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“What do you actually remember about the day I disappeared? Talk me through it.”
“We went out on the boat.”
“Who?”
I try to remember. “Mom wasn’t with us, right? I’ve heard them talk about it enough… She’d stayed back at the hotel because she wasn’t feeling well.”
He swallows, running a hand over his mouth. “Yeah. It was… It was the year after they discovered she was sick. You’re too young to remember that year, but I was eight at the time, so most of it’s clearer for me. Dad had lost his job a few months before she got her diagnosis, so we lost our health insurance. When they found out how sick she was and what the treatments were going to cost, I remember how quickly everything changed. It wasn’t always bad, you know? They were so in love, like the real deal. Always kissing and touching, laughing, just because. They were the parents who would dance in the kitchen and just…just want to be with each other all the time. They’d hold hands in the car, and he’d sing to her. I don’t think either of them could picture their life without each other.”
“They’re still like that,” I tell him. “It hasn’t changed. They’re so perfectly in love.”
He looks down at his hands. “After we lost the house, we moved in with Aunt Deb for a while, but she only had the one extra bedroom, so it was a tight squeeze. Then, I remember one summer, Dad just said, ‘We’re going on vacation.’ It made no sense. We were completely broke, but as a kid, none of that mattered, you know? I just knew that we were going to the beach for the first time, and I was finally going to have something to talk about when I went back to school from summer break.”
“I remember the beach that year. I swear I remember playing with you.”
“It was the first week that felt normal in so long. Mom even seemed to be getting better somehow,” he says. “It was like everything was changing, finally. Then, on our last day, Dad rented a boat and took us out on the water. He was…quiet. Quieter than he’d been all week. At some point, you fell asleep and Dad let me drive the boat.” His smile shrinks, then fades completely. “I remember there was this one point when…when I looked up and I noticed he was crying.”
“Crying?” It’s the last thing I expected him to say.
“He stopped the boat and sat down in front of me and… He hugged me. He hugged me so tight it almost hurt. It was the biggest hug I think I’d ever gotten from him, and he said… He told me Mom was going to die.”
I can’t stop myself from the sharp intake of breath. “What?”
“He said she was going to die if she didn’t have a procedure done, but we couldn’t afford it. He said he’d maxed out all the credit cards and the bank wouldn’t give him a loan. Her doctors wouldn’t do it for her unless we paid for it up front.”
Over the years, I’ve spent an incredible amount of time angry with our country’s healthcare system, but every time I hear a horror story like this or watch my family suffer through yet another month of insurmountable medical bills, I’m reminded of just how messed up it is.
“He said…” He looks down, clearing his throat. “He said if I wanted her to live, I had to be really brave. That I needed tobe a manand protect her because I was the only one who could.”
The back of my throat burns with the threat of a sob at his words. “No…”
“He told me a group of men were going to come take me. That I was going to go and live with them. He said it would be easier on me because I was older and I was a boy. He told me if I wanted to, I could say no. And then he’d ask you. If we both said no, it would mean Mom would die.”
I shake my head, wanting to argue. Wanting to tell him the father I know would never do that. That the father I know cut my grapes in half until I was seven years old so I wouldn’t choke and was the chaperone at all my school dances. But I can’t speak. I can’t say anything at all. I can only listen to the devastating story unfolding before me.
“He said if I was really brave, if I just went with them, they were going to help Mom get all the help she needed.”
“You said yes?”
“I said yes.”
“Danny…” I can’t speak, can hardly breathe.
“The men came. They crashed into the boat enough to bang it up some—guess I know why now—and I got on the boat with them. You never even woke up, Mae. Dad waved goodbye to me, and I never saw any of you ever again.”
“Danny… I… What do you even say to that? I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I’m… God, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry you felt like you needed to protect me. And protect Mom. You were just a kid. How could he do that? How could he…” Anger swells in my chest. “He must’ve felt so desperate, but that was never the way. If Mom knew, she would never,neverhave been okay with it. She would never have let you… Oh, Danny, do you even know how much she grieved you? How much we all did? Even Dad? Things were never okay with you gone. It didn’t have to be this way.”
I feel as if I’ve been split open, replaying every moment of their grief throughout my life, analyzing every memory, every interaction. How could he carry something so heavy with him all those years? How could he have done something so terrible? How can the man I love be the monster who did this? “We grieve for you every day,” I tell him. “I know it doesn’t make it okay, but it’s the truth. I never thought I’d see you again.” I burst into sobs, unable to hold back any longer.
“For years, I used to dream of hearing that, but at the end of the day, none of it matters. It’s not your fault. Or Mom’s. It was him. He made his choice. We all did. And, if that were it, it would’ve been bad enough. But this week, when you were meant to be here for a vacation, I heard he called an old friend, someone who helped arrange for me to be taken back then, and told them he had someone new. He told them you were only seventeen, by the way. He gets more money the younger they are.”
My stomach roils. “He wouldn’t do that.”
“He did. We were originally supposed to be picking you up from a bar bathroom, but plans changed and he called us, desperately needing us to get someone on your cruise ship. He forwarded us an email from your friend with the cruise information. Luckily, we have a few of our crew members staffing the local cruise ships, so it was an easy swap to make. Cruises are easy anyway. They drug a drink, get someone off the boat at a port, and from there, it’s a cakewalk to get you wherever we need you.”
“Hang on.” Something about what he’s saying forces me to pause. “Yourcrew? You’re the boss? I knew that, but…You’re the boss?How is that possible?”
“The man who bought me used to run the ring. He trained me as bait. No one can resist a lost kid.” He sneers. “I was the closest thing he had to a son, and when he was old enough, he passed it all down to me. The whole empire.”
