Boy, 9, Missing

by Nic Joseph

  Her words started to sink in. “You mean…”

  There had been only one other person upstairs.

  “Brian Farr?” I asked. I struggled to get the words out. “Where were you? What…?”

  “You want details?”

  I didn’t say anything, and she shrugged.

  “We couldn’t help ourselves, Francis. We were in love. Brian made me feel things your father never did. I couldn’t stop him, and I couldn’t stop myself. I’m so sorry.”

  I stood there, stunned, unable to move or respond.

  “Oh, don’t look at me like that,” she said angrily. “Do you think that with all of the women your father took to that cabin, those young, silly girls… Brian and I didn’t want it to happen; we fought it, we really did…” Her hands were shaking as she walked to the refrigerator and opened it, pulling out a half-empty bottle of wine. She pulled out the metal, rose-shaped wine stopper, paused, and turned it in her hand. “You know where he got this? On a trip with his wife to Las Vegas. He knew how much I’d love it.”

  I took a deep breath. “What happened next, Mom?”

  “What do you mean? We came back downstairs. I came into the kitchen, remember?”

  “You mean, you’d just—”

  “I told you, I’m not proud of it.”

  “And Farr?”

  She frowned. “He came down too.”

  “He was with you?”

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “He was right behind me, and…”

  I leaned forward. “And what?”

  The cloud that covered her face in that instant was one I wouldn’t soon forget.

  “I forgot my glasses.” It was a soft whisper, and she looked up at me, her eyes wide, her whole body trembling.

  “What?”

  “I forgot my glasses. In your room. Brian went back up to get them.”

  I straightened, bumping into the table, and I turned to walk toward the front door.

  “Where are you going?” she called out.

  “To find him.”

  “Wait!”

  Kira had followed me, and we both stopped and turned back.

  “There’s no need,” she said.

  “What?”

  “There’s no reason for you to go anywhere,” she said.

  “Why not? He’s the only one left, Mom. Don’t you get it? He had to have seen something, or heard something. And if he’s lying, there has to be a reason. Don’t you see that?”

  “I do,” she said, “but you still don’t need to go to his house.”

  “Why not?” I demanded.

  “Because he’s on his way here.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  “After all these years?” I croaked out.

  “I wanted to tell you,” she said.

  “Impossible. If you wanted to do that, you would have. So that’s who Jimmy was talking about?” My mind spun back to the day I’d come over and her boyfriend had stormed out. She had been having an affair.

  With Brian Farr.

  “But I didn’t know,” she said. “I had no idea he—”

  At that moment, we heard a noise coming from the front of the house.

  “He has a key,” she whispered. “I called him earlier and asked him to come by. I don’t know what to do. Should I tell him to go?”

  “No,” I said. “Talk to him. See if you can get him to tell you what happened.”

  She shook her head.

  “Mom, it’s the only way we’ll ever know.”

  Kira and I moved into the pantry as footsteps strode into the house.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” Brian asked as he joined my mother in the kitchen.

  I put a hand on the wall and leaned forward to peer into the room, careful to stay out of view. I watched as they embraced, my mother’s body tense, and I knew she was going to have a hard time pulling this off.

  “Nothing?” she said, and Farr frowned at the seeming question. My mother turned and glanced in our direction, and I pulled back sharply.

  Shit.

  “Why don’t I believe that?” Farr asked, but I could hear the smile in his voice. “What’s wrong?”

  My mother shifted and stepped back. “Francis called me today.”

  I leaned forward again, and I could see that Farr’s body language had changed. He cleared his throat. “About what?”

  My mother wrung her hands together. “He told me that you…”

  Brian stepped closer.

  I moved to the edge of the pantry, ready to pounce at any second.

  “What?” Farr asked. “What did he tell you?”

  My mother didn’t respond.

  “Kate, what kind of lies is he feeding you?”

  “He told me you were upstairs,” she said softly. “The night when Lucas… That Lucas died before the puppet show, and he has proof.”

  “What?” Farr asked, coming forward, but my mother stepped back. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, staring at him. “There’s nothing you didn’t tell me, is there? Please, Brian, I need to know. It sounds ridiculous to me too, so I’m asking to clear it up. You have to tell me the truth.”

  I could hear the pain in her voice.

  And it was enough to make Farr stumble.

  “I…”

  “Brian?”

  And in an instant, I knew.

  “Brian?” she asked again, stepping back.

  Farr swallowed, and the expression on his face changed suddenly. “It was an accident,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry, Kate. I promise it was an accident.”

  “What—”

  “It was an accident. He was there. Lucas saw us…when we went to Francis’s room.”

  “What?”

  “He saw us. When I went back upstairs to get your glasses, he told me.” My mother stumbled back against the sink, and Farr moved closer, but he didn’t touch her. “I asked him not to say anything, begged him not to. I tried to explain that there were some things he couldn’t understand. But he was mean. And you know I would never say anything like that to you unless it was true. I’d never seen anything like it. He told me he knew exactly what was going on, that I was nothing like his father, that I would never be good enough for you.”

  I could hear the anger in his voice, and I knew he was in a rage, still, about the words of a nine-year-old boy.

  “What happened?” my mother asked.

  Farr shook his head, his hands clenched, his eyes trained on hers. “He was being so disrespectful, so callous, and I tried to get him to stop, and he tried to leave. I pushed him, and he fell,” he said. As he spoke, tears gathered in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Kate. I didn’t know what to do. He was bleeding, and I wanted to clean him off, so I put him in the tub and turned it on—”

  “Why?” my mother screamed. “Why did you do that? He might have—”

  “No, he was already gone,” he said. “I mean, I thought he was. I know he was, Kate. So I did what I had to, and luckily, you were playing those stupid songs you loved so loud that nobody knew. Nobody heard anything. It was all going to be okay, because it was an accident. I just needed more time to figure out what to tell you. And then Sam walked in.”

  My mother gasped. “He saw you?”

  Brian nodded. “And then it hit me,” he whispered. “What I needed to do for us. I made him promise not to say anything, and I told him to pretend that he heard something and found Lucas later on in the night so there was no way anyone would know.” He wiped at his face. “I didn’t know what else to do. I did it to protect both of us,” he said.

  “Wait. So you mean that all of that time…during the puppet show…Sam knew?” my mother asked. “How could you do that him? How could you ask him to do that?”

  “
For us! I knew he’d be okay. As long as he didn’t say anything. Not one word. I did it for us. If anyone found out about us… I knew you weren’t ready for that,” Farr said.

  “But what…?” Confusion covered my mother’s face. “What about the fight you and Alex overheard?” she asked. “The one between Sam and Lucas. That happened later, after—” She stopped, and the realization seemed to hit her at the same time it hit me. “Oh my God, Brian,” she whispered. “There was no fight. You had Sam—”

  “He did it to help us,” Brian said. “I told him to scream like he was really angry, just for a moment, and I’d come upstairs.”

  “Lucas was already—” my mother started, but she stopped herself. She swallowed. “Sam faked the fight, and nobody saw it but you.”

  “It wasn’t perfect, but it worked,” he said. “I had to do it. You weren’t ready. You still aren’t.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” my mother asked, her entire body shaking. “You just told me you killed…” She leaned back against the sink, and I was worried she would pass out. Kira and I shared a glance, both of us prepared to run into the kitchen if Farr made a move.

  “What did Francis find out?” Brian asked, stepping forward. “He just wants to keep us apart too, Kate. You know that, right?”

  My mother didn’t respond.

  “He keeps poking into things—”

  “He found your grandson,” my mother hissed.

  “I know,” Farr said. “And I’m grateful for that. But he needs to keep his nose out of things. I should have taken care of him that day at the cabin—”

  He cut himself off, and my mother looked up at him in confusion. My stomach flipped over as the significance of his words sank in. Farr had been at the cabin that day?

  He’d attacked me?

  I stepped forward to enter the kitchen, but Kira put her hand out, holding me back. She shook her head slightly and showed me her phone, which she was using to record the conversation.

  My mother turned around to face the kitchen window.

  “Please, Kate, you have to understand that this hasn’t changed the way I feel about you,” Farr said, moving closer to her. “I know it’s hard, but…you have to understand it was an accident.”

  “It hasn’t changed how you feel about me?” she asked, still staring out the window. “Killing my son has not affected how you feel about me?”

  “No, that’s not what I meant—” he started.

  “Isn’t it?” she asked.

  He went closer to her, and finally, I’d had enough. I walked out of the pantry, and Farr looked up in shock.

  “Step back,” I said.

  Farr looked from me to my mother and back again. “You tricked me?” he asked. He looked at Kira, who was still holding the phone in her hand, pointing it in his direction. He glanced at the back of my mother’s head. She hadn’t moved an inch, still staring out into the night, her hands on the edge of the kitchen sink. “Kate, how could you? You know none of this is going to stick, not twenty-three years later,” he said.

  “Mom, call the cops,” I said, then turned to Brian. “So, it was you at the cabin that day?”

  “You little—” He stopped himself and took a deep breath. “Miranda called me on her way there and told me she was following you. I told her to wait for me before going inside, but she never listens. When I got there, she was already driving away, and I just…” He shook his head. “I just needed you to stop poking around in the past. You didn’t have to dig all of this up, Francis. What good has it done? It was the biggest mistake of my life.”

  He turned to look at the back of my mother’s head. “I promise you, Kate, it was a mistake. I’m so sorry.”

  My mother still didn’t move.

  “Kate?”

  I saw what she was about to do a second too late.

  She reached in the sink, picked something up, and turned around.

  “Mom!”

  But I was too late.

  I’d always been too late.

  In just three quick steps, she was eye to eye with the love of her life, lifting her arm and driving the large steak knife deep into his chest.

  Farr’s eyes widened, and a bloodied gurgle escaped him before he took the first of his last breaths and crumpled to the floor.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  July, eighteen months later

  At some point during the long drive out to Talcott Correctional Facility, the landscape changed; the trees became sparser, the air thinner, and there was a scent of sadness that seemed to rise from the dirt. On hot summer days, the unobstructed sun lent a muggy, rancid quality to the air that made it almost impossible to breathe. As I turned onto the two-lane road that led to the facility, I cranked the AC all the way up and prayed for the smallest bit of relief.

  The massive building had four main entrances, each one advertised with an array of complicated signage, icons, and directions. Only two things were clear: I should avoid the last entrance, and I should leave absolutely everything that wasn’t attached to my body in the car. As I veered toward the second entrance, I looked over at the young woman sitting beside me in the passenger seat.

  “You ready?” I asked.

  She looked back at me and nodded but didn’t say anything. She was sixteen now, so to call her a woman was a stretch, but to call her a girl seemed laughable. Amy had spent the entire ninety-minute drive staring calmly out the window, her hands folded neatly in her lap.

  As we opened our doors and stepped out onto the blazing-hot concrete, I wondered how many people were watching us and if they could see how nervous I was. I shut the door and froze, staring up at the large, imposing building in front of us.

  Amy walked around the car and faced me. “You ready?” she asked, but there was a softness in her eyes.

  I nodded.

  The registration process was grueling. We waited, filled out forms, waited, showed our IDs, and waited some more. As we finished the final form, the registration attendant held up a card.

  “How much would you like on your vending machine card?”

  “Excuse me?” I asked.

  She held the card higher. “In case you want to buy something. How much?”

  “Uh, five bucks?” I said, and she nodded before punching something into her computer and swiping the card. She handed it to me, along with a key.

  “This is all you can take inside. Store everything else in one of those lockers, and return with just the key and your vending machine card so you can be searched.”

  Amy’s eyes grew wider, but she bit her bottom lip. We walked silently over to the lockers and stowed our wallets and phones. Amy’s hands were shaking as she placed them inside.

  “Hey,” I said. “You sure you’re ready?”

  She swallowed and looked up at me before nodding slightly. The words “you don’t have to do this” were on the tip of my tongue, but I held them back. We’d been down that path several times already, and I knew what her answer would be.

  The search was quicker than I’d expected and included a quick pat down, a check in our shoes and beneath our tongues. Then, a guard led us down another hallway and into room the size of a high school cafeteria. There were rows of tables, and they were filled almost to capacity with visiting families. Most talked quietly with the inmates; a few people were sobbing, and a few were laughing. Amy and I shuffled behind the guard, who stopped at the sole empty table.

  “You can wait here,” he said, motioning to a seat. Amy and I sank down into two of the blue bucket seats. The guard turned to face us and spoke in a rehearsed, emotionless monotone. “We’re bringing him down now. When he arrives, you are allowed to greet him briefly, and then he will be asked to sit down. From that point on, he will not be allowed to move until the visitation period is over. If you would like to get a snack from the vending machin
e for him or for yourselves, you are free to do that. Please use the card you purchased. If you need to go to the bathroom, let me know, and I will escort you. You will be subject to another search upon your return. Please keep your voice at a conversational level and be courteous to those around you. All visitation sessions are recorded. Do you have any questions?”

  Amy and I stared at him with our mouths open, and he waited, completely motionless.

  “Uh, no,” I said, and I turned to look at Amy.

  She shook her head.

  The guard walked away, and we sat there, staring straight ahead. I found it hard to breathe, but I clenched my fists and took a slow, deep breath, unwilling to let Amy see me break.

  “Want some water?” I asked her, and she swallowed before shaking her head.

  The minutes went by, and I watched the inmates talking to their parents and friends, their wives and children. They devoured their treats from the vending machine like it was Thanksgiving. The sound of all of the voices in the room was just above comfortable, and I squirmed in my seat.

  But as much as I wanted to flee, I knew I had to get used to it. We’d be back. And when Amy asked to go visit her grandmother, we’d go there too. Because she wasn’t going to run from it.

  She needed this, and so, I needed it too.

  Fifteen minutes had gone by when the metal bars at the end of the room opened and a guard walked in, followed by a tall, thin man who took my breath away. He’d received nine years for what he did to Sam Farr. I didn’t know what I was going to say to him, but I hoped the words would come when we were finally face-to-face.

  Amy must have seen my reaction, because she leaned across the foot or so that separated us and placed her hand on my arm. I turned to face her, and she stared at me with the bravest, sweetest, most courageous expression I’d ever seen. And I doubt I’d ever loved or admired anyone more.