A Son's Tale

Flashes of knowing accompanied Cal as he approached the screen door of Morgan Lowen’s small home and knocked.

A woman appeared almost immediately. She was about his age, early thirties, with long dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her face was pinched, her green eyes void of any makeup at all. She opened the door with an expectant look.

“Is Morgan here?” he asked.

“She’s in the living room.” The woman kept herself placed between him and the inside of the home.

“I’m Caleb Whittier, her English professor. She was in my class this morning when she got the call about her son.”

“Dr. Whittier?” She said the name like she knew it. Like it would be followed by “The Dr. Whittier?” He couldn’t tell if recognition was a good thing or not, but he nodded.

“I’m Julie Warren,” the woman said. “I’m the secretary at Sammie’s school. And Morgan’s friend. I’m the one who called her out of class.”

“Have they found him?”

After seeing the cars on the street, the shake of her head was no surprise. He shoved his hands into his pockets.

Julie Warren stood back. “Come on in.”

“No. I don’t want to bother her. I just…”

Just what? He could have called to find out if she was all right. If Sammie was. Or waited until class on Monday.

He could have watched the news tonight and known, if nothing was there, that the boy had probably been found.

“Morgan’s told me about you. About your talks,” Julie said, still holding the door open. “That’s unusual for her, the way she talks to you. Morgan doesn’t open up to people much.” The woman was talking fast, as though running away from something, or trying not to think about someone who couldn’t be found. “You may not realize it, but your support has helped her a lot,” Julie said now. “I really think she’d like to see you.” The woman’s brow was creased with worry.

She held the door open farther and Caleb moved forward.

* * *

SHE’DHEARDTHE KNOCK on the door a few minutes ago. Could see the people traversing the street through her living room window. She knew her mother was sitting next to her on the sand-colored faux-leather couch she’d picked up at a moving sale several years before. Her father was just around the corner in the kitchen, talking on the phone. His tone brooked no argument or refusal.

His first time in her home and he’d already taken command of the place.

Sammie was still gone. Todd had been questioned and released.

Detective Martin was around someplace. Outside, maybe, directing the canvas of the neighborhood. They’d tapped her cell phone. And her father’s. Morgan didn’t have a home line. But they wanted her there, anyway. In case Sammie came home. Or someone brought him home. Or tried to contact her there.

Morgan listened to the flapping sound of Julie’s flip-flops out in the foyer where she’d gone to answer the door. Her friend had been sitting on Morgan’s other side on the couch for most of the afternoon. She was wearing the sleeveless, long, tie-dyed cotton dress that she’d bought the year before at a clearance sale. Her husband hated the dress. Morgan loved it.

The couch was nice. Soft. And clean. Morgan had gone over it twice with leather cleanser and antibacterial cleanser, too, when she’d purchased it. She wanted to make certain that it was safe for Sammie. Should she tell Detective Martin she’d done that? It proved how much she loved her son, didn’t it? Proved that she was a good mother.

Jumping up, Morgan stood at the window. Staring out. No matter how tightly she wrapped her arms around herself, she couldn’t seem to get warm.

Julie flapped in, flip-flop, flip-flop.

“Morgan?”

She heard her friend. She just didn’t turn around. Watching the flurry of activity on the street was as close as she could get to doing something. The inactivity was driving her crazy.

For a second she imagined herself and Sammie on the beach. In Florida. They couldn’t afford the Hilton Head vacations she’d taken as a child with her parents. Florida’s beaches were more fun. Less stuffy. She and Sammie were holding hands, screaming as they took a big wave together… .

Outside, a man she didn’t recognize moved into her line of vision.

She should be doing. It was her job to see to her son’s needs. To look after him. She was always the one who was doing for Sammie. The only one…

“Morgan, Dr. Whittier’s here.”

She turned. Still outside looking for her son. Still on that beach in Florida.

The man standing in her living room was as unreal as the rest of her current world. Dr. Whittier? In her home?

“Hi, Morgan,” he said. “I looked up your address. I hope you don’t mind my stopping by, but after the way you left class, I just wanted to make certain you were okay.”

She shook her head. “My son’s missing.”

“I know.”

Of course he did. The whole class knew. Maybe the whole town did. She hoped to God the whole town knew.

“Dr. Whittier? Are you Sammie’s doctor?” Morgan heard her mother’s voice as if from a distance greater than the couch across the room.

Morgan looked back outside.

Surely someone would have seen a ten-year-old boy wearing cutoff shorts, a Phoenix Suns T-shirt and black sneakers with a hole in the toe. Sammie was small, like her, but he wasn’t invisible. That blond hair, and those big brown eyes of his…

“…her English professor…” Cal Whittier’s voice infiltrated briefly.

Sammie had wanted her to practice catch with him the night before. She’d been too busy cutting decorations for Saturday’s picnic. She’d started at the day care when she’d been pregnant with Sammie. The job had offered free child care, which saved her enough money that she’d been able to get them the duplex in the nicer neighborhood rather than settling for an apartment in a less safe part of town.

She’d worried, at first, that she wouldn’t qualify for the job, but Tennessee law allowed you to teach in a day care with only a high school diploma. She’d started out as an assistant teacher and then was offered the job of executive assistant to the director. She liked teaching, though, and she substituted for the full-time teachers whenever she could. She’d lucked out. She got to spend the first five years of Sammie’s life with him and earn money, too. And once Sammie had started school, Morgan’s boss had allowed Sammie to come to the day care after class to play and help with the little kids until Morgan was off work.

As a bonus, she’d loved working with the preschoolers—she’d been a natural—and had found a career.

“Morgan was in my class when she got the call about her son… .” She assumed Dr. Whittier was still addressing her mother and she turned back around.

The three of them—Morgan, Whittier and Julie—were standing in the middle of her tiny living room, while her mother perched on the edge of the couch, her thumbs rubbing back and forth across opposite palms.

“I’d just seen Sammie half an hour before he went missing,” Julie was telling Whittier. “I’d gone into his classroom to take a message to his teacher and he’d called out to me, flashing that big grin of his.”

He’d just run away. Sammie was doing this to prove he could. To prove that he was old enough to be on his own. To prove…

“They’re going over her computer now…” Julie continued, filling in the newcomer, just as they’d all done every time someone new arrived on the scene.

Morgan had caught Sammie on the internet again the night before.

She’d yelled at him. He knew that he wasn’t allowed to be on the internet without her. It wasn’t safe for kids.