Page 74 of Breathing Under Water

I click out of my texts and open Instagram, but the first picture that pops up is Lark and Rae toasting margaritas at a bar. Nice to see they miss me. I close the app before I can subject myself to any more torture.

“Heather,” Glory says, calling me by my mom’s name again and startling me back into the present.

“Glory, hi,” I say, taking her hand just as Mauricia appears at the doorway and starts making her way toward us.

Glory looks from Mauricia back to me, then down to where I’m holding her hand. She rears back, like she’s affronted by the contact.

“You’re not Heather.” She rips her hand away and slaps me across the face.

36

Berry

April 2024

It’s been five hours, and Leo’s still missing. The police were here. They left twenty minutes ago, and I still can’t catch my breath.

Yvonne is in the kitchen, banging pots around as she cooks a meal none of us will have the stomach to eat. Harrison and Phil are out in the driveway, huddled up conferring about something. I step closer to the picture window in the living room to peer out, and then Phil’s jogging back into the house, back to me.

He takes both my hands and waits for me to meet his eyes so he can know I’m listening.

“I’m terrified too,” he says in a rush. “I don’t know what to do either. But we’re doing this together. I’m not shutting you out this time. Whatever we’re feeling, we tell each other. Deal?”

“Just find him. Please, Phil.” My voice breaks.

After Phil drives off to do some searching of his own, my phone rings from its spot on the coffee table, and I dive for it.

But it’s only my assistant, Stella. I realize I never called to tell anyone I wasn’t coming in. I can’t think about work right now. All that time I spent trying to lock in the job of principal, and now that I’ve done it, none of it matters. With Leo missing,nothing else is important. Maybe if I hadn’t been so busy running the school, trying so hard to prove myself, I would have been around to figure out what was going on with my son. I send the call to voicemail instead of just letting it ring out. I don’t want to tie up the line for a single second.

The police promised they’d check all of Leo’s favorite places: the Y, the American Airpower Museum, the facilities office at his school, the local Best Buy, even our synagogue. I turn back toward the window and watch Phil’s car disappear down the street.

I’m suddenly assaulted by mental images of the terrible places Phil might find him. Near the mall, trying to fend off a mob of teenage bullies. Lying in a roadside ditch after a hit-and-run. The images keep getting worse, an endless slideshow of horrifying possibilities. He could have drowned in the water at West Meadow Beach or been beaten to a pulp by a stranger who couldn’t understand his unusual behaviors. I’m well aware that people on the spectrum are at greater risk during muggings—that if a robber makes demands while holding someone at gunpoint, a kid with autism can take it too literally and end up getting shot. I picture that now, step-by-step, a guy with a gun saying, “Don’t move or I’ll shoot.” It wouldn’t matter what follow-up instructions the guy gave, like “gimme your wallet” or whatever. Leo would not move. And he would get himself killed.

As Harrison walks back inside, I have a new thought.

“The Grab-N-Go! Oh god, Harrison! It’s within walking distance!” I start turning in circles looking for my purse. “My keys, we have to go.” I picture my sweet boy, lying wounded on the ground in that run-down convenience store at the gas station. Ican see it so clearly in my mind’s eye, Leo confused and losing consciousness.

“Mom, the police want us to stay here in case he comes home.”

“But there could have been a mugging. He might’ve been there!” I spot my leather bag by the stairs and beeline for it.

I’m fishing around frantically, trying to find my keys, when Harrison comes up beside me and takes my arm.

“Mom. Mom! Stop!”

The stern tone of his voice halts me. I look up at him, hand still in my purse.

“Just, could you take a breath? He wouldn’t go to the Grab-N-Go,” Harrison says gently. “Remember he hates it in there? It’s filled with dust and flickering fluorescent lighting.”

He’s right. Every time we stop in for some little item, Leo insists on waiting in the car. I let out a long breath. He wouldn’t go there. He’s somewhere else.

“But I can’t just sit here. I can’t stay here and do nothing when my child could be anywhere. Like literally anywhere in the whole wide world.” I look back toward the big picture window. My eyes can’t even see to the end of our little street, and meanwhile there are thousands and thousands of miles beyond it. The idea of Leo being out there all alone and in trouble is too much to bear. Why did I ever think he should be trained to go out into the world on his own? I imagined a scenario where I could let go, and now it seems I may have lost him completely.

It’s been almost thirty hours since I first called the police, and we still haven’t found him. Not even a trace.

Thirty hours. So much can happen in just a few minutes, and we’re talking about thirty hours. Each time I try to picture where he is, another piece of me breaks inside.

There’s a knock at the front door, and I jump from the couch in the living room. Yanking the door open, I find one of the cops who was here the day before, the one they call Finch. He and another guy have been taking turns patrolling our area since yesterday.