David Silva - The Disappeared

It was seventeen past two.

He wandered down the hall, used the bathroom, and splashed some water on his face. If he was going to be awake, he might as well be fully awake. On his way back, he stopped outside the bedroom door and wondered how Teri was doing on the other side. He had seen her angrier, especially in the early months after her son’s disappearance, when it had appeared that he had simply vanished and no one had a clue as to how or why. But Walt had never felt her anger before. Not like tonight. What had hurt most was that she had been right. They should have seen the pattern. If they had, they might have been able to save some children.

“I’m sorry, Teri,” he whispered into the door. “You’ve got to know I’m sorry.

The name of the store was After A Fashion. It was a small boutique in the Town and Country Village near the corner of West Lake and Lassiter. Teri only occasionally came by here, and most often that was to browse through the bookstore at the other end. She couldn’t recall having ever noticed the boutique before.

It was the kind of place she imagined she would want for herself if she were ever to go into business. Intimate and modest. A small, eclectic selection of styles (were the Sixties coming back?). And the atmosphere not so much that of a store as that of spending an afternoon over at a friend’s, rummaging through her closet. It had a nice feel to it.

A bell over the door rang as Teri stepped through. There was no one behind the counter. In fact, there was no else in the store, at least not up front. She sidled over to the casual wear and pulled out an adorable outfit with a smocked, high-waist skirt made with a two-tier flounce.

“I’ll be right out, if you need any help,” a voice called from in back.

“No hurry. I’m just looking,” Teri said. She checked the price. $65.00.

“I’m sorry. Things have just been crazy this morning.” The woman came bouncing out, her eyes bright, her smile wide, and Teri recognized her immediately. Judy had always been a fireball, full of energy and laughter, the kind of woman you enjoyed being around. Time had treated her well. She hadn’t aged a day since Teri had last seen her.

“Teri?”

“Hi, Judy.”

Her smile grew even wider. She opened her arms and gave Teri a hug that immediately closed the gap of time that had grown between them since they had last been together. There weren’t very many people you met in your life who could do that. It had been twelve, maybe fifteen years since Teri had seen her, and yet instantly it felt as if it had only been yesterday.

“My Lord. It’s so wonderful to see you again,” Judy said.

Teri didn’t want to let her out of the hug, but she did, reluctantly. “You, too.”

“How long has it been?”

“Too long,” Teri said. Yesterday she had visited with Cindy and thought how much the woman had changed, how much—no doubt—they had all changed. But that wasn’t as true today. Because somehow, Judy had managed to hold onto the essence of the old days. She hadn’t changed much at all. “We never should have let it get away from us like that.”

“Life does that, doesn’t it? Just keeps us on the run all the time. Always busy, never seeming to get anywhere.”

Teri smiled, thinking that was probably true for most of them, but she wasn’t sure it was true in Judy’s case. “I like your boutique.”

“Do you? Eddie—he’s my husband—he says there’s not much money in it. And he’s right. He’s always right. But I like this place. I really do like it.”

“I can see that.”

The bell over the door rang, and a young woman with a little girl in tow entered. The woman smiled courteously, and wandered off to the other side to browse through some hand-knitted sweaters.

“Just yell if you need any help,” Judy said.

“Thank you.”

Teri shifted from one foot to the other, suddenly feeling like an imposition. “Well, I don’t want to take too much of your time.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“I heard you had a little girl.”

“Yeah, she’s three. Her name’s Genevieve. You think that sounds stuck-up? Eddie’s mother says it sounds like some prissy European duchess.”

“No, I like it.”

“Yeah, me too.” Judy pulled a black jumper with a pink cotton T-shirt out from the nearest rack and studied it absently. “At least I didn’t name her Moon Shadow, huh?”

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate that when she gets older.”

“She better.”

Another customer came in. She looked to be someone who had shopped here before. She was wearing a stretch, twill jumper with mock belt buckle and an acrylic knit T-shirt with padded shoulders. It was a 90’s twist on the 60’s revival that had only recently come into style.

Judy put the outfit she had been studying back on the rack, and smiled at the woman. “Let me know if you need any help.”

The woman smiled in return, without saying anything.

“It’s getting busy.”

“We have our moments.”

“Well, I won’t keep you,” Teri said. “I just wanted to see you, and see how you’ve been doing. Find out if you’ve been in touch with any of the old crowd.”

“A few. Most everyone scattered, you know.”

“Did they?”

Judy nodded, browsing through the rack as if she were looking for something for herself or maybe something she could put aside for when Genevieve was older. “Oh, yeah. Jack moved out to Boston to run a restaurant with his brother. I haven’t talked to him in over a year. And Jeremy followed Michelle out to Chicago. They got married and had a little girl who must be twelve or thirteen now.”

“You’ve kept track of everyone?” Teri said.

“Most everyone.”

“How come I never heard from you?”

“I sent you a card when your son disappeared,” she said, looking up, surprised. It was very nearly a look of accusation, and Teri felt herself immediately fighting off the guilt. “And I called, maybe half a dozen times. I always got your answering machine, though. You never called back.”

Teri remembered those calls now, though only vaguely. There had been literally hundreds and hundreds of calls for several months after Gabe’s disappearance. People offering their condolences. Psychics claiming they’d had a vision. Cranks that seemed to always call in the middle of the night with something sick to say. After a couple of days, she had quit answering the phone, and Michael had taken over the duty of listening to the messages.

“It was a terribly difficult time,” Teri said, guiltily.

“I can’t imagine how horrible it must have been to lose your son like that.”

“I’m sorry I never called you back.”

“It’s all right,” Judy said. “I understood. I just wanted to let you know that my thoughts were with you.”

“That was nice of you.”

She smiled, modestly. “You ever miss the old days?”

“Sometimes,” Teri said. It wasn’t often, though. The music usually brought it back for her, when she’d hear I Ain’t Marching Anymore by Phil Ochs or Here Comes the Sun by Richie Havens or Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell. The world had been a different place then. Time had moved slower. Life had been bigger and brighter, somehow. If she had it all to do over again, she’d do it exactly the same. But she didn’t miss those days, not really, and how odd that seemed.

“I still long for them,” Judy said.

“Do you?”

“I guess what I miss most is the feeling of family we had.”

“Me, too,” Teri said. She thought how crazy the circle of life could be. The little girl she had once been was hardly more than a dream now, another spirit belonging to someone else’s past. And it wasn’t much different when she thought back to those high school and college years, either. The memories were fond, but they were memories pasted in a photo album, and sometimes when you flipped through them, it was hard to recognize yourself. She remembered the sense of family, though. That had never left her.