Life and Other Inconveniences(33)

Within hours, the police brought in bloodhounds, and even then, I was positive the dogs would find him. The fox den theory had been replaced with a broken ankle, at least in my mind. But no, that wouldn’t explain his silence, so I amended it to be that my son had slipped and hit his head on a rock, concussing himself. He would be fine. There was no other acceptable alternative.

Then came the divers . . . well, I suppose they had to be called, but I wouldn’t tolerate that scenario. And I was right. They didn’t find my son, because he was not in that lake.

When darkness fell that night, when there was no sound of a little boy calling out or crying, I still hoped. But now, a dark spot had wormed its way into my heart, like mold.

I went home from the lake sometime before dawn to check on Clark. It was only then, standing in front of Sheppard’s empty bedroom, his bed neatly made, that I felt truly afraid. Fear dropped me to my knees, and I covered my head and bit down on the yawning, ravenous terror that wanted to swallow me.

But I had to be strong. This was taking longer than it should, but Sheppard would be fine. He wouldn’t have fallen in the lake without Garrison noticing, for heaven’s sake! He could swim! He was quite a good swimmer, in fact.

The next day, since the dogs had found nothing, and the divers had found nothing, they dragged the lake. And found nothing. Thank God, they found nothing. The silt was deep, though, they said. It was possible that—“No,” I said firmly, calmly. “He’s not in there. But thank you.”

Ugly phrases were used. Posthumous gases. Floating patterns. Facedown. I ignored them all. My son was not in that lake. I knew it with all my heart, and mothers have a gift this way.

Sheppard was out there somewhere. Surely he would come home. He’d gotten lost. We walked, lines of us, through those woods, time after time, day after day, and still I hoped. No, I knew my son was alive. I would be the one whose voice woke him from his deep sleep. He would be scared but so glad to see us, and Garrison and I would wrap our arms around him and say, “All that matters is that you’re safe now, darling. We’re here. We’ve got you.” He would be hungry and dirty, and I’d give him a bath and make potato soup myself, his favorite.

More than a dozen times, we walked the woods. There was nothing. No shoe, no scrap of fabric, no scent for the dogs to pick up. They dragged the lake again. Still nothing.

My theory became that someone had mistaken him for a lost child and brought him somewhere. He was in a police station in a town very close by, and it was bureaucratic incompetence that was keeping us from our reunion. I may have snapped at the police chief. I may have suggested his force was failing to do their job, that they were incompetent idiots. I seem to remember slapping someone’s face.

The police were treating it as a missing person, then as a possible abduction. Garrison and I went on the news, pleading with the person who had taken our son, holding pictures of him. “Bring back my son,” I said. “We love him so much. Please. Please.”

A detective interviewed us and asked about any predators—the human kind. Had we seen anyone giving Sheppard any special attention? A teacher? A priest? “We’re Protestants,” I snapped. “And no! Of course not.”

The days became a week. Ten days. Twelve. Two weeks. Nineteen days. Three weeks. Four and a half, and it was stunning that this was still going on. Stunning! Sheppard was listed in the registry of missing children, and I called in daily. Nothing. No one was reported as matching his description.

Nine weeks after he . . . went away, they found the boy in Boston, and my heart soared. I would make it all right. I would heal his wounds, soothe his fears, and we would be together again, and . . . and . . .

It wasn’t my son. Someone else’s son had been found, but not mine, and I hated that other mother who was granted such mercy, such joy. I hated her so that if I had seen her, I might have attacked her, screamed at her, begged her to give me her son so I could pretend he was mine. I hated God with all my heart.

We resorted to psychics who told us nothing. “I see a tree,” said one, and it was all I could do not to slap her. Another said, “He’s very close to water,” but could not say whether she felt he was alive or dead. Another told us he was not in pain.

No one told us where he was.

Garrison accepted things in inches. I heard him sobbing in his bathroom, saw the emptiness behind his eyes. We held each other so tightly at night, the only time I could be honest, when I shook so hard my teeth chattered, and Garrison cried quietly. His hair turned white, and he started drinking three cocktails each night instead of two.

Three months.

Five months.

Seven.

A year. A year. Three news appearances, all starting with “Today marks the anniversary of the mysterious disappearance of Sheppard London, a beautiful little boy who went missing at Birch Lake in Stoningham. With us today are his parents . . .”

There were three calls after that first anniversary. All dead ends.

Grief is an ice pick, chiseling you to nothing bit by bit. All I could think of was my lost boy. When Clark came to me for his story time one night, Peter Pan clutched in his chubby little hands, I snatched the book and threw it in the fireplace. There would be no Lost Boys in my home. “Go to bed,” I snapped. Then, later, when he was asleep, I climbed into bed with him and silently apologized to him for loving Sheppard more.

It seemed impossible that the days kept coming. How could there be a spring, an autumn, the holidays, when our boy was out there, somewhere? If he was dead, wouldn’t I have felt it? Wouldn’t he come to me in a dream, my angel, my son? I had loved him with every molecule in me. Wouldn’t he do me that favor, at least?