The World More Full of Weeping

by Robert J. Wiersema

  She smiled at his reaction. “Would you like to see more?”

  He nodded. “Please.”

  She took his hand again and led him away.

  One of the ways you could tell that someone had spent most of their life in Henderson was by how they approached someone’s house.

  Diane would always go to front door, ring the bell, then wait.

  Most people would go around the back and knock.

  John and Claire Joseph, though, just opened the back screen door half an hour after the teams had spread out to start the search, Claire calling “Hello?” up the stairs.

  Jeff had been standing at the sink, looking out the window at the people moving through the fields, disappearing into the woods. He turned in time to see Diane stand up from her place at the table and step toward the doorway. She had been sitting at the table, staring into the middle distance, her hands in front of her.

  Claire Joseph climbed the stairs slowly, gripping the wooden rail. She was old — Jeff wasn’t sure just how old, but he guessed in her eighties — but her eyes were bright and warm.

  At the top of the stairs she drew Diane in for an embrace, clutching her tightly without saying a word. When she stepped away, she held onto both of Diane’s hands, looked deep into her face.

  Tears streamed down Diane’s face, and Claire nodded. “That’s right. You need to get that out. You’re wound up tight as an old watch-spring.” She looked over at Jeff, and he tried to smile. “Let’s get you cleaned up,” Claire said, leading Diane gently down the hallway.

  Jeff watched his ex-wife disappear into the bathroom, the door clicking closed behind them.

  “I brought over our big coffeemaker,” John Joseph said from the foot of the stairs. He was hanging up his coat, several plastic grocery bags at his feet. “And some of Claire’s cookies. I thought we might make up some sandwiches as well.”

  Jeff stepped partway down the stairs and John passed him the bag containing the coffee tureen.

  “I didn’t hear the truck,” he said as they climbed the stairs.

  John shook his head. “We walked across the field. Your driveway looked pretty busy.”

  “Thanks for bringing all this stuff,” Jeff said as he unpacked the bag on the kitchen counter, plugged the cord into the base of the tureen. “It never occurred to me.”

  “Your mind’s on other things.” John took a couple of cookie tins from the other bag and set them on the opposite counter.

  “Yeah.”

  John looked out the window over the sink. “We’re getting into the gloaming now.” He turned to Jeff. “Twilight.”

  “They won’t be able to see too much out there.”

  “They’ve got lights. Good ones.”

  “Yeah.” In the window, the world was gradually disappearing, being replaced by his distorted reflection.

  Carly walked Brian to the edge of the forest, where the undergrowth was thin and the paths were clear.

  She hadn’t said anything since he told her that he needed to be getting home. Even in the perpetual shadows of the deepest woods he could tell it was getting late.

  “I’ll come back tomorrow, though,” he said, thinking back on the day they had spent together, and ahead to Sunday morning. There was no other way he would rather spend the hours.

  Her face brightened at that.

  “Where should we meet?”

  They had walked in silence through the forest. It was strange: if anyone had asked him that morning, Brian would have told them that he knew the woods as well as he knew his own house. Better, maybe. But Carly knew paths he had never noticed, knew clearings and fallen trees and swamps bright with skunk cabbage he hadn’t even known existed. With her, the woods, which had always seemed comfortable and familiar, seemed to grow, to take on a wondrous strangeness, a foreignness that was kind of unsettling, but mostly thrilling.

  As they walked, he wondered if he would have been able to find his way out without her help.

  They were no longer holding hands, and as they walked, Brian picked a few wildflowers, careful to be looking away from her when she slowed.

  He was surprised that such a short walk — no more than a few minutes — brought them to the tree line between the forest and the fields. He would have thought they were miles away.

  “Did you want to come in with me?” he asked, desperate for something to breach the silence between them. “You could probably stay for dinner.”

  She shook her head, but she smiled. “I should probably be getting back, too.”

  “Okay,” he said, suddenly unsure of himself, not wanting to leave her.

  “But you’ll come tomorrow?”

  He nodded. “Meet you right here?”

  She smiled.

  He turned away, started to walk, then turned back jerkily. “Here,” he said, his face reddening as he extended the flowers to her. “These are for you.”

  She took them with a smile and a warm glow in her eyes. As she smelled them, he turned away, walking briskly across the field toward his father’s shop.

  He didn’t look back.

  His thoughts were filled with excuses, possible scenarios he could use to explain to his father how late he was. It never occurred to Brian to just tell him the truth. He didn’t know why.

  It didn’t matter anyway. When he got to the shop, his father was deep in his work, his eyes tight on the tools but his mind far away.

  It was as if he hadn’t even noticed his son had been gone.

  “You don’t get out there much, do you?”

  Jeff wasn’t startled by John Joseph’s voice beside him: the older man had crossed the back lawn without a sound, but Jeff had heard the screen door close.

  When he turned toward him, John offered him a mug. “I took a little liberty with the bottle on your counter.”

  The steam above the mug smelled of coffee and Jameson’s. “Thanks.”

  They both turned their attention to the forest. It was darker now, and Jeff could hear voices coming gradually closer to his farm.

  “They’ll be coming to get their night gear,” John said. “Dean’ll probably have the truck stop at the back first, get them set up before he comes back here.”

  Jeff nodded, not really listening, and took a sip of his coffee. “That’s nice,” he said, as it warmed him all the way down. “Thanks.”

  “You don’t, do you?” John said, not looking away from the dark forest.

  “What?”

  “Go out in the woods much.” He turned to face Jeff. “’Least not too deep.”

  “I used to take Brian for walks back there, before he was old enough to go on his own.”

  John nodded thoughtfully. “Always stayed in sight of the farm, though, I’m guessing.”

  Jeff shrugged. “I guess. I don’t really like being out there too far. Not my sort of place.”

  John looked at him, the beginnings of a smile seeming to teeter at the corners of his mouth. “It sure used to be. Back when you were Brian’s age, you practically lived in the woods.”

  “I played there a bit.”

  “It was more than that. Your father was always chasing after you in there, making sure you weren’t hung up somewhere, making sure you weren’t late for dinner. You spent the winter you were nine or ten planning a camp back there for the next summer. Not a camping trip — a camp. You were gonna spend the summer living back there. You had it all figured out.”

  Something tickled again at the back of Jeff’s mind, a sense of displaced familiarity that allowed him — no, forced him — to concede to John’s words. “I guess. I don’t remember that at all.” He took another sip of his coffee.

  The older man had turned his gaze back to the dark, to the rising voices. “I’m not surprised. Not after what happened.”

  “After what happened?” The tickle was stronger, and he knew what John was going to tell him without actually remembering.

  Like father like son.

  John turned back to him. “You rea
lly don’t remember.” He didn’t seem at all surprised.

  “I — ”

  “That spring, the spring you were eleven years old, you disappeared. You were gone overnight. Almost two days.”

  Jeff looked at him incredulously. He knew the words were true — though he wasn’t sure of just how he knew — but he couldn’t help feel that they were referring to someone else. He couldn’t make the words match up to his own life.

  “Two days.”

  John nodded. “And a night between. Everyone in town was looking for you. There was no Search and Rescue in those days, but once word got out . . .” He gestured back at the house. “Your mom and Claire made sandwiches and coffee. Kept everyone going.”

  Like father like son.

  “I don’t understand how I could forget something like that.”

  Turning his head sharply, John pointed at the barn. “They’re coming out.”

  The halogen lights of the supply truck swept down the driveway, blinding the men, fixing them in a pool of brightness in the midst of the gaining dark.

  The thought came to Brian as he was on the edge of sleep after his first day with Carly. It forced his eyes open, and he felt his heart jump.

  We didn’t say when we would meet.

  Everything about his last few minutes with Carly had been so strange — her silence, the flowers — that he hadn’t even thought about setting a time for their meeting the next morning.

  It filled him with a sinking sense of dread: what if they missed each other? What if she came and he wasn’t there? Would she wait? For how long? Or would she just give up and assume he wasn’t coming?

  The questions kept circling in his head. The thought of missing Carly, of maybe not seeing her, filled him with a sadness he had never felt before.

  That Saturday had been one of the best days of his life. He had never met anyone like Carly before: someone who loved the woods as much as he did. Someone who experienced the same wonder, the same sense of magic, that he did.

  Most other people, when he brought up the woods, would smirk and laugh (if they were other kids) or smile thinly and indulgently as they pretended to listen (if they were grown-ups). Nobody understood what the forest meant to him.

  Nobody except Carly.

  He couldn’t miss her, he just couldn’t. How could he have been so stupid, not telling her a time? She was going to get there and not see him and —

  He’d just have to get there first. That was it. That was the answer. He’d be out at the edge of the woods as early as he could be, and when she got there, he would be waiting for her.

  He fell asleep moments later with that thought in his mind and a broad smile on his face.

  That night, Brian slept the sort of sleep adults envy: rich and deep and dark. The sort of sleep that eleven-year-old boys who spend their days tramping through the woods and playing in streams take for granted, the sort of sleep from which nothing would wake him.

  Jeff found Diane in Brian’s bedroom, sitting on his bed. She was rubbing her hands together compulsively, folding and twisting them around one another. The room was dark, the flashing yellow lights of the Search and Rescue trucks out the window reflected on her face.

  He stood in the doorway in silence, just watching her.

  “What did they say?” she asked in a near-whisper, without turning toward him.

  He was startled by the sound of her voice. “What?”

  “I saw you out there, talking to them.”

  “They’re going back out,” he said, stepping into the room. “They’ve got their lights and radios now.” He stopped beside her. He wanted to sit next to her on the bed. Or touch her shoulder. Or take her hand.

  He didn’t.

  “I don’t blame you,” she said.

  “What?”

  “For this. For all of this. It’s not your fault. He could have gotten lost in the city just as easily. More easily. It’s not your fault.”

  He understood the words: they were clear enough. But in her broken voice, they seemed to mean the opposite of what she was saying. All he heard was Diane blaming him. And it was true. This was his fault. This never would have happened in the city. Never would have happened if his mother had been taking care of him.

  He bit the inside of his lip until it bled.

  “Did they . . . do they have any . . .”

  He had to take a deep breath before he could speak. “Jim said there are lots of trails, some of them really new. They can’t tell if they’re from today, but they’re really recent.”

  As the crew had returned to the yard, Jim Kelly, one of the owners of the Henderson Press, had been shaking his head and rubbing his hands together. “Jesus, it’s cold out there.”

  He stopped himself, seeing the look on Jeff’s face. “Sorry,” he said, sheepishly.

  “That’s all right.” It was cold; it wasn’t like he hadn’t noticed.

  “I’m gonna pop back into the office, grab my good gloves.” And a drink, Jeff assumed. “Is there anything you want from town?”

  Jeff had shaken his head, and Jim had wandered up the driveway toward his truck.

  “Do you want to come downstairs?” he asked Diane, both of them watching the Search and Rescue crew girding themselves with reflective vests, and helmets with lights. “Claire’s made some sandwiches.”

  “I’ll stay here,” she said, her voice dead.

  “All right,” he said, and waited, but she said nothing more, and a moment later he turned away.

  Carly was waiting for Brian when he got to their meeting place early the next morning. She smiled when she saw him. “You came,” she said.

  He nodded, trying not to show how thrilled he was to see her. “Sorry if I made you wait.”

  “No, I don’t mind. I was just hoping you hadn’t forgotten about me.”

  The thought shocked Brian. It had never occurred to him that she might be looking forward to seeing him as much as he had been looking forward to seeing her.

  “I made some sandwiches,” he said, tugging off his backpack. “Did you want one? Peanut butter and jam.”

  She shook her head. “No, thank you.” She patted the log next to her. “Why don’t you sit here while you eat?”

  He was shaking a little as he sat down next to her. When he tried to unwrap his sandwiches, even his hands were shaking.

  He hoped she wouldn’t notice.

  The day passed in what felt to Brian like mere moments. They wandered trails he had never seen, pointed things out to one another they hadn’t previously noticed. Carly showed him a thrush nest, high in a tree, and Brian climbed the tree and showed her how the feathers connected to their shafts under his microscope. They talked and laughed and walked in easy silence, holding hands.

  It was an endless series of perfect moments.

  As the shadows thickened, she stopped him and held both of his hands. “You have to go?” she asked.

  It hadn’t even occurred to him to look at the time: it was already almost 4:30. “I can stay a little longer,” he said, thinking of the way his father hadn’t even noticed he was gone the day before. Then he corrected himself. “No, no. I should go. If I’m late my dad might not let me come out after school tomorrow.”

  The look of sadness that had crossed her face lifted, broke into a smile. “You’ll come back?” she asked, as if she couldn’t believe her ears.

  “Of course I will,” he said.

  She squeezed his hands, leaned in quickly and kissed his cheek, turning away immediately, as if embarrassed.

  His face started to warm.

  “Here,” she said, dropping one of his hands to sweep aside a dense, hanging branch. Stepping through, Brian found himself back in the clearing at the edge of the forest.

  “Tomorrow?” she asked again.

  He smiled, “Tomorrow.”

  She squeezed his hand.

  The hours seemed to crawl by, with nothing for Jeff to do but wait. He wandered through the yard, slowly, keeping one ey
e on the dark smudge of forest, alert to the occasional flash of lights from its edge. His heart jumped every time someone came out, every time there was a crackle from Charlie’s radio truck, thinking that maybe this was when it would happen, maybe this was when Brian would come back.

  There were people everywhere, the driveway so full of cars that anyone arriving had to park on the shoulder of the road and walk in, but he felt completely alone.

  Around midnight, when he noticed Jeff pacing up the driveway, Dean Owens disengaged himself from the group he was talking with and met him halfway. Dean was wearing a heavy coat with a reflective vest over top. The sight of him, and his misty breath in the night air, made Jeff think of Brian in the woods, in the dark, scared, shivering —

  He tried to block out the image.

  “Any news?” he asked Dean.

  “Not what you’re wanting to hear. The teams met mid-point in the woods about an hour ago. There’s no sign of your son.”

  Jeff flinched despite himself.

  Dean shook his head. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing. If he’d been swept into one of the creeks or attacked by an animal, we would have found something. His pack, maybe.” He paused, shook his head and touched Jeff’s shoulder. “I’m tellin’ you this straight, because you’re a friend: the fact that we haven’t found his pack or anything is a good sign. It means he’s holding onto it. It means he’s probably all together. See what I’m telling you?”

  Jeff nodded, barely able to conceal his sudden need to vomit.

  The true magnitude of the situation washed over him like a chilling storm. He had spent that evening downplaying everything in his mind, expecting the Search and Rescue to find Brian easily, if he wasn’t going to walk out of the woods on his own.

  But neither of those things had happened. And now he couldn’t shake the image of his son floating down one of the swollen creeks, his backpack soaked and heavy, keeping him just under the surface.

  “What — ” His voice came out broken and soft. Jeff coughed to clear his throat. “What do we do next?”

  Dean took a deep breath. “We’ve split up the team that started from this side. They’re going to move out from your fence lines through John and Claire’s place that way, and over young Tom’s place that way. The team that started at the logging road is going back in, but in the other direction. Toward the mountain.”