Chapter Fourteen Kiersten
Chapter Fourteen
Kiersten
“Guys,” she ordered as she pulled into the driveway, “you must help carry things into the house.”
She’d seen this movie before. Her children would bolt from the car and run upstairs to their bedrooms, leaving her to make nine trips back and forth to the house, carrying blankets, pillows, snacks, and gear inside.
As she opened the rear hatch, an almost paralyzing wave of anxiety washed over her.
Something isn’t right.
This feeling of unease had dogged her for miles. Ever since that pit stop at Big Jim’s Travel Plaza.
Something isn’t right.
Her mind had repeated these words over and over again as she’d dodged eighteen-wheelers in the sheeting rain.
Something isn’t right.
The boys emerged from the car like slugs and stood stretching in the driveway.
She looked at the boys.
One boy. Two boys. Three boys.
Three. Boys.
When she had four sons.
“Guys, where is Johnny?”
The boys all looked at each other.
“I dunno.” Luke gave a sullen shrug. “I’m not my brother’s keeper.” Years of Lutheran church and Sunday school, and this was the only Bible verse that had made an impression.
“Stand still.” She felt all the blood drain from her face. “No one move.”
She ran into the backyard, calling Johnny’s name. She ran into the garage, filled with empty packing boxes. “Johnny? Johnny, are you here?”
Her voice rose an octave each time she shouted his name as panic shot up her spine.
He couldn’t be in the house. Because the house was locked. But she unlocked the front door anyway, threw it open, and ran through each room, shouting his name.
“Johnny? Where are you?”
Silence.
She flung herself back down the stairs, through the mudroom, and into the driveway, where the boys stood, their faces pale and horrified. She hurled the minivan door wide open and plunged inside, ripping apart the blankets and pillows.
Corn chips. Water bottles. iPads.
But no Johnny.
She climbed out of the vehicle and sank to her knees in the driveway. Was this real? Or was it a nightmare?
She pressed her hands into her skull, felt the pinprick of pain as her nails dug into her scalp.
Wide awake. Not a nightmare.
Dear God. What have I done?
“Mom, where’s Johnny?” Matt’s thirteen-year-old voice cracked with emotion.
“Where’s Johnny?” Luke repeated, his voice thick with fear.
“Did we leave without Johnny?” James shrieked, every syllable pitched with horror.
She had forgotten many things in her life. Car keys. Sunglasses. Her phone. Even her purse.
But now she had actually lost an entire child.
Johnny had no phone. Johnny was only eight years old.
And she’d left him. Left him at a truck stop on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
She cast her mind frantically over their last stop. They finished eating. She told the boys to get in the car while she used the restroom.
Then she just got in the car and drove away. She thought he was under the blankets. But she didn’t check to make sure.
And that—
She looked at her watch.
That was Two hours ago.
She struggled to her feet, clutched the side of the minivan, and vomited.