The Sleepwalker(7)

“You’ve checked downstairs?” I asked Paige. “You’ve checked the kitchen?”

“Of course I’ve checked downstairs.”

“The garden? Outside?”

“Yes, I went outside.” Then, to make her point, Paige shrieked at the top of her lungs, “Mom!” extending the single syllable for at least three or four seconds.

When there was no response, I asked simply, “The basement?”

Paige put her hands on her hips. We both knew that Paige was a little scared of the basement. I was, too. It was a terrifying, windowless world with a dirt floor except for the cement pads for the hot and cold water tanks and the washer and dryer. The walls were stone. The ceiling, mostly decaying insulation, was low. It was lit by two swaying lightbulbs at opposite ends. It was like a dungeon and we rarely went there—and never after dark when we were alone.

“Yes. I checked the basement. I checked everywhere.”

“Is her car here?”

My sister sighed but said nothing. I went to the window and looked out at the carriage barn. In the summer, our family never bothered to close the garage doors. The bay where our father parked his car was empty, because he had driven to the airport yesterday. Our mother’s SUV, however, was in its usual spot.

“Okay, I’ll call Dad,” I told Paige. I was pretty sure that Iowa was an hour behind Vermont. “What time is it?”

Paige pointed at the clock. It was a little before seven.

“Oh. Right,” I said. “Thank you.”

When I lifted the handset from the cradle, I was struck by its weight and shape. My parents had each owned what we called a car phone for nearly four years by then, though the phones were no longer tethered to their vehicles and my mother always had hers in her purse when she wasn’t behind the wheel. But it was only that summer that they had gotten me my first cell phone. Earlier that year a tower had been built not far from Bartlett, and suddenly we had cell service in the village. Of course, coverage across most of Vermont was still spotty at best—my parents used their car phones mostly on the interstate or while they were in Burlington—and so I had used my stubby new phone no more than a dozen times in the six weeks I’d owned it. Already, however, the transition from landlines to cell phones was beginning, and I couldn’t help but notice how different the bedroom phone felt in my fingers.

“Call him!” Paige was demanding.

Slowly my father’s number came to me and I rang him. I got only his recorded voice at the other end, suggesting that I leave a message.

“Hi, Dad,” I said, trying to sound calm. “I hope you have your phone with you. I’m sorry to call you, but we maybe—kind of—have an emergency. Paige just got me. It’s, like, seven in the morning here and Mom’s gone. Call me the second you wake up.”

Then I hung up.

“You didn’t say who you were,” Paige said.

“I think he probably figured it out.”

“Call the hotel. Wake him up.”

“I don’t know what hotel he’s at,” I said. And then, without consulting Paige or telling her what I was doing, I dialed 911.



The emergency call did not follow the script I expected, at least as much as I had a script in mind. But I had anticipated that instantly there would be police officers—state troopers, sheriffs, detectives—on their way to our house. There would be grown-ups wanting to help us.

“How long has she been missing?” the dispatcher—a woman with a very calm voice—asked me.

“I don’t know. But she was in bed last night. And she’s not in bed now.”

“Is her car still there?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Is there a note?”

I glanced around the bedroom and didn’t see one. “Hold on,” I said to the dispatcher. I put my hand over the phone’s mouthpiece and asked Paige, “Did you see a note?”

“No, but I wasn’t looking for one,” she answered defensively. “Mom doesn’t leave notes when she does this.”

“I don’t think so,” I told the woman on the phone. “But I’m not positive.”

“Is there anyone in the house other than you and your sister?”

“No. Our dad is away at a conference.”

“What kind of conference?”

“Poetry,” I answered, unsure why this mattered. I envisioned the officer scoffing.

“Have you let him know?” she asked.

“We just left him a message.”

“Was your front door locked?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay. Is there any reason why your mom might have left the house for a bit? An errand, maybe?”

“In the middle of the night?”

The dispatcher sighed audibly. “Is there some sick neighbor she might be helping? Could she have gone to a friend’s house?”

“She sleepwalks.”

There was silence on the other end of the line. Then: “Thank you.”

“So, you’ll send people over to help us? You’ll send out a search party or something?”

“How common is her sleepwalking?”

“Not common. She hasn’t done it in years. But—”