Джордан Шор - The Search

“And this was a Christian woman?” Mike asked and sounded annoyed.

“I don’t have that information,” George said, immediately regretting his choice of words.

Why did you use that phrase, George?

After yet another awkward pause, George eventually rose to his feet. “Tell Trisha, I said hello.”

“She didn’t come in today. Her boy is in the hospital.”

“What happened?”

“He’s sick a lot. He has a disability.”

George felt his chest tightening. Something about a single mom raising a child always got to him, and especially a child with a disability.

“That reminds me, how was the meeting…”

What was her name again?

“…with the mother of the flight attendant?”

“Mrs. Olsen went to visit her family in Stockholm,” Mike said. “So, we had no meeting.”

Stockholm? George thought it was strange that the mother of the flight attendant had suddenly decided to travel abroad, especially when the plane hadn’t been located.

“Stockholm ? As in the capital of Sweden?”

“Stockholm, Wisconsin,” Mike responded.

“Never heard of it.”

“I had my doubts too, but apparently it exists.”

Friday evening

They’d started walking early in the morning, and hardly made any stops along the way. Jack had carried Julie on his back for the entire journey. As the hours passed, and the woods grew darker, they’d stopped, and settled down beside a large pine tree. When Jack went looking for food, Julie kept staring in the direction in which he’d left; she never took her eyes off his trail.

When Jack finally emerged from the dark woods, Julie lit up with joy and waved her arm for him to see. Jack never waved back but simply held his cupped hands close to his chest.

“What do you have there, Jack?”

Jack extended his arms, and held his hands close to Julie’s face, the content still concealed in his cupped hands.

Julie hesitated, and looked wary. “It’s not an animal is it?”

Jack smiled, and slowly opened his hands.

“Blueberries,” Julie blurted out. “I love blueberries.”

Julie consumed each blueberry, one at a time, moving her arm rapidly back and forth between Jack’s cupped hands and her mouth. Then, Julie suddenly stopped eating, opened her mouth, and extended her tongue as far as humanly possible.

“ Is aisle town glue ,” Julie mumbled ambiguously.

Jack frowned. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

“Seriously? You’re not getting this? It’s so obvious,” Julie said. “I asked you, if my tongue is blue.”

“Now I get it.”

“So, is it blue?”

“Yes, it’s blue,” Jack responded hesitantly.

“ Yaayyy … It’s blue,” Julie cheered, and sounded childish.

Jack appeared puzzled by Julie’s remark, and looked dubiously at her as she kept consuming the blueberries one at a time. Then Julie began giggling and made an attempt to feed Jack a blueberry. However, Jack never opened his mouth. He merely kept frowning and looked quite skeptical of Julie.

“You don’t like blueberries?”

“I had plenty before. These are for you, Julie.”

“Stick your tongue out,” Julie said enthusiastically.

Jack barely extended the tip of his tongue.

“ Yaayyy …” Julie cheered in a way that one could expect from a small child. “We’re like blueberries you and I,” Julie said with, the same enthusiasm.

“Okay.”

“We’re two of a kind, me and you,” Julie said in a high-pitched tone.

Jack looked both baffled and appalled.

Suddenly, Julie looked sad and frightened. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I was only thinking that you’re probably right,” Jack said. “Just me and you are left to tell the story.”

“What story?”

“We’re the only ones who know where the plane is,” Jack said. “That lake will freeze soon enough. It could be years before the plane is discovered.”

“Well, there’s the SOS sign. Somebody is bound to notice it, sooner or later.”

“I suppose,” Jack said.

“And then there’s Kevin,” Julie said. “He can take care of himself.”

“I think Kevin quit.”

“What do you mean he quit?”

“I think he just gave up,” Jack said. “I felt sorry for him at first because of what happened to his wife and all. But now, I’m not so sure about him. He knew your ankle was broken, and he knew Nancy suffered from head trauma. But it didn’t stop him from leaving. He was too scared to face the truth. He ran away from his problems, instead of facing them. That’s not very noble is it?”

“No, it’s not.” Julie looked at her feet. “But either way, he’s still out there. He could be on his way to the ocean. Perhaps he’s in front of us?”

“I doubt it,” Jack responded. “I think he’s gone.”

“Is Kevin a foreigner?” Julie blurted out. “His accent sounded so strange. Like he tried to disguise his voice or something.”

“I noticed that too.” Jack nodded. “But I thought he sounded like an American pretending to pass himself off as a foreigner.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Perhaps his wife was foreign and her accent rubbed off on him. I remember switching to a Southern accent when I served with a guy from Texas. I actually had trouble getting rid of the accent after he left. I remember I had to concentrate really hard whenever I spoke.”

“So, you were in the military?” Julie asked. “Is that where got those muscles?”

Jack nodded slightly.

“Did you get that scar on your neck in battle?”

Jack exhaled.

“I’m sorry,” Julie quickly added. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“I rather not talk about it. I’m done with that part of my life.”

Julie put her arm through Jack’s arm, and curled up close to him, much the way a small child clings to a parent.

Friday evening

George struggled to finish the letter to his sister. He didn’t think it sounded right. It sounded like something a public relations manager had written, and not someone’s brother. He decided to take a cold shower, hoping the cold water would reset his mind.

George had requested a few hours off from work to visit his sister in the hospital the next morning. Truth be told, he hoped Mike would deny his request, as he dreaded visiting his sister. Not because he didn’t care about her, but seeing his sister’s apparently lifeless body was unsettling. He felt as if a mannequin had replaced his sister. Her body was present, but the person was gone.

A shower later, he was back in his living room, and he noticed how the blue light kept flashing on his cell phone. He had two missed calls from his boss and also a text message.

George hesitated as to whether he should call his boss or not, given the late hour, but his curiosity took the upper hand. However, Mike didn’t answer his call. George sent a text message instead, confirming the next day’s meeting. Then he swallowed hard and dialed a different number.

“Hi, Mom,” he said, and swallowed once more. “Listen, I have to go to work in the morning, but we—”

George extended his arm far enough to protect his eardrums.

As he listened to his mother’s endless shouting, he focused on the letter on his living room table, the letter that he’d written to his sister.

How could things possibly get any worse?

He kept staring at the letter.