“But the pen is not your missing object,” Gregory would always say to me.
“Yes, it is,” I would grumble, while rooting in my bag, nose practically touching the bottom.
“No, it’s not. When you search you are trying to fulfil a feeling. Whether you have the pen or not is completely irrelevant, Sandy.”
“It is not irrelevant,” I would shout back. “If I have no pen, well, then, how can I write down what you are about to tell me?”
He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and handed me a pen. “Here.”
“But that isn’t my pen.”
He would sigh and smile as he always did. “This idea of searching for lost things is a distraction-”
“Distraction, distraction, distraction, distraction. Never mind me; you are obsessed with saying that word. You saying the word distraction is your distraction from saying anything else,” I spluttered angrily.
“Let me finish,” he said sternly.
I stopped rooting immediately and listened to him, feigning interest.
“This idea of searching for lost things is a distract…”-he stopped himself-“is a way of avoiding dealing with something else that’s lost in your life within you. Now shall we start searching for what that is?”
“A-ha!” I smiled, happily extracting my pen from the bottom of my bag. “Found it!”
Unfortunately for Gregory, the craving never reared its ugly head anytime we would try to search within me.
If there had been a ten-foot wall surrounding the house, I would have scaled it. There was no barrier to my search scenes; all they did was become invisible hurdles. Gregory did have one good thing to say about my searching, and that was that he had never seen stamina and determination quite like it. And then he ruined the compliment by saying what a pity it was that I didn’t pump that energy into other areas of my life. Still, somewhere in his comment I sensed praise.
The clock on the family-room wall read 3:45. I threw back the covers in the deathly silent house and began rummaging through Barbara Langley’s suitcase of eighties nightmare clothes. I settled on a black-and-white sailor-style top, black drainpipe jeans, and flat black pumps. All I needed was an armful of bracelets, hoop earrings, and backcombed hair and I’d be dancing to “The Time Warp.” But then, I already was.
Joseph and Helena seemed so sure that my watch wasn’t lost; they seemed so confident that nothing could leave this place. I had to find out. I slipped out of the house silently so as not to wake the family. Outside, the weather was mild. I felt like I was walking around a toy village in the snowy mountains of Switzerland; little wooden chalets with window boxes and candles in the windows to help light the way and welcome new wanderers. All was quiet outside. The crackling and the snapping of branches could be heard from the forest as people made their way to the village for the first time. People who’d probably found themselves there during an innocent walk to the shop or a stroll home from the pub. I felt safe in the village, protected by people intent on picking up where they left off and moving on.
I walked out of the village, following the dusty road that ran alongside the fields. The sun was rising over the trees in the distance, casting orange hues over the blue light, like a giant orange squeezing its colorful juice over the villages, the trees, the mountains and fields, and allowing the liquid light to flow like a stream down the pathways.
In the distance I saw a figure rising and stooping in the center of the road. He stood up and his height and physique revealed him to be Joseph. His figure was jet black against the rising sun that was the giant orange sitting on the top of the road, looking like it was about to roll down to us, squashing all in its path. I was just about to approach him when he got down on his hands and knees and began brushing the dusty floor. I jumped into the woods and hid behind a tree, watching him. He’d beaten me to it; I realized he was searching for my watch.
The beam from a flashlight shot through the trees and made its way toward me. I quickly ducked, wondering where on earth it was coming from. Joseph stopped what he was doing to look up at the light. It disappeared, he continued searching, and I continued to watch him, wanting to see what he would do when he came upon the watch. But he didn’t find it. After an hour of very determined searching, I think Gregory would agree, Joseph finally rose to his feet, placed his hands on his hips, shook his head, and sighed.
A chill ran through me. It wasn’t there, I knew it.
Before Jack went home on Wednesday night, he returned to the estuary to see if Sandy’s car had upped and gone over the past twenty-four hours.
Gloria had been delighted to learn that he was planning on seeing a psychiatrist, although she was a little confused, to say the least, as to why he had to travel to Dublin for a session. Still, he hadn’t seen her so happy in a long time and it showed him how bad he must have been lately. He could almost hear her thinking and planning a wedding, babies, christenings, and who knows what else, as he told her. However, she was misguided in thinking the counseling was directly for him. He had no intention of wanting to be cured of wanting to find his brother. To him it was no sickness.
It was dark outside, pitch-black among the trees down by the Shannon Estuary where owls hooted and creatures moved around in the undergrowth. He took his emergency flashlight out of his car and as he switched it on, he saw various startled glowing eyes freeze and then dash back into the bushes. Sandy’s Ford Fiesta was in its place, untouched since he’d last been there. He shone the light around the trees, at the pathway that led farther along the estuary. A pleasant walk for bird watchers and nature lovers or a jogging path for Sandy? He walked toward it, deeper into the forest where he had looked so many times over the last few days. His inexperience had previously led him to look out for footprints, as if they would be any help to him. He walked farther, enjoying seeing creatures leap out of the line of the light into the distance, and he shone the light up into the trees and watched as it found its way up to the sky.
A trail appeared on his left. He stopped walking and immediately stopped trying to work out what was niggling at him. He’d never noticed that trail before. He shone the light up the traiclass="underline" more trees and blackness were at the end. He shuddered and moved the light away again with the intention of returning in the light of day to wander up the track. As he shone the torch in another direction, shining metal caught his eye and disappeared again. He quickly searched around with the light, afraid whatever it was would vanish. His eye fell upon a silver watch, lying among the long grass beside the trail to his left. He bent to pick it up with his heart thumping in his chest, an image suddenly appearing in his mind.
It was the memory of Sandy bending to pick up her watch at the garage a few mornings ago.
29
Hello, I hope I’ve called the correct number for Mary Stanley.” Jack spoke into the answering machine. “My name is Jack Ruttle. You don’t know me but I’ve been trying to get in touch with Sandy Shortt, whom I know you were recently in contact with. I know this seems like a strange phone call, but if you hear from her or have any idea where she has gone, could you please contact me on the following number…”