Blessed Are Those Who Mourn by Kristi Belcamino Page A

our home invaded by police officers. Some in uniform, some in regular clothes. All with grim expressions on their faces.
    I watched all of it as if I’d been a ghost myself, spying on this family that was wailing and screaming after the last guest left for the night. Wondering why I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t feel sad. I didn’t feel angry. I wasn’t like them.
    I was six years old and wondered if maybe I was dead . Every once in a while I would bite the inside of my mouth to prove I was alive and could still feel pain. I crept around the outside of my family as a specter. The week she was missing, I didn’t sleep in the room I shared with Caterina. I grabbed my blanket and stuffed rabbit and slept on the couch in the den and nobody said anything to me about it. Nobody even noticed. Once, the entire family went to the police station and left me behind. They were halfway there before someone noticed I wasn’t in the car. Instead of turning around to come get me, my mother called a neighbor, who came to sit with me until night fell and my family came home with defeated expressions and posture.
    â€œB E STRONG, E LLA.” I snap out of it and realize Donovan is standing in front of me at Ocean Beach. He has a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. I stare at it, mesmerized. I haven’t seen him smoke for six years. When he said I know what happens when a child is kidnapped, I realize he didn’t mean Caterina. He meant from my work as a reporter. “Grace needs you to be strong. Do you understand?”
    â€œMy mom?”
    â€œUnconscious. Your mother is a strong woman. She’s a fighter,” he says as he takes a long drag of his cigarette and his eyebrows draw together. He exhales over my right shoulder. “We’ll find Grace. She’s a survivor like you and your mother.”
    â€œAre you sure?” I’m begging him to tell me everything is going to be okay, even though I know he can’t.
    A man starts slogging through the sand, headed our way. Gray tips his tightly trimmed Afro. He wears a black suit with a Garfield tie resting on his belly. “I’m Sergeant Jackson.” He is all business. “Mrs. Giovanni? I’m going to need to go back with you to your place and explain what we need to do there. I promise you, ma’am, we will do everything in our power to find your daughter and bring her home safe. I give you my word that I will not stop looking until she is found.”
    Donovan has let go of my arm and is talking to some detectives a few feet away on the beach. Someone hands him a cigarette, and he lights it from the small nub that his cigarette has become.
    â€œI need to go see my mother.”
    â€œI understand your need to go to the hospital, but right now, it’s really important we take care of some matters at your home. Right now your mother is unconscious.”
    â€œShe’s in a coma?”
    â€œWhy don’t we head back to your place and do what we need to do. I have a call in to the hospital to alert me the minute your mother’s condition changes.”
    â€œBut she can’t be alone. I have to go to her.” I start to rush away but stop. Instead of rushing to my mother’s bedside at the hospital, I need to help the police find Grace.
    Donovan is back with us, eyes darting this way and that, as if he can’t decide what to do or where to go. I know how he feels.
    Sergeant Jackson stands right in front of me so that he is all I can see.
    â€œYou need to come with me back to your place. We need to get some pictures and set up a phone line. I promise you as soon as your mother’s condition changes you will be the first one to know.”
    I feel a hand on my arm at the same time I hear the bone-­vibrating thud of helicopters. When I open my eyes, I see it’s the sergeant’s hand. Donovan has his fingers over his eyes, rubbing them as if trying to wake up from this nightmare