36 Berry
Berry
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.
I can 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.
I spent the night pacing the house, looking out from different windows, checking every vantage point, and begging God to send
Leo home. At one point, I did fall asleep in a kitchen chair after Phil covered me with a plaid throw blanket, but I woke
with a start just a few minutes later and went back to Leo’s room. I keep searching his stuff, digging for any clue among
his airplane manuals and rock collection.
“We had a hit with video surveillance,” Finch says, looking from me to Phil, who’s hurrying out from the kitchen.
“He was at the Port Jefferson bus station early this morning.”
“Port Jeff?” Phil says as Harrison and Yvonne emerge from the kitchen too. Phil reaches into his pocket, and I know he’s grabbing
for his car keys. Meeting my eyes, he says, “Let’s go get him.”
Finch holds up a hand. “Sir, there’s more.” He looks down at the tablet in his hand, scrolling over the screen. “There was
another hit afterward, at Penn Station.”
My hand flies to my chest. Leo can’t be at Penn Station by himself.
It’s a zoo! The crowds, the dirt, the noise.
A disaster waiting to happen. How long has he been there?
I can’t even think about all the different ways he could be at risk.
“He’s going to hate that! All those people rushing past, the screeching of the trains.
” I’m so frantic I can barely tell up from down.
I spot my flip-flops in a basket near the door and dash toward them.
“Ma’am, hold up,” Finch says. “After Penn Station, he was spotted at the Port Authority.”
I don’t understand any of this. Leo never goes anywhere so far away on his own, and I can’t understand why he’d even want
to.
“Port Authority?” Phil demands, looking at me. “Where is he trying to go?”
“Call the Port Authority police!” I shriek, looking toward Finch. “He can’t be there by himself. Someone has to get to him.”
“Ma’am,” Finch says. He’s infuriatingly calm, no urgency to his tone at all. “This footage is from several hours ago.” He
shakes his head and starts scrolling through something on his tablet. “Yup,” he says. “Subject seen at Port Authority at nine
a.m.”
“Don’t call him the ‘subject’!” I’m totally losing it.
Finch ignores my outburst. “He was spotted on the upper level, near a vending machine.”
“But it’s nearly two! What has he been doing since nine a.m.?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Finch says. “That’s the last image we have. Sometimes the crowd can create blind spots for the cameras,
and it was rush hour. It’s possible he got on a train or a bus or walked out of the station. We’re going to dispatch more
units to the Port Authority, have them check areas where the subject—where your son—might have moved, places that might not
be covered by the cameras. The bathrooms, stairwells, nearby gates.”
Oh, Leo. I can just see him, huddled in a bathroom stall, overwhelmed by the environment, hiding from everything.
His noise-canceling headphones won’t be enough to drown out the chaos of the situation.
I imagine he’s holding one of his little airplanes, running his fingers over the wheels, not soothed at all.
“Please.” I grab onto Finch’s forearm. There is so much fear, so much panic, it’s hard to form words. I just look up at the
policeman and repeat myself. “Please.”