. But to stop worrying? Eliza had been worrying for so long that it had become a defining part of who she was. Gina was a big part of why she’d gone into counseling in the first place, because she’d felt such a strong need to try to help people.
But maybe sometimes it was okay to let go. Maybe sometimes people had to make the hardest choices on their own.
* * *
The next morning, Eliza’s cell phone rang just after 7:00 a.m. She was still sleeping—a perk of being away from Rockbridge—and the phone startled her awake.
“Hello?” she said groggily.
“Eliza, it’s Natalie. Something’s happened. I think you might need to come back.”
Eliza sat up in bed, her pounding heart forcing her wide awake. “What happened? Is everyone all right?”
“I’m afraid not,” Natalie said. “It’s Amber. She’s missing.”
Chapter 29
Henry leaned back in his chair and covered his face with his hands. “I don’t know if I can,” he said. “I don’t know if I want you to tell me about Bill Harrison.”
To listen to his mom would require a deconstruction of the wall Henry chose to live behind. It was safer to blame his biological father—safer to assume he was the one in the wrong, to believe he deserved to be despised. What if the things Henry had been telling himself his entire life weren’t true?
“Of course you can,” Julie said. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
“I guess so,” Henry said quietly.
Tom rose from the couch. “I’m going to give the two of you a little privacy.” He leaned down and kissed his wife on the forehead.
“Dad, wait. You don’t have to go.”
His father shook his head. “It’s fine. This is a story I know well enough to know it’s easier for your mom to tell without me here.” He walked past Henry, then turned back. “Henry, I want you to remember something. No matter what happens—whether you see Bill again or not—you are my son. I made a promise to God to love you as my own, and that’s what I’ve done. This man? He doesn’t change that, doesn’t change the commitment I have to you. Do you understand?”
Henry stood and, in a rare display of affection, wrapped his arms around his father. “Thanks, Dad,” he said.
He moved to the couch and sat beside his mom. She reached for his hand and held it gently between her own.
“Your father . . . your biological father,” she amended, “wasn’t a terrible person. He was misguided and confused and had terrible impulse control, but he wasn’t an evil person, if that makes sense. We met when I was just seventeen and he was twenty-one. I was young and foolish, and he was . . . an adventure.” She stifled a laugh. “It about killed your grandparents when I started spending so much time with him. They begged and pleaded for me to stop, but I was so foolish, Henry. I thought I was good enough and smart enough to be good, even if I chose to keep bad company. That’s not to say Bill didn’t try. He told me he would clean up his life for me, and for a while, just before you were born, he did. But I should have known it would never stick.”
She hesitated for a moment as if trying to decide what to say next. “Henry, I was six months pregnant with you when Bill and I got married. When your grandfather found out about the pregnancy, he told Bill he had two choices. He could get his act together and marry me, or he could disappear for good.”
“So he married you,” Henry said. “He married you because of me.”
She nodded her head. “I think he knew it was the right thing to do. But it was no good. He tried, but he simply couldn’t shake off his old life. I look back now and try to figure out what he was so afraid of, why he was so restless all the time.” She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s no matter now. We limped along through life for a couple of years until just before your second birthday. That’s when things went from bad to worse. Bill started drinking, started staying out later at night, started spending all of his free time with his friends.”
“Mom, wait,” Henry said. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the rest of the story—not until one thing was perfectly clear. “Before you go on, please just answer one question. Did he . . . Did he ever hit you?”
“Not once.” She answered without pause. “He wasn’t a violent man. He was foolish and impulsive and stupid, but he never would have hurt me or you. That kind of malice just wasn’t in him.”
Henry took a deep breath. It was the thing he had feared more than anything. If this man had done anything to hurt his mom, it might be more than he could forgive.
“One night,” his mom continued, “Bill was a
t a bar with his friends. He was drunk—drunk enough that when his friends dared him to steal a car from the parking lot, he did just that. Just a mile from the bar, he turned into a residential neighborhood. From what the police told me, he lost control of the car and careened over the sidewalk and into a yard where a woman was standing with her dog. The dog was killed instantly and the woman nearly so. She survived but was paralyzed from the waist down as a result of the accident.”
“And that’s what landed him in prison,” Henry said.
His mother nodded. “The first time, anyway. A year or so after that, we divorced, and three months later, I met Tom.”
Henry sat quietly trying to process his mother’s confession. It wasn’t as dreadful as he had imagined. True, Bill Harrison had made some stupid, careless decisions, but he wasn’t a monster.
“Henry, Bill didn’t give you up because he didn’t want to be your father. He gave you up because he knew he couldn’t be. I’d met someone else, was moving on with my life, and I think he wanted you to be able to move on with me. He knew it was the best thing for you—that Tom would be a much better father than he could ever be. We decided when he signed the papers and relinquished his rights as your father that it would be better for everyone involved if it was a clean break, if he didn’t see you at all. I guess looking back I realize breaks like that are never really clean after all.”
“I look just like him,” Henry said quietly.
His mother smiled. “You do. You’re a little taller, but there is a very strong resemblance, to be sure.”
“Is it . . . hard for you to look at me? I mean, to see me without thinking of him?”
“It’s never hard to look at you. I certainly have regrets about some of the decisions I made in the past, and not all of my memories regarding Bill are happy, but I still wouldn’t change anything. Those years gave me you. How could I want to change a single thing about that?”
Henry felt a peace settle over him that was unlike anything he had ever experienced. All his life he had been living with a cloud of darkness in the corner of his heart. It wasn’t big enough to fill him—to keep him from experiencing joy and happiness in other parts of his life—but it was always there, always lurking in the corner, threatening to overshadow the light. Henry didn’t realize how oppressive that cloud had been until it was gone. He took a deep breath and reached over to hug his mom.
“I’m sorry I didn’t let you tell me all of this sooner.”
“You had to be ready,” Julie said. “I knew you’d let me know when it was time.”
“So, Bill called the school again last week,” Henry said.
“Did you speak to him?”
Henry shook his head. “He called my friend Eliza. He didn’t think I would want to speak with him. He’s sick, Mom. Eliza thinks he might be dying.”
“Does he want to see you?” she asked.
“He stopped short of saying as much, but Eliza said that’s what it sounded like to her.”
“Are you going to go?”
He looked at his mom and shook his head with a sigh. “I don’t know. I have to think about AJ too. This guy’s been in and out of prison his entire life. I don’t know anything about him, if I can trust him. What do you think I should do?”
“It’s a decision only you can make, Henry. Just ask yourself what you think you might regret the most. It’s certainly possible you’ll regret it if you go and it isn’t what you expect. But it’s also possible you’ll regret not going even more.”
* * *
Later that night, Henry joined his father on the back deck. They sat in companionable silence for several minutes.
“Did Mom tell you Bill’s sick?” Henry finally asked.
“Hmm,” his father murmured. “Have you decided what to do?”
“Not yet.” After a few more minutes of silence, he asked, “Dad? What would you do?”
His father kept his eyes on the yard and scratched his chin, looking thoughtful. “Well, I don’t know what else Bill has been up to the past thirty years, but if he’s been in and out of prison like you said, it’s probably safe to bet it isn’t much. I expect you’re probably the best thing that man ever did. If he is dying, it might not be such a bad thing for him to lay eyes on you one more time before he goes.”
“I’m having a hard time convincing myself that he deserves even that much,” Henry said. “I mean, for so long, he’s been the bad guy; he’s been the man I’ve blamed for not wanting me, for not caring about me. How do I rewrite twenty-five years of feeling that way in one afternoon?”
“Forgiveness is a choice, son. You have to carry around the burden of blame only as long as it takes you to give it over to the Lord. Go see the man. The best thing you can give him on his way out of this world is your forgiveness.”
Chapter 30
Eliza pulled into the parking lot at Rockbridge but was unable to make it to her usual spot. The sheriff’s department had a staging area set up on the west side of the lot, where search teams were being coordinated and deployed. Eliza found a spot off to the side and got out of the car. Her movements were slow and deliberate, her only defense against the panic rising in her throat, threatening to overtake her altogether.
As she walked over to the staging area, Eliza watched what looked to be the first wave of search teams arriving back, exhausted and disheartened by their lack of progress.
Excursion sites were remote. They were accessible only by foot and were generally ten to twelve miles into the forest, away from Rockbridge. It meant that anyone who was searching was walking quite some distance to do so.
Eliza heard a helicopter flying overhead and looked up. Of course. They would be searching for her by air as well. A wave of nausea overcame her, nearly sending her to her knees. Amber was out there somewhere, alone in a sea of mountains and valleys that continued for miles and miles. She could easily wander for days without finding another soul. Eliza took slow, deep breaths and willed the uneasiness to pass. They simply had to find her. Eliza couldn’t bear to imagine what it would mean if they didn’t.
“Eliza!”
Eliza turned to see Dr. Adler, who was striding purposefully across the parking lot.
“I’m sorry you had to cut your trip short,” she said.
“No, no, it doesn’t matter. Is there anything new that I should know?”
During the drive, Eliza had spoken with Natalie and learned the basics of what was known about Amber’s disappearance. She’d gone to bed with everyone else but had disappeared from camp sometime in the middle of the night.
“We don’t know anything more,” Dr. Adler said. “They haven’t found any clues indicating which direction she might have gone, so we’re pretty much searching blind. I want you to think about the things Amber has told you. Is there somewhere she’s trying to go? Is there something she’s trying to tell us? If we can understand her motive, it might help us find her sooner. Can you think of anything significant?”
Eliza tried to think. “I . . . I don’t know. She was never excited about excursion. She was worried about the food, about having to walk so far. I don’t know why she would have left on her own.”
“What about her friends from church? Is this something she could have arranged with them?”
Eliza shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense. She hasn’t seen or spoken with them since Rebecca’s overdose. And before that, she didn’t know she was going on excursion. But wait . . . at the church . . . there is a dance this weekend. It’s been planned for so long that I know she knew about it. She even told me she wanted to go. Maybe she’s trying to get to Rose Creek?”
“Rose Creek is a long walk from where she was camped,” Dr. Adler said. “Of course, she’s obviously not using the best judgment or she wouldn’t have left camp in the first place. Maybe she thinks if she can get to the parkway, or to a forest service road, someone will stop and pick her up.”
“Dr. Adler, we have to find her. What if we don’t find her?” El
iza felt the panic creeping into her voice.
“Stop,” Dr. Adler said. “We cannot afford to fall apart. I’ve notified Amber’s family about what’s happened. Her grandmother should be here in the next hour, and her parents are arriving sometime tomorrow. When they arrive, I want you to stay with them, make sure they are comfortable and cared for and have everything they need.”
Eliza nodded her head. “I understand.”
“In the meantime, start making phone calls. Call her friends from church. Do any of them know anything? Be sure to tell them that if they hear a single word from her, they are to call you immediately.”
“Of course,” Eliza said. It made sense, what Dr. Adler was asking her to do. But the thought of sitting idly by at Rockbridge when she could be out searching the woods made Eliza want to scream.
Dr. Adler must have sensed her discomfort. “Eliza, the people searching know what they’re doing. Frank and Flip are both out there. They know these woods. If anyone can find her, they will.”
Eliza nodded and used the back of her hand to wipe away the tears spilling onto her cheeks. She wanted to believe Dr. Adler, but it wasn’t hard to see the doubt that clouded the older woman’s eyes.
“Did she take anything with her? Any food? Water? Does she even have a coat?”
“She took a day pack with her,” Dr. Adler said. “A couple of water bottles and a handful of granola bars were missing, but that’s it.”
Eliza shook her head. How was one teenage girl with a few meager supplies and some extra water bottles going to survive on her own?
Eliza couldn’t help but feel guilty. Clearly, she’d made a massive error in judgment in sending Amber on excursion. Why would Amber ever risk venturing into the woods on her own? For a dance? For a boy?
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