Authors: Rob Stennett
Except the wedding.
If the rapture really were going to happen (and of course it wasn’t), the thing he would be most upset about missing would
be the wedding. He could see how beautiful and perfect and angelic Emily would look in her crystal white dress. He would be
there with a handkerchief to wipe away her tears right before they walked down the aisle. He would say, “You look perfect,
honey,” and she would hug him tight, maybe for the last time, as she said, “I love you Daddy.” The music would swell, all
would stand, breathless, as they watched his little girl walk down the aisle. And he would grin from ear to ear with each
step, feeling so proud, knowing that giving her away would be the bittersweet crowning achievement of being her father.
“Hey Dad,” Emily said glancing toward Jeff as he walked through the door.
“I’m home,” Jeff said.
“Hello honey,” Amy said as she covered her hands with oven mitts and put the roast on the table. “How was your day?” she asked.
“It was all right.”
“Any sales?”
“I have a couple of good leads. I’m hoping one or two of those will pan out tomorrow.”
“Gotcha,” Amy said. “Emily, Will, come on, it’s time for dinner,” Amy said.
“Roast for dinner again?” Emily asked as she took a seat.
“Yes, roast for dinner. Where’s Will?”
“I don’t know. I’m not his babysitter.”
“What time is it?” Amy asked.
Jeff checked his watch. “7:13.”
Amy walked outside. Jeff followed.
“I’d say it’s dark out, wouldn’t you?” Amy asked.
“Pretty close.”
“Will asked if he could go to Nate’s house. I told him yes but he had to be home
before
dark. He said he would. I said, ‘Do you promise?’ and he said, ‘Mom, I
promise
.’ Jeff, he’s got to learn some responsibility.”
“Totally agree,” Jeff said.
“You don’t think he’s hurt? Do you?”
And then a flash came to Jeff: Will, listening to his iPod, singing along to whatever as he crossed the road at the exact
wrong moment as teenagers were speeding by in a Cadillac. They’d slam on the brakes, but they’d be going too fast, and it’d
be too late.
The thought made Jeff sick. He wished he wouldn’t think like this. But fears often popped into Jeff’s head. Probably because
at such an early age he learned how fragile life was. He learned that you could just be going along and then something could
happen that could change everything. For Jeff it was going from being single and carefree — and then
snap
— a wife and a baby. It made Jeff wonder what other things could suddenly change without a moment’s notice. When he was driving
he could picture his tire popping and the car flipping over and over. When Jeff was at work he could imagine Amy driving with
Will and Emily in the car, someone drifting into their lane, and —
BAM
, the end — Jeff would be left alone to plan the funeral for his entire family.
Sometimes the fears weren’t even realistic.
Sometimes Jeff could see kidnappers or thieves in his house, his family tied to wooden chairs with coarse ropes and shotguns
aimed at them. Other times he could see random ways his family could be harmed — Amy taking a bath and the hairdryer drops
in, Will landing on the trampoline wrong and snapping his leg, Emily parked with some drunk jock pawing at her after home-coming.
It would be easy to say how morbid Jeff was for thinking about such things. And Jeff would agree, it was morbid, and he didn’t
want to dwell on things like this — in fact he didn’t
dwell
on them at all.
They just kind of popped up. Like flashes. Quick. He’d shut his eyes and the image would be gone. The fear would still be
there, for a moment, and he would tell himself there was nothing to worry about.
He told himself and his wife there was nothing to worry about at that moment when he said, “Will’s fine. He got caught up
playing at Nate’s and lost track of time.”
“Well he’s got to learn his lesson.”
Amy went back inside. Jeff walked into the kitchen to see her setting the table with the speed and determination of a pit
crew.
“Mom, what are you doing?” Emily asked.
“We’re going to sit here and wait for your brother. He’s going to walk in and see us with the table set and the food on the
table getting cold. He has to learn that there are other people in the world.”
“Sure Mom,” Emily said.
She was reading
Cosmo
. Seventeen’s got to be too young to be reading
Cosmo
. There’s some pretty grown up stuff in there, Jeff thought. In high school he used to read
Cosmo
with his friends after school. They thought it would teach them the secret to understanding women. And understanding women
was the key to getting women. They took the quizzes as if studying for the bar exam. And tonight Emily was reading
Cosmo
. Which meant there were boys out there, somewhere, taking
Cosmo
quizzes to get Emily.
“Put the magazine away, honey,” Amy said.
Emily slid the magazine under her seat. Jeff grabbed a chair. Dinner looked great: baked potatoes in foil, green beans with
bacon, sweet potatoes, fruit salad, and a roast in a Crock-Pot. Jeff hoped Will would get here soon. This was a lot of good-looking
food just to waste on an object lesson.
As if reading her father’s mind, Emily reached for the fruit salad.
“What are you doing?” Amy asked.
“I was going to get some fruit salad.”
“Nobody eats until your brother gets here.”
“But fruit salad’s already cold. What does it matter if it gets
more
cold?”
“That’s not the point and you know it.”
“Well, what are we supposed to do until he gets here?”
“We wait,” Amy said.
For the first half hour they were more annoyed than worried. A meal like this was meant to be eaten piping hot — if they didn’t
eat it now, no microwave could ever make it taste the same. But as the steam evaporated, the concern started to rise. They
didn’t say anything about it; they tried to talk about other things — things they would be talking about even if Will were
with them. But Will knew what a big deal Monday night was to his father, he wouldn’t just ditch it; there was losing track
of time, getting carried away with your friends, and then there was
this
.
Amy snatched the phone from its charger and called Nate’s mother.
“Hi Cindy. It’s Amy. Will’s not over at your place is he?”
“No, he left at 6:15,” Cindy said.
“6:15? But it’s 7:45.”
Oh, please no, Jeff thought. His stomach was in a free fall. Jeff could suddenly see: Will’s face on milk cartons, search
parties, sitting on plush chairs on a talk show and speaking about what it is like to be living with a missing son. Usually
Jeff could push the fears and flashes away. But this was real. This was the type of evening that started normal and ended
with a phone call from the police. Or even worse, the evening would never end, life would be split into two distinct moments:
Before, when they were a normal, average, all-American family — and after, when every dinner for the rest of their lives would
feel empty because Will’s empty chair would be an eerie, nauseating reminder of how simple and great things once were.
“Yeah, no, I don’t know where else he could have stopped. He was supposed to come straight here,” Amy said and then listened.
“Yeah, you betcha. I will.” She hung up.
Jeff looked at his wife and said, “I’m going to find him.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Call the police,” Jeff shouted as he sprinted out the front door.
Moments later Jeff was in his car with his brights flicked on, cruising the gravel road that was between his home and the
Jacksons’ house. This was not the ideal night for Will to disappear. Clouds covered the moon like thin black sheets. It was
nearly pitch black. There were no streetlights — any light from Goodland was too dim to make a difference. As Jeff drove down
the road, the headlights cut through the dark, but only for a bit, and only right in front of Jeff’s car. Will could be right
outside of the headlights’ reach, passed out and hurt, and Jeff could drive right by. It was difficult to concentrate with
so much at stake. Because something was wrong. That wasn’t even the issue anymore. The only question now was, how
wrong
were things? Jeff needed to think straight, to get creative and aggressive if he was going to find his son.
The clock was ticking. But that’s when Jeff was at his best.
He popped the trunk, ran to the back of the car, and took the flares and flashlights out of his emergency kit. He opened up
the first-aid kit: gauze strips, Neosporin, Band-Aids. He could help a minor injury, but if it was something major — no time
to think about that. He threw the kit in the backseat of the car. He flicked his headlights to bright, he rolled up the passenger
window, bracing a flashlight between it and the car door, and he held a flare out the driver’s side window. Probably wasn’t
a safe thing to do, as if that mattered right now.
He drove slowly down the road yelling Will’s name over and over. For a second he wondered if he should be saying something
more. Should he be asking, where are you? Or, are you okay? But that was nonsense. There was no need to be creative. It wasn’t
as if Will wouldn’t come running to his dad because he couldn’t quite understand what his father was asking. It wasn’t as
if Will would think, Oh, sorry Dad, I thought you meant the other Will.
Jeff scanned to the right, the left, and right again. His car was a lighthouse, shining in every direction at once, giving
him the largest possible radius to find his son. Assuming he was stranded on the side of the road. And if that were the case,
it was possible another car would have driven by and seen him. He would have been taken somewhere. They would have received
a phone call, and he would be at the hospital with Amy at least
knowing
what happened.
No, he wasn’t on the side of the road. Which left three possible things that could have happened: (1) He ran away; (2) He’d
been kidnapped; or (3) He’d used the cornfields as a shortcut. Jeff knew Will had done it before. Will thought he could get
away with it and no one would notice. And maybe Amy didn’t notice, but Jeff could tell when Will took the shortcut. But he
never said anything because boys will be boys and there’s no harm in that. He’d probably cut through those fields a hundred
times.
Only this time something went wrong.
Jeff supposed there was a
distant
fourth possibility, which was that many people in town, including his son, had been raptured and his family had all been
left behind. The apocalypse had begun. Jeff felt embarrassed for even thinking that. The rapture wasn’t going to happen. It
was just some quaint old legend. He was certain. He was almost certain. But on a night like tonight, anything felt possible.
Jeff ripped the flashlight out of the car window and marched into the cornfields. There were large stalks everywhere; they’d
never seemed that tall before, but tonight they were towering over him. After twenty steps his car seemed well out of reach,
and he suddenly understood why Fred Johnson was so adamant that kids stayed out of his cornfields. It really would be easy
for any kid to get lost in here. Heck, it’d be easy for Jeff to get lost in here. How embarrassing would —
you just turn around
— that be? Still, turning back —
is your best option; he’s probably not even in here
— was out of the question. Will could be hurt, his leg could be broken, and he could be screaming for help. What was Jeff
going to do, wait for sunlight? Not a chance. He would do whatever it took to find his son. But then, as if mocking his resolve,
his flashlight burned out. If it was pitch black before, there was nothing to describe what it was now.
Jeff hurried back to his car, tripping over cornstalks and getting back up. He was obsessed now. One cornstalk twisted his
ankle, badly, and Jeff couldn’t feel the pain. He knew the pain was there, but it was more of an idea. He could feel the blood
rushing to his ankle as it ballooned, but it was distant, as if it were happening to someone else. The adrenaline wouldn’t
let him think about anything but the search.
He rummaged through his trunk for the next three minutes: books and golf clubs and tennis rackets and sneakers and tire irons
and flip-flops.
God, Jeff, why is your trunk so filthy?
He could almost hear his mother’s voice saying, This is what happens when you don’t stay organized. Your boy is out there
dying and you can’t save him because you never bothered to keep your trunk clean.
Okay, so no D batteries in the trunk. Or if they were there he didn’t have time to find them. But he knew where the flares
were. He was always paranoid about breaking down on the side of the road whenever they took trips to visit Amy’s mother in
Manhattan (Kansas) and so he always had his trunk packed with supplies to help in an emergency. He grabbed three flares, stuck
them in the back pockets of his Dockers, and cracked another one open. The flare’s crimson light danced all over his face
as he headed back into the cornfields, and he almost made it until he heard —
“You go out there alone and we’ll have two missing persons we’re looking for.”
Jeff turned around holding the flare. And he saw Mike. “I’m looking for Will,” Jeff said. Mike was in uniform, the lights
of his squad car were flashing, and Jeff hadn’t even noticed. There was nothing he could think about but the fields.
“Amy called it in, said you’d be out here.”
“Well, I’m going to look for him.”
“With a flare?”
“It’s all I got.”
“I called the boys back at the station, they’re getting some fellas together right now. We’ll get organized and comb through
this field in twenty minutes. We’ll find your boy in no time.”
But how could Jeff just wait when Will was out there? Was he really supposed to just sit on the side of the road while his
son was hurting and lost in the cornfield? Still, he couldn’t just rummage through the cornfield alone with a busted up ankle
and a flare.