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And then something happened that made us all catch our breaths at the end of August. A body was discovered by a couple of boys fishing on the banks of the Ohio. His corpse was tangled up in branches overhanging the churning waters. About the same height and weight as Jeb, folks around town, especially me, Mom, and Jeb’s parents were horrified, certain that Jeb had been found.
But no.
The body turned out to be that of Bill Humphrey, an unemployed welder. He’d been in debt. His wife had left him, taking their two kids, a boy, seven and a girl, twelve. Folks around town who’d seen the man in recent weeks gossiped about how they hadn’t seen him sober in a long time. Most likely in an alcoholic haze, he’d waded into the river one night, hopeless and not wanting to face another morning.
The death was ruled accidental, but we’d all believed it was suicide.
A new school year started and with it, my entry into high school as a freshman. The phrase “vanished into thin air” become one I couldn’t bear to hear. I had trouble concentrating. My grades slipped. I just didn’t seem to have an interest in anything.
Mom didn’t bring me up to be religious. She wasn’t a spiritual person, and she raised me to think the bible and its accounts were nothing more than that—stories, fairy tales. There was no bearded man in the sky, picking and choosing who he would and wouldn’t look out for, according to her. “All we have is right here on earth,” she’d say. “Heaven and hell are with us in the here and now and the funny thing is, one day what was heaven can be hell—and vice versa.”
From as far back as I can recall, her atheism made sense. In our tiny, rundown rental house, with its eccentric water and unpredictable heat in the winter, it was easy to imagine there was no great protector in the sky.
But this lack of belief didn’t stop me from praying every night for months. I’d get on my knees next to my bed, clasp my hands together, bow my head, and then beseech a being I couldn’t even imagine returning to my first love. Or, if this deity was unable to fulfill my selfish wish, then could he at least make sure Jeb was okay, wherever he was.
I never got an answer.
Not from god or anyone else.
As the school year went on and on, into Christmas break, Jeb’s disappearance got less and less notice. Other news stories took precedence. Conversations about Jeb were less frequent and finally, they, like him, vanished. He would never be found, I worried, neither dead nor alive. There were no phone calls. The sightings reported on the tip line fell off and then died altogether. The line was closed.
People were done looking.
Jeb was yet another face on a milk carton. A mystery that most likely would never be solved.
Forgotten.
That Christmas, my mom asked me to take a tin of her pizzelle cookies over to the Klebers. She knew their holidays would be anything but festive and wanted to make some small gesture to let them know we were thinking of them in this horrible time, when the whole world seemed to have left them behind as they celebrated.
I’d tried to stop by frequently after Jeb went missing, but no one ever answered the door. I’d come prepared to cut their little square of grass in front of the trailer and later, ready to rake leaves, and even later, shovel snow. These acts of kindness, I figured, were for deserving people. Besides, they’d make me, in a strange way, feel closer to Jeb. But I never got the chance.
Cookies in hand, I didn’t have much hope anyone would answer, but I got a surprise this time.
Mrs. Kleber, Mandy to everyone in town, opened the door a crack to peer out at me. The day was heavy with the scent of imminent snow and dark charcoal clouds pressed close to the hills on the horizon.
“Oh hi, Sammy. What’s up, hon?”
She wore a frazzled expression. Her dark roots now traveled down to just about the tips of her ears. She had on an old, faded green sweatshirt, frayed at the bottom, moth-eaten, and a pair of men’s flannel sleep pants. Her skin was sallow and her irises floated in pale red.
I held up the cookie tin. “Mom sent these. They’re pizzelles, Italian Christmas cookies. They’re really good.” I smiled.
She looked down at the red and green tin as though I was offering a plate of excrement. She opened her mouth, closed it again, and then stared at me.
I held the tin closer to her. “Go on. Please take it.” I remembered another woman, a cheerful, brassy, loud-mouthed mother who laughed a lot, told dirty jokes, and made fun of everyone. No one was beneath her contempt and she never failed to crack me up.
Until today.
She reached out a hand that looked as though it might belong to a ninety-year-old—veiny, the parchment skin hanging on for dear, withered life. She took the cookie tin and set it down somewhere in the shadows behind her.
“Thank you, and please tell your mom the same.” She moved to close the thin aluminum door. When I didn’t turn away, she asked, “Is there something else?”
I stared and debated whether I should just leave her alone in her grief and misery. All appearances indicated that was what she wanted, heartless as it might feel on my part.
But I couldn’t simply leave it at that. I cocked my head, met her worn-out gaze and asked, “Are you okay?”
She sighed and for a moment consulted the dark clouds. “What do you think, boy?”
The chill I felt was not coming from the wind whipping up out of the north. I felt heat rise to my cheeks. “Stupid question.”
