fantasy. I can't entirely shake it, though, even today.
Once I went away to college and left Kansas for Los Angeles, I never returned to Meddersville. I had opportunities, such as Uncle Billy's funeral, but I always found reasons to stay away. The real reason, of course, was that Alice wouldn't be there. She made an impression on me, that's for sure. It's still hard to believe that we had only a few weeks together. How can anyone, especially a nine-year-old boy, fall so intransigently in love with someone in so short a time? Yet, there it is.
There it always is, getting in the way of all my relationships. My therapist says I won't be able to love another woman until I manage to let go of Alice. Not stop loving her, I don't have to do that. I just have to let go. He told me to write it all down, everything I could remember about that summer, and so I have. It hasn't helped. If anything, it's only cemented memories that should have faded into the forgotten past.
I can't escape the feeling that I'm going to see Alice again. Not in heaven, which I don't believe in, but somewhere real. I keep thinking that one day I'll turn a corner and there she'll be, looking in a shop window or tying a shoe. Maybe she'll be an amnesiac who doesn't remember who she is, who has been wandering for twenty years, but she'll feel a connection with me that will draw us together, even if she's married with four kids. I spin out these scenarios in my head. I 'll find her fishing off the pier in Santa Monica, or glimpse her on the set of some movie, a production assistant barking orders to extras, or discover her in a throng of tourists placing her hands in the concrete prints in front of the Chinese Theater in Hollywood, still trying to touch the past.
My therapist calls it "denial" and maybe that's all it is.
I've called Agent Wallace Myer once or twice over the years, to see if any new evidence has come up. Nothing ever has.
Everybody's moved on, including me. Except that you can never leave the past behind, not totally. You always carry bits and pieces of it with you. Alice is a big part of my past and she'll always be with me, and I will always love her.
I fantasize about finding Alice's killer. That's what I do, it's what my therapist calls my coping mechanism. But really, I wouldn't even know where to begin.
All I can do is remember the person she was and keep that person in my mind and in my heart as long as I live.
That much is easy.
Part Two: Return to Meddersville
Chapter Fourteen
MIST SETTLED around White Deer Lake when the sun dropped low. It collected on the searchers' brows like beads of sweat, but this was an October night in Kansas and the air was beginning to bite. Jackets were zippered up. The search party marched on.
They walked through the trees in a ragged line, bone-weary and irritable. Their flashlight beams spotlighted mist, scrub brush and weeds, and the occasional night forager—rabbit, mouse, opossum, skunk.
They listened for any sign that the boy was alive. A cry would be music to their ears, or a rustling in the undergrowth, anything at all. They thought of their own children and how they were safe at home, sitting down to dinner by now or hunkered over their school books, or even playing some noisy video game, and they thanked God for that grace. Three days and two nights spent tramping over the same beaten-down carpet of dead, wet leaves—three days and two nights on a quest they knew in their hearts was in vain—this was the end of it, anyway, with the night coming on and the storm rolling in. They'd be home soon enough, warm and dry, however it played out.
Two dogs argued briefly. One belonged to the sheriff, Sammy Morse Jr. The other dog was his chief deputy's. The deputy jerked his retriever's leash and hissed his name.
"Sorry, Sammy," the deputy said.
"S'okay, Lew," said Sammy. "We're all tired, man and dog alike."
Sammy wiped the water from his face . He knelt to give his spaniel a
Once I went away to college and left Kansas for Los Angeles, I never returned to Meddersville. I had opportunities, such as Uncle Billy's funeral, but I always found reasons to stay away. The real reason, of course, was that Alice wouldn't be there. She made an impression on me, that's for sure. It's still hard to believe that we had only a few weeks together. How can anyone, especially a nine-year-old boy, fall so intransigently in love with someone in so short a time? Yet, there it is.
There it always is, getting in the way of all my relationships. My therapist says I won't be able to love another woman until I manage to let go of Alice. Not stop loving her, I don't have to do that. I just have to let go. He told me to write it all down, everything I could remember about that summer, and so I have. It hasn't helped. If anything, it's only cemented memories that should have faded into the forgotten past.
I can't escape the feeling that I'm going to see Alice again. Not in heaven, which I don't believe in, but somewhere real. I keep thinking that one day I'll turn a corner and there she'll be, looking in a shop window or tying a shoe. Maybe she'll be an amnesiac who doesn't remember who she is, who has been wandering for twenty years, but she'll feel a connection with me that will draw us together, even if she's married with four kids. I spin out these scenarios in my head. I 'll find her fishing off the pier in Santa Monica, or glimpse her on the set of some movie, a production assistant barking orders to extras, or discover her in a throng of tourists placing her hands in the concrete prints in front of the Chinese Theater in Hollywood, still trying to touch the past.
My therapist calls it "denial" and maybe that's all it is.
I've called Agent Wallace Myer once or twice over the years, to see if any new evidence has come up. Nothing ever has.
Everybody's moved on, including me. Except that you can never leave the past behind, not totally. You always carry bits and pieces of it with you. Alice is a big part of my past and she'll always be with me, and I will always love her.
I fantasize about finding Alice's killer. That's what I do, it's what my therapist calls my coping mechanism. But really, I wouldn't even know where to begin.
All I can do is remember the person she was and keep that person in my mind and in my heart as long as I live.
That much is easy.
Part Two: Return to Meddersville
Chapter Fourteen
MIST SETTLED around White Deer Lake when the sun dropped low. It collected on the searchers' brows like beads of sweat, but this was an October night in Kansas and the air was beginning to bite. Jackets were zippered up. The search party marched on.
They walked through the trees in a ragged line, bone-weary and irritable. Their flashlight beams spotlighted mist, scrub brush and weeds, and the occasional night forager—rabbit, mouse, opossum, skunk.
They listened for any sign that the boy was alive. A cry would be music to their ears, or a rustling in the undergrowth, anything at all. They thought of their own children and how they were safe at home, sitting down to dinner by now or hunkered over their school books, or even playing some noisy video game, and they thanked God for that grace. Three days and two nights spent tramping over the same beaten-down carpet of dead, wet leaves—three days and two nights on a quest they knew in their hearts was in vain—this was the end of it, anyway, with the night coming on and the storm rolling in. They'd be home soon enough, warm and dry, however it played out.
Two dogs argued briefly. One belonged to the sheriff, Sammy Morse Jr. The other dog was his chief deputy's. The deputy jerked his retriever's leash and hissed his name.
"Sorry, Sammy," the deputy said.
"S'okay, Lew," said Sammy. "We're all tired, man and dog alike."
Sammy wiped the water from his face . He knelt to give his spaniel a
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