by William Mark
The small bed was cool and soft. The rain cloud that hovered above the house cast a shadow upon the room. Curt lay down on the bed and cradled the baseball pillow monogrammed with Josh’s name on it. He pulled it close as if it were the only chance he had to hold his son again. Tears steadily leaked from his eyes as he just lay there in silence, thinking about his son.
The exhaustion caught up with Curt as his eyes closed in thought, but no matter how hard he fought against it, he was drawn into unconsciousness, and his world faded to black.
***
At first she hesitated at the presence of the Crown Vic parked out on the street. There hadn’t been one parked at the house in two years, but she didn’t feel the alarm of an intruder. It felt like a ghost from her past was here to visit. The door to the garage was unlocked, and she slowly stepped inside the house. She moved around, trying to find her unexpected guest, and decided to check her son’s room after seeing the door to her room still shut. She pushed open the door to find the guest sleeping soundly in a pitiful display of anguish and tribulation.
Tracy Walker hadn’t seen her husband in nearly two years and prayed every night for two things to happen. First was the safe return of her son and the second was for her husband to come home. She understood why he left. She read the determination in his eyes the day he told her he was leaving and knew, no matter what she did or said, he was going to move heaven and earth to find their son. She too held onto the shred of hope that one day her son would be found, but it wasn’t Josh’s choice to leave. He was taken. Curt made the decision to leave her with the burden of an empty home all on his own without any consideration for her well-being.
She wondered if she would break down and cry the day Curt finally came home or slap him or kiss him passionately as they once did. But now, the day had come that her second prayer was fulfilled. She stood leaning up against the doorway of their son’s room, watching the broken man in a worn-out trench coat sleep in their son’s bed. She felt sorry for him. She fought the urge to wake him and bombard him with questions about where he’d been, what he’d been doing, and why he was back. She was aware the third anniversary of Josh’s disappearance had just passed, so maybe that had something to do with his being there, she thought.
The drizzle outside cleared up, and the blanket of gray clouds broke creating small portals to the blue sky above. A large delivery truck rumbled down the street outside of the house, causing a noise that broke through the silence and released Curt from his slumber. His eyes cracked open, and his vision was blurry from sleep. His eyes were puffy from the tearful homecoming as he looked around, trying to remember where he was. As the confusion to his whereabouts was answered, the vision before him began to gain focus. A figure of a woman, beautiful and warm with long, brown hair falling gently behind her, stood in the threshold of the room with a worrisome look on her face. It was a look he remembered well from when he left some two years earlier.
“Hi,” she said, softly.
Curt realized where he was and immediately felt like he was trespassing. He sat up on the bed and wiped his face. He was still so very tired. He looked back at his wife apologetically. He hated that he abandoned her. It was a burden he carried alongside the guilt of losing Josh, but he couldn’t just sit by and do nothing. Yet, he knew she still blamed him for Josh’s disappearance.
“Hey. I’m sorry I didn’t call,” he said, straightening the bed the way it was before.
“It’s okay. Is everything alright?”
“Yeah, I mean…still nothing. But other than that….” Curt quickly remembered the shooting in Vail and the burglary he committed just hours before. There was too much that wasn’t alright, but he didn’t want to worry her any further.
“You hungry?” she asked invitingly.
He wasn’t. “Sure.”
Curt stood up and moved next to Tracy. He felt compelled to walk up and kiss her and then hold her as his wife, but the distance of time between them made the gesture feel inappropriate. He chose to just stand and let her dictate any physical greeting.
“You’ve lost weight? A lot it looks like,” she said surprised, deflecting the awkwardness.
Curt looked down at his body. He knew he’d lost weight but never bothered to keep track of it. It was a by-product of his running and the unhealthy lifestyle of frequent binge drinking and the exhausting life on the road.
“Yeah, well. I’ve been running a little. I guess I hadn’t really noticed.”
“Well, in that regard you look great.”
Curt’s brow furrowed from the hidden meaning in her statement. She read the confusion perfectly.
“You look tired and beat, kind of like those long weeks working those drawn out cases.”
“Can’t argue there.”
“C’mon, dinner will only take a minute.”
Curt took a seat at the kitchen table, again feeling it would be inappropriate to follow Tracy into the bedroom while she changed out of her work clothes—something he did as a matter of routine while they talked after their days at work. Instead, he sipped on a glass of water but thirsted for something stronger.
She had made lasagna a few nights before and was reheating enough for both. Curt hadn’t had anything home-cooked since he left, and the food smelled decadent to the point it resurrected his hunger. He was looking forward to the meal.
Tracy left the bedroom and walked into the kitchen to finalize the meal preparation. Curt watched her move around nervously, knowing that this entire ordeal was just as hard on her as it was on him. He had pushed away those thoughts while he was on the road, trying not to complicate an already extremely complicated situation, but they were in the forefront now as he sat in the kitchen, waiting for dinner.
He watched her as if for the first time but with a distant sense of intimacy. He noticed that she had put on his favorite black, yoga style pants that hugged her curvy legs and round butt, a figure she’d had since the day they met. The t-shirt was from a little league team Josh played on the year before his disappearance, and it hung loose on her torso. They had made it to the city championship that year, and Tracy was a proud team mom. She had pulled back her brown hair into a cute ponytail that whipped around while navigating the kitchen. She stood barefoot, and he noticed that she maintained at least one personal pleasure in her life, which was getting a pedicure on a regular basis. She was stunningly simple and still very beautiful and wholesome. Just for a glimmer, he was transported back to the years when life was good and he was happy.
Tracy pulled the two plates of lasagna out of the oven and noticed Curt was watching her. She didn’t know how to react, so she went on like she had been for the last two years without him, on autopilot. She set the food down and joined him at the table after pouring them both a glass of wine.
“So, why now?” She swirled her glass of wine and looked at him with a heavy dose of contempt.
Curt knew she was upset. Why wouldn’t she be? “We got a tip that he was spotted at the mall yesterday. I came home as soon as I could to check it out but….” His face grew long and sad.
“What?”
“It was a bad lead. It led to nothing.”
The answer Curt gave settled in Tracy’s mind, but she wasn’t satisfied. He read something in her face; she wasn’t surprised to hear of the lead.
“Did you know about the tip?”
“Yeah, they called me yesterday; told me that they already checked it out and found nothing. Said they think the tipster gave the wrong number or the Crime Stoppers’ operator transcribed it wrong or whatever.”
“Oh,” Curt said, somewhat surprised that the detective from the police department would still check in with her and not him.
“Are you going to stay?” Pain hid behind her eyes. It was as if she knew the answer was going to be no but held onto the small chance that it would be yes.
Curt sank in his seat, knowing his answer wouldn’t be welcomed. He couldn’t look at her, and although she deserved more, he
answered softly, “No. I can’t.”
She waved off the sting of the answer and took a long drink of her wine washing down a small bite of the lasagna. She set the glass down in disappointment. Disappointment in that she allowed her hopes to be up, not that he was going to leave again.
“I can’t do this again. Just leave if you’re going to leave.”
“But Tracy?” He wanted her to understand why he had to be out there looking for their son.
“But what? It’s too hard for me to see you leave again, so just go.” Her eyes were welling up with tears.
“I’m sorry. But it’s what I have to do.”
“Why? He’s my son too. Why can’t you do it from here? Why do you have to run off with some group of people that don’t know him, don’t care about him like us? Why can’t you stay here with me?” Tears fell down her cheeks as her voice strained with emotion.
Curt didn’t have a valid answer. Maybe deep down, past the shred of hope that he was desperately holding onto, Curt knew he’d never find his son again, and being a part of the team and doing what they could to find other missing children was a way of finding his own salvation. It wasn’t fair that Tracy had to pay the price for his redemption.
When Curt didn’t answer, Tracy wiped her tears away and took a deep calming breath.
“Please go,” she said.
Without debate, Curt stood up from the table, grabbed his trench coat from the back of the chair, and walked towards the door. He could feel the hate coming from Tracy as he walked away. He would have to add mending their relationship to his long list of to-dos when he finally brought Josh home, because he didn’t have time for this right now. Unfortunately, he realized that the search for his son might take too much time, and he could lose his wife forever.
As he walked out the front door, she stood in the doorway watching him leave. It was too painful for her, but she felt compelled to watch.
He heard her crying as he walked along the sidewalk. He didn’t want it to end like this; he needed her to understand. He stopped and turned around, looking up at her on the porch.
“I’m sorry, Tracy.” She didn’t respond, only continued crying. “I have to find him.”
“I know,” she managed to get out between sobs.
“I know you blame me for his disappearance, and that’s why it has to be me. That’s why I have to find him. For you. For us.”
Tracy’s tears stopped. She didn’t understand what he said. She took a half-step forward, trying to figure something out in her head.
“Blame you? What are you talking about?”
“C’mon, you blame me for not watching out for him. It was on my watch that he went missing. It’s my fault some asshole took him and is doing God knows what or worse. I don’t fault you for blaming me; hell, I blame me!”
“Curtis, why would you ever think that I blamed you?”
He was blindsided by her reaction and searched his memory for the reasoning. She never came out and said it, but it was the look she gave him when she got to the ball field. It was seared into his mind just as it was that night.
“When you got to the ballpark that night, that look you gave me, it was like I was responsible for him disappearing. It was blame. You blamed me.”
Tracy stepped from the porch and slowly walked out in the damp night air. A breeze bringing more rain rolled through the front yard and brought a sharp bite of a chill with it. She looked into his eyes and reached out for his hands.
“That wasn’t blame, Curtis. I don’t blame you. You trusted that our son was safe, as you had on plenty of occasions, and I know you, Curtis Walker. I know you better than yourself. You would never turn your back on that boy, and that look of ‘blame’ was not that. It was a look of ‘horrified astonishment’ questioning how someone actually managed to catch you with your guard down.”
Curtis Walker had not only been living with the devastation of losing his son to an unknown monster but also enduring the blame from Tracy. But he’d only assumed it was blame because of the look she gave him three years ago, and now she was saying it was something else.
“So…what are you saying? You don’t blame me?”
“For him going missing? Oh my God, no! I blame the assholes who took him, Curt. Not you!”
She stood directly in front of her husband. Her petite five-foot-four frame seemed smaller with only her bare feet as Curt looked down at her, seeing her eyes plead for his understanding. He reached down and grabbed her up, hugging her in a moment of clarity. She hugged him back tightly as she sobbed in his arms.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry,” he said.
He held her body tightly against his in the cold night air. The pitter-pat of rain moved down the street and directly on top of them. The inappropriateness from before was gone in an instant, and Curt reached down to kiss his wife. He held the back of her head with his hand and kissed her passionately with the power of a love long subdued by the tragedy surrounding their missing son. The rain failed to dampen the reunion of Curt and his wife, now that the ugly misunderstanding that had driven a one-sided wedge into their marriage was out of the way.
The light rain turned into heavy raindrops that quickly soaked them. They remained in each other’s arms kissing each other, needing to be loved. Curt scooped her up in his arms as he did on their wedding day and carried her inside, still kissing her as she held tightly to his strong shoulders and arms. He kicked the door shut and stopped just outside of the bedroom; the door was still shut. Tracy noticed the pause and looked back at her husband. She realized why he stopped and nodded that it was okay to continue. She kept kissing her husband as he managed to hold her, open the bedroom door, and shut it behind them with the determination of a newlywed.
Chapter 25
The constant hum of the beating rain accompanied Curt and Tracy as they made love throughout the night. They forgot about the looming tragedy that engulfed their everyday lives and temporarily found themselves locked in each other’s embrace as man and wife. The sex was unfamiliar at first, but as they relearned each other’s habits and preferences, time seemed to melt away.
After several bouts of intense lovemaking, Tracy lay nude and cuddled up in Curt’s arms. Upon realizing this, she pulled the sheets up awkwardly to cover herself. She marveled at his weight loss and how the endurance training translated well into the bedroom. Normally, Curt would feel guilty about stopping his search for anything pleasurable, but for some reason, being at his house and with his wife, the guilt was suspended. For this reason, he thought maybe he should return home, but settling back into his life without Josh was unacceptable, and he had to pass on the idea.
“So, they were about to shoot Rachel?” Tracy asked. Curt had told her of the team’s latest rescue and the harrowing escape they made from the human traffickers and the surrounding media storm that followed.
“Yeah. I heard the shot come from inside the house and ran around to the front. The first guy opened the door and had a gun in his hand, so I shot him first before going in. When I got inside, the other guy had a gun to her head, so….”
Tracy was able to figure out the rest. She’d been a cop’s wife for nearly fifteen years and always wondered what to say if her husband had to shoot someone in the line of duty. She listened to him tell the story matter-of-factly and figured he was fine with the outcome, so she didn’t press the issue. She knew what truly haunted him was the disappearance of their son and his unending quest to find him.
Curt told her about the fallout with Alexis Vanderhill following the shooting and how she asked him to take a backseat on the team for the time being. He withheld telling her about the kiss he shared with Rachel Goodwin just outside of her hotel room, for he knew the relationship with Tracy was too fragile for that discussion. He explained to her that the attention from the rival news reporter, Tony Mason, could lead to the possible exposure of the team.
“What would happen if the team did get exposed?”
“I don�
��t know exactly. I’d like to think nothing, but you never know in this day and age. But what we’re doing is right; I mean, bottom line, who wouldn’t want their child back? I know I’ll do whatever it takes to get Josh back. So who cares if we cross a few legal lines to do it? It only hurts the people responsible.”
“How illegal?”
“Oh, it’s very illegal. Like federal time, illegal. That’s why we have to be careful. But I wasn’t about to let those assholes hurt Rachel, or me, or anyone. I’d do the same thing if I had it to do over again.”
They sat up most of the night talking about the adventures of the team and the lives they had changed over the past two years since leaving home and joining the team. It was still a bitter pill in Tracy’s mind, so she was trying to understand why Curt was so compelled to leave her and their home to look for Josh.