AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Without turning back to me or returning to her seat, she began to talk. “Remember when Jeb vanished? That night in the woods?”
“Of course I do.” Sadly, that night could have happened yesterday instead of three decades ago. The details of it were seared into my memory, as though the soft pink tissue of my brain had been branded with exploding fireworks and deep forest shadows. I doubt there was even a single detail I’d forgotten.
She said nothing for the longest time. I had to prompt her again.
She turned away from the window, revealing a face that was a mask of fear and pain. “I don’t know how to say this.” She sat on the couch, gnawing her lower lip.
“What is it? Just come out with it, Mom. There’s nothing you can say that will change my love for you.”
After a long silence, one in which I considering giving up and simply suggesting we go to bed. We could talk in the morning.
At last, the words burst out of her. It was like a dam breaking. She spoke fast, almost as though she knew if she didn’t, she couldn’t reveal what plagued her. “I might have had something to do with what happened. I didn’t mean to, honey, I never meant to, but I could have helped set this nightmare in motion.” Her breath hitched. She was near tears. She lowered her face into her hands.
I reached over to massage her shoulder and then let go. “What is it? I know you couldn’t have possibly done anything on purpose that would have caused Jeb’s disappearance. That’s impossible. Unimaginable.”
She revealed her tear-stained face. The sadness there dug deep into my heart. “I know, I know. But I can’t help but worry something I did back then might have led to Jeb being taken.”
“What are you talking about? This makes no sense.”
“Remember Chris Sgro?”
I shook my head. The name meant nothing.
“I went out with him around that time. Only once, though. You never met him.”
“Mom, you went out with lots of guys. How am I supposed to remember someone you went out with once thirty-odd years ago?”
“Well, I’ve never forgotten him.” She drew in a quivering breath. “Because he may be the culprit.” A quivering breath, verging on a sob, emerged. “He took him. I’m sure of it.”
I was dumbfounded. “No.” I scratched my head. “What makes you say that? And even if you have suspicions, how can you be sure?”
“Because I invited him to come along with us to watch the fireworks. I told him where we’d be. Our secret spot.”
“Oh Mom, that doesn’t mean anything.”
“No? Think again, because I’m pretty sure it does.Didhe come with us, as we planned? No. When we parted after our date, he promised he’d pick us up in his van, told me he’d even bring food, yet he never showed up. I was too embarrassed to say anything to you at the time. I just thought I’d been stood up.Notbig news for me back in those days.“ She stared down at the floor and then looked up again. “Everything he told me was a lie. He said he had family in the area. He didn’t. He told me he came back to, I think, take care of a sick parent. None of it panned out. I know. I checked into it. All I found was that no one had ever heard of him. It was almost as though he was a ghost, someone who’d never existed.”
The darkness pressed in at the windows like an alien presence. “Wait.”
“I’m so sorry,” she blurted.
“Wait,” I repeated. “You knew all this back then and you’re just mentioning it now?”
She couldn’t look at me. She drew her legs up toward her chest and turned away. The move should have made her look girlish, but all I saw was an old woman, overweight, with roots that needed a touch-up. In that moment, she was a stranger—one I hated.
She went on. “I was so ashamed. I tried to convince myself it didn’t matter. I told myself I’d only met the guy once and everything he told me was a lie. So, what good would it have done to report it, except for making me look partially responsible, even if what I did was totally innocent?”
I shook my head. I knew she had a point. And, of course, I didn’t hate her. She was my mom and she’d lived her whole life practically in service of me, using her meager means to make sure I had everything I needed and wanted. She went without so I could have. And her reasoning made sense. But it also twisted my gut into knots with all the what ifs that arose. If she’d told me or, especially, informed the police, it could have helped.
Perhaps.
“Maybe he had nothing to do with it,” I offered, feeling horrible for her. To have carried this secret around for so long must have been like a cancer on her soul.
“Of course he did. No one knew about our spot. Remember? We were so proud of our secret place.” She paused a minute, breath coming more quickly. “I actually showed him a picture of you two. He must have been waiting in the woods and when Jeb went back in there to pee that night—“ She began to cry, her chest heaving, wracking sobs that threatened to steal her breath. “He was like a spider in a web, waiting to pounce.”
I sighed; her spider image chilled me to my core. I had no choice but to wrap my arms around her, to comfort, even though I felt at odds with my emotions. I couldn’t decide whether to be furious or sympathetic.
After all, something very bad happened that she might well have made possible, even unwittingly.
