If You're Gone (15 page)

“I’d think so… yeah.”
Not necessarily. He certainly didn’t tell me about the time he spent in juvenile court.

Anna didn’t respond, and I didn’t elaborate on what Montana had said. I wasn’t sure if we had run out of things to say or if we were both lost in our thoughts about Brad, but we spent the rest of the drive in silence.

****

Anna dropped me off in my driveway and we said our goodbyes. The house was dark, illuminated only by the streetlight. I figured my parents must still be at the vigil shaking hands with fellow congregation members, or picking up Graham and Eliza from the sitter. My candle flickered as I made my way down the dark sidewalk to the front steps. The only thing I could hear was the scrape of my feet against the pavement. The night air seemed quieter than usual; as though the entire town was inside their homes lighting candles for Brad.

I squinted as I approached the door, the flickering flame in my hand cast tall, eerie shadows against the bricks. A chill ran up my spine. Something didn’t seem right. Suddenly, a dark figure rose up in front of me.

“Hey,” a deep voice said as I let out a squeal.

I could just make out the silhouette of a tall man in the darkness. He was familiar.

“Chris?” I whispered as I extended my candle towards him.

“What? No. It’s me.” There was the click of a flashlight and a garish light illuminated his face from beneath his chin. “Lizard.”

My heart dropped. I looked down the street out of the corner of my eye but there was no sign of headlights. We were alone in the dark.
I am alone in the dark with a potential killer. And he knows I’m the one who sold him out to the police.

“Lizard?” I pushed in front of him and felt my way up the steps as I fumbled for my key in my pocket. “What are you doing here?”

I forced the key into the lock and swung the door open just far enough so I could reach my arm inside and find the light switch with my fingertips. A burst of bright yellow light lit up the house.

“I saw the news. About the… about the body.”

“Come on, Lizard. You didn’t
see the news
,” I snapped. “You found out when Detective Padron came pounding on your door.”

“They know I had nothin’ to do with it.” He was defensive yet vulnerable. He didn’t seem so tough in the golden glow of the porch light.

“You missed the vigil tonight,” I told him, taking one step closer.

“The people at that church don’t want me comin’ ‘round after this stuff came out about me.”

“You don’t know that,” I said with a shrug.

“Lillian,” he continued. There was a weakness in his voice. “I know I messed up when I didn’t tell the police about that guy who came lookin’ for Brad.”

I was tempted to agree with him, but I held my tongue and listened. There was a look in his eyes I recognized.
Pain.

“I wasn’t takin’ this whole thing seriously. I thought all you folks were just makin’ a huge deal out of nothin’ and he would be showin’ back up.” He stopped to clear his throat. “But if this guy they found in the woods
right by my place
is Brad and he was there this whole time…”

The torment on his face and in his voice was almost unbearable. I imagined this must be how people had seen me the past four months.
This is why people avoid me. They can’t see past my pain.

He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a single cigarette and a lighter. The flame flickered as he drew a deep breath.

“You were right,” he said with a cough, smoke pouring from his nostrils. “I know why he chose you over me.”

I looked down at my tennis shoes. There were scuffs of dirt on the toes from traipsing through muddy fields looking for Brad.
We were looking in all the wrong places.

“Lillian, you know I didn’t have anythin’ to do with this,” he insisted. “Right?

I peered up at him and once again saw the same glimmer-less look in his eyes I recognized from my reflection in the mirror. I nodded. “I know.”

“Brad’s a good guy. He doesn’t deserve this.” Lizard puffed on the cigarette again and a cloud of smoke hit my face.

“None of us deserve this,” I whispered.

He took a final drag and tipped his head to me.

“Anyway, I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry. I hope it ain’t him.”

“Thanks, Lizard.”

I watched him for a moment as he headed into the front yard taking long, quick strides towards the street. It was the same path Brad would have taken that final night. I had once wished it had been Lizard that disappeared instead of Brad. But watching him move, with his shoulders hanging low and smoke billowing from the cigarette between his fingers, I knew he didn’t deserve that fate. Just like Brad, Lizard was someone’s son, grandson, or maybe even brother. And no matter what his past said about him he deserved to live a life like the rest of us. Uninterrupted.
Unbroken.

There was an entire week of silence. No updates on the body, no tips, no leads, just a haunting stillness that sometimes tricked me into believing it was all a dream when I woke up in the morning. A quick glance across to the room to the stack of Have You Seen This Man posters on my dresser was always sure to remind me it was real. Brad was still gone.

I went through all the motions of a typical weekly routine, attending every class and attempting to socialize with Anna and our group of friends in the afternoons, although I jumped every time a phone rang in my vicinity. The discovery of the body had changed the dynamic between me and my friends. They showed more compassion towards me and I did my best not to take advantage of their friendship. They were starting to understand what I had been going through since the first morning I learned Brad was missing. Realizing there was a possibility that a member of our little group was dead made the whole situation seem more real to them. Just like the news reporters, my friends were awakened by death.

When I wasn’t with Anna and the others I was sitting on my bed glued to my laptop, typing gruesome topics into the search engine like
identifying a corpse
and
are dental records always accurate.
But while skimming through countless blogs about levels of decomposition and the autopsy process, and attempting to avoid any photos on the topics, my mind kept wandering to a different subject.
Adoption
.

I searched for
accessing adoption records
and waded through dozens of websites; only to discover that answers to the lists of frequently asked questions were always the same.
The person whose information will be disclosed must consent to the disclosure.
The Internet had always seemed like an endless source of knowledge before Brad went missing. But now it felt like every click of the mouse opened up another virtual brick wall.

****

I spent the first half of the day on Saturday morning staring at the living room TV screen from the corner of the couch, watching colorful animals dance around odd-shaped children as Graham and Eliza sat immersed in their usual morning cartoons. I could hear the characters speaking and singing but the words sounded like white noise. My forehead was pounding, only I didn’t have the energy to go to the kitchen in search of a pain reliever. I just kept staring at the television, concentrating so hard on the screen that I hoped I might be teleported into the magical rainbow world.
Just until I have answers.

The ringer suddenly cried out from the landline phone that sat on the end table beside me, and I was snapped back into reality. I yanked the receiver off the hook and blurted a jumbled ‘Hello!’ into the telephone.

“Lillian?” The raspy voice was familiar.

“Yes, this is she.” I pulled the phone away from my face and slapped my hand over the mouthpiece. “Guys, turn that down!” I hissed at Graham and Eliza.

“Lillian, it’s Detective Padron. Janice Lee requested I call you.” He sounded calm. Too calm.

“Yes? Has the… the body been identified?” My heart was racing so quickly that it caused Brad's ring to vibrate against my chest.

“Yes, we were able to confirm the identity based on the dental records.”

“Is it him?” I wanted to shout but the words came out as a squeak.
Please, Lord.

“Lillian,” he paused and I held my breath. Graham and Eliza were staring at me, frozen on top of their pillows on the floor, their faces scrunched with anticipation. Detective Padron cleared his throat and I clutched tighter onto the phone.
Answer me!

“It’s not him,” he finally said.

I felt all of the air leave my body-as if a semi-truck had slammed into my gut. “It’s not him?” I repeated.

“It’s not Brad. The body is that of another young man who ran away from home early this year. It doesn’t seem to be connected to Brad’s disappearance in any way…”

He continued to speak as my eyes flooded with tears that began streaming uncontrollably down my cheeks. I managed to thank him and say goodbye through my sobbing, but after hanging up the phone my face dropped into my hands. I cried harder when I realized that I didn’t know why I was crying. I wasn't sad. I wasn't happy. My most prominent emotion was anger.

“Aren’t you glad?” Eliza asked in an innocent voice as she came and sat beside me on the couch.
No eight-year-old should have to comfort her sister because the body that was found isn’t her boyfriend’s.

“Yes.” I looked up at her with blurry eyes. “It’s good, right?”

But it doesn’t feel good
. My nose began to run as tears continued to drip down my face. I had nothing. He was still missing. The week I had spent attempting to accept the idea of Brad being gone forever had been in vain. And I hated myself for wishing it had been him in that tent.

****

There seemed to be a cloud over the Sunday morning church service. We opened with prayers for Brad but Pastor Allen quickly diverted to his pre-planned sermon about God’s timing and trusting His plans. I knew it could easily be related to Brad, but I tried to tune it out. I didn’t want to listen to talk of timing and plans that meant Brad would remain missing. I was struggling with the fact that I was supposed to trust God’s plan if it meant I would have to keep on living with a hole in my heart.

I thought back to a sermon from months earlier when Pastor Allen preached about believing in prayers and that they would be answered.
I have been saying the same prayer every day for nearly four and half months and it hasn’t been answered, so what am I doing wrong? Do I truly believe he will be found when I pray? Do I truly believe
anything
anymore?

After a final song, the congregation was dismissed and Mrs. Lee lingered on the front row pew as Montana followed her dad out of the sanctuary.
This is my chance.

“Janice?” I put my hand on her back as I approached her.

“Lillian!” She turned her head towards me and smiled. “How are you today, sweetheart?”

“I’m okay,” I said with a shrug. “But I was… I was hoping I could talk to you for a few minutes?” I picked awkwardly at the trim of my blouse.

“Of course. Let me grab my things and I’ll meet you outside.”

“Thanks.” I nodded.

I sent my family ahead without me before making my way into the prayer garden in the church courtyard and sitting on a gliding wooden bench. I pushed my feet against the mulch to propel the seat back and forth. Brad and I had often sat on this same bench after Sunday school or youth group. Once in the spring, we left the school basketball game just before half time, ventured down the street to the church and snuggled up on the bench beneath an old flannel blanket. We could hear the marching band playing even from the garden, the instruments carried out of the gym and through the peaceful night air. It was one of the first nights I suspected he might be falling in love with me, and I with him.
What kind of guy leaves a tied game to find a quiet place to sit with his sports-illiterate girlfriend?
Brad was that kind of guy.
Is that kind of guy…

“There you are!” Mrs. Lee exclaimed with a laugh as she came around the corner of the church.

“Sorry,” I replied, standing. “This was our spot.”

“I remember.” She motioned towards the bench and I lowered myself back onto the seat. As she sat down next to me she placed her hand on my knee. “I always knew where to find you two after the service.” A wave of sadness washed over her face.

“Thank you…” I swallowed. “Thank you for having Detective Padron call me.”

“Of course. It was big news.”

“Have you heard anything else? Or gotten any new leads through the website or social media pages?”

She shook her head. “Sightings come in here and there but nothing has panned out. It’s nice to know people are on the lookout, just hard not to get our hopes up every time someone thinks they saw Brad in a laundry mat or riding the bus somewhere. But I promise you'll be the first person we call as soon as anything seems promising.”

“Thanks.”

“How are you holding up?” she asked with a motherly tone in her voice. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Well, actually…” I searched her eyes as I tried to find the words to say. “There’s something I have been wanting to ask you.”

“Sure, hun.” The corners of her mouth formed a small smile as she waited for me to speak.

Seeing her smile, I suddenly felt as though my tongue had been glued to the roof of my mouth and my words were trapped behind my lips.
Is this my life now? Interrogating my boyfriend’s mother about details he should have told me himself? If it’s true, what will she say when she finds out I didn’t know?

“Lillian?” Janice’s face was kind as she quietly said my name. I realized that in the last several months I hadn’t looked at her very closely. Despite Brad's absence, she maintained a glow. I could see she was much stronger than I was.

“You know you can ask me anything,” she said, nudging my shoulder. My question was bouncing around on my tongue.

“Was Brad adopted?” I finally blurted out.

I watched as her eyes grew wide. She held her breath for a moment before she spoke.

“He didn’t tell you?”

As I shook my head my heart sank. It was true. Brad was gone, and I felt like the laughingstock of the town-the girl whose life was on hold waiting for the guy she seemingly knew nothing about.

“I’m sorry you didn't know, Lillian. It was always a very sensitive subject for him.”

“So, what… I mean, what happened that made you adopt him?” I wasn't sure what the important questions were.
What does this mean?

“We were living in Missouri at the time, and had never dreamed of adopting an older child, but he came to our church through an outreach ministry that was witnessing to children in group homes and he just broke our hearts. His left arm was broken and his head had been shaved because he’d contracted lice… he was so thin and pale. We were told his mother was an addict and she had given him up willingly. She chose her habit over her child.”

I couldn’t find any words to say. I had always pictured Brad’s childhood as a privileged one, but now my mind was forming an image of an emaciated boy in a wrapped cast being abandoned. I suddenly understood why he hadn’t told me.
He didn’t want me to see him as unwanted.

“I always worried that church reminded him of those days in the group home. Like being here made him feel like he was that sick, orphaned boy again.” She shook her head. “That’s why I never forced him to join us. It wanted it to be his decision to come. I was grateful to you for finally getting him involved.”

“He liked coming here,” I assured her.

“He liked going anywhere with you,” she said with a broken smile.

And I would have followed him to the edge of the earth.

“We moved here soon after the adoption was finalized,” she continued. “Brad needed a new start, and we chose not to disclose his adoption unless necessary. He didn’t want to broadcast it and we agreed it wasn’t right to share it with everyone in our new town. We thought it might change the way people saw him and treated him if they knew the truth.”

“But do the police know…” My mind and my mouth were working independently. Neither could catch up with the other.

“Yes, we told Detective Padron, and some of the other officers have known his situation ever since he started getting in trouble with the law. But we have asked them not to make it public unless it has something to do with a hard lead in the case. Brad has had enough of his dirty laundry exposed since he went missing. We don’t want this to come out, too.”

I nodded. The town didn’t need another reason to turn Brad’s life story into a reality TV show.

“Did Brad ever try to find his Mom?” I asked. “Is there a chance that’s where he is…?”

She shook her head. “We searched his laptop, went through his emails and browsing history… there was nothing to give us the impression that he was looking for her. And he was spending all of his free time with you, so it’s hard to imagine that he would have been able to search for her without any of us knowing.”

That thought almost made me smile, but it was shrouded in too much mystery.
How did he manage to spend all of his spare time with me while keeping so many secrets?

“We’ve looked for her, his biological mother, and so have the police, but the last record of her is from a Missouri jail three years ago. She is practically a missing person, too.”

Like mother, like son.

“And the man that came to Lizard’s asking for Brad before he disappeared, could that be his real dad?”

“No one knows who Brad’s biological father is, not even his mother as far as I know. We aren't sure how, or if, that man Lizard talked to is connected to any of this.”

Just as soon as the door to new possibilities had been opened it was collapsing in on itself.
Can the truth about Brad’s childhood and family really just be another secret he had kept hidden from me?

“We still have no idea exactly what Brad went through before he came to live with us. But he was holding onto a lot of anger towards his biological mother for abandoning him the way she did. That anger needed outlets, and those outlets came in the form of theft and vandalism and befriending others that shared the same tortured souls. And then he found you.”