“Were you happy?” I looked around at the others sleeping. “Was everybody happy?”
Helena smiled softly. “We’ve all asked the question of why, and there is no answer that we know of. Yes, we were happy. We were all very, very happy in our lives.” She paused. “Sandy…” She broke the silence again, watching me with that amused expression as if enjoying a private joke. “Believe it or not we’re very happy here too. We’ve spent more years living here than anywhere else. The past is a distant but pleasurable memory for us.”
I looked around the campfire. They had nothing. Nothing but small overnight bags packed with teabags, unnecessary chinaware and biscuits, blankets and sleeping bags, wraps and jumpers to keep warm, all of which they undoubtedly retrieved from the piles of belongings scattered around us. These five people had slept under the stars, swathed in blankets with a fire and a sun as their only source of light and heat. For forty years. How could they be truly happy? How could they not be clawing their way back to existence, back to material belongings and craving the companionship of others?
I shook my head as I looked around.
Helena laughed at me, “Why are you shaking your head?”
“I’m sorry.” I was embarrassed at being caught pitying a life they seemed content with. “It’s just that forty years is such a long time to settle”-I looked around at the clearing-“well…here.”
Helena’s face opened in surprise.
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” I backtracked. “I didn’t mean to offend you-”
“Sandy, Sandy,” she interrupted, “this is not our whole world.”
“I know, I know.” I backed off. “You have each other and-”
“No.” Helena started laughing and her forehead crumpled in confusion. “I’m sorry, I thought you knew this wasn’t a permanent thing. We go camping together once a year on the anniversary of our disappearance. I thought you would recognize the date. This clearing is the first place we arrived at forty years ago-well, the first area where we realized we weren’t at home anymore. We all stay in touch during the year but we live more or less separate lives.”
“What?” I was confused.
“People go missing all the time, you know that. Wherever people gather, life begins, civilization exists. Sandy, fifteen minutes’ walk from here, the woods end and a whole new life begins.”
I was stunned. My mouth opened and closed but no words would come out.
“Interesting you should arrive here today of all days,” Helena said, deep in thought.
I scrambled to my feet. “Come on, let’s go now. Show me this place you’re talking about. We won’t disturb the others.”
“No.” Helena’s voice was hard and her smile quickly faded. Her hand sprang up to grab my arm. I flinched and tried to pull away, not liking the human contact, but this did not rattle her. I couldn’t move; the force of her hold was so strong. Her face was stony. “We do not just leave each other like that, we do not disappear from one another. We will sit here until they wake.”
She loosened her grip on my arm and wrapped her pashmina tighter around her body, retreating to the guarded woman she had been earlier in the evening. She watched her friends intently as though on duty and I realized it wasn’t just me that had been keeping her awake all night. It was just her turn.
“We stay until they wake,” she repeated firmly.
Jack sat on the corner of the bed and watched Gloria sleeping with a small smile on her face. It was the early hours of Monday morning and he had just returned home. After Sandy Shortt’s no-show he had spent the entire day checking B &Bs and hotels in all the nearby towns to see if she had checked in anywhere. There were so many things that could have prevented her from arriving at the café he convinced himself her no-show that morning didn’t mean it was the end of their search. She could have just overslept and missed their meeting or gotten caught up in Dublin and couldn’t leave for Limerick that night. There could have been a death in the family or a sudden lead in another case that took her away from Limerick. She could be heading toward him now, driving through the night to get to Glin. He had thought of endless possibilities, but not one of those theories was the idea that she could have deliberately let him down.
A mistake had been made, that was all. He would return to Glin later today on his lunch break to see if she had arrived. He had lived all week for that meeting and he wasn’t going to give up now. Sandy had given him more hope in one week during a few phone conversations than anyone else had succeeded in doing over the entire year. He knew from their talks that she wouldn’t let him down.
He was going to tell Gloria, he really was. He reached out to touch her shoulder and shake her gently but his hand stopped in midair. Maybe he should hold off on telling her until he made contact with Sandy again. Gloria sighed sleepily, stretched her body, and turned over.
She eventually settled on her side, her back toward Jack and his outstretched hand.
14
Only a week before Sandy’s no-show, Jack had quietly closed the bedroom door adjoining the living room so as not to disturb a sleeping Gloria. The Yellow Pages lying open on the couch stared back at him as he paced the far side of the room, one eye on the phone book, the other eye on the bedroom door. He stopped and traced his finger down the page until he came across the ad for Porch Light, the organization that helped counsel friends and relatives of the missing. Jack and his sister Judith had tried to convince their mother to talk to Porch Light after Donal’s disappearance, but her old Irish ways of refusing to speak her private thoughts to a stranger held her back. Below the ad was the number for Sandy Shortt’s missing-persons agency. He picked up his cell phone and switched on the television so as to cover the sound of his voice in case Gloria awoke. He dialed the number he had memorized when he first came across the advertisement. It rang twice before a female answered.
“Hello?”
Jack suddenly couldn’t remember what to say.
“Hello?” The voice was softer this time. “Gregory, is that you?”
“No.” Jack finally found his voice. “My name is Jack, Jack Ruttle. I got your number from the Yellow Pages.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the woman apologized and returned to her original businesslike tone. “I was expecting someone else. I’m Sandy Shortt,” she said.
“Hello, Sandy.” Jack paced the small cluttered living room, tripping over the unevenly rolled, mismatching rugs that adorned the old wooden floors. “I’m sorry to call so late.” Get to the point, he hurried himself, pacing faster while he watched the bedroom door.
“Don’t worry. A call at this hour of the night is an insomniac’s dream, pardon the joke. How can I help you?”
He stopped pacing and held his head in his hand. What was he doing?
Sandy’s voice was gentle again. “Is somebody you know missing?”
“Yes,” was all Jack could reply.
“How long ago?” He could hear her rooting for paper.
“A year.” He settled on the arm of the couch.
“What is this person’s name?”
“Donal Ruttle.” He swallowed the lump in his throat.
She paused, then: “Yes, Donal,” a tone of recognition in her voice. “You’re a relative?”
“Brother…” Jack’s voice cracked and he knew he couldn’t go on. He needed to stop now; he needed to move on like the rest of his family. He was stupid to think that an insomniac from the phone book with too much time on her hands could succeed where an entire garda search hadn’t. “I’m sorry, I’m very, very sorry. This phone call was a mistake,” he forced out. “I’m sorry for wasting your time.” He quickly hung up the phone and fell back on the couch, embarrassed and exhausted, knocking against his files and sending pictures of a smiling Donal floating to the ground.