Blessed Are Those Who Mourn by Kristi Belcamino

the phone.
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œWhere are you now?”
    â€œAt the tollbooth.”
    â€œI just got off the bridge. I’m a few minutes ahead of you,” he says, sounding like he is panting.
    I swerve to avoid the line of cars waiting to pay the toll, then ride on the shoulder until I’m at the express FasTrak lane, cutting off an angry driver who honks in a long, drawn-­out, obnoxious blare.
    The tollbooth is a blur as I zip through and then punch the gas, accelerating past all the other cars on the bridge until the path is clear. All the while, I’m screaming inside my head. Every now and then a sob escapes like a loud gasp. But my eyes are dry. I cannot cry. I have to stay strong.
    â€œI’m pulling into the parking lot at the beach now. I’m going to hang up and find our little girl. I’m going to find her. I will call you as soon as I do.”
    I exhale in a long, jagged breath. “Okay.”
    What I really want to say is Don ’t hang up. Don’t leave me here alone.

 
    Chapter 13
    O NCE I GET off the freeway, the drive to the beach through San Francisco is a blur. I don’t remember a second of it. All I know is that when I pull up into the parking lot at Ocean Beach, it is full of ambulances, fire trucks, and more police cars than I’ve seen in one place in a long time. The beach, the scene of so many happy memories with Grace, appears nightmarish, even though I know it’s my own dread playing tricks on me. Everything casts long shadows. Voices sound eerie, whipped around by the wind. ­People trudging through the deep sand seem to be in slow motion.
    As soon as my tires hit the parking lot pavement, everything speeds up. I don’t even bother to close my car door, just leave it open and race like I’ve never run before for the beach, where I see Donovan huddled with a group of cops.
    I race past a reserve officer, who puts out a hand to stop me. I push his arm away like he’s a rag doll. Before I get to the group, they notice me. Donovan looks down at the sand, and I stop in my tracks. They found her. She’s dead.
    For a second, I don’t notice that Donovan is in front of me, speaking to me. “Pull it together. Grace needs you to be strong. If we’re going to find her, you need to be the strongest you’ve ever been in your life. Do you understand?”
    I nod, slowly, staring over his shoulder at the group on the beach.
    â€œThey need you to go to our place.”
    â€œNo. I’m not leaving here without my daughter,” I say, jerking away from him, my hair flying in my face.
    He grabs my face and waits until I meet his eyes. “She’s our daughter, Ella. And you’re going to do this. You’re going to do this for Grace. Do you understand?”
    I don’t answer.
    â€œYou have to trust me to make sure everything is done right here, and you need to make sure everything we need to do at home is done. There are certain things that need to be done when a child is missing. You know this . . .”
    The days following Caterina’s kidnapping are a blur of nightmarish proportions. It only comes back to me in snapshots. Now, on Ocean Beach, more than twenty-­five years later, everything rushes back to me in sharp slices.
    M Y MOTHER AND father holding each other and weeping.
    The first and last time I ever saw my father cry.
    My dad’s body at the bottom of the basement stairs.
    My mother being taken away in a squad car to identify Caterina’s body. Her ramrod posture. Her vacant eyes. Her pale face. All the members of our big Italian-­American family calling and bringing food by our house.
    My brothers, both angry at the world, punching each other until they are out of breath, then punching holes in the wall, overturning furniture, blasting rock music. And my mother, ignoring my brothers’ bad behavior as if they are ghosts only I can see. And throughout all of it,