The girls never looked up from their digging, and I reined in my emotions before they could turn and see their mother crying on the beach. I closed my eyes briefly, tipping my face to the sun feeling the warmth on my eyes, drying the tears. They had caught me crying a few times, and I thought it a good thing overall that they saw me grieving for their father, but it worried them. And Hannah always tried to make it better, her innate mothering bubbling to the surface, brows creased with concern beyond her years.
Back at the house, I made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, which we ate while still wearing our bathing suits. The smell of sand and sunscreen had already permeated everything, and it was only the first day. I could feel the tension falling away, sliding off my shoulders like seaweed in the ocean. The knots in my back unfurled, and the anxiety I always seemed to carry with me, a twisted, sick feeling in my gut, melted away, leaving in its place only a small reminder of uneasiness, like a child’s sand footprint.
Everyone got a bath, and we watched a movie on the small living room television. They insisted on sleeping in the same bed. It’s Acation, Mommy. Do we have to have house rules on Acation? I relented, and they slept in a double bed in the room adjoined to my room. I watched them sleep, the rise and fall of the blankets in perfect unison, as though they had synched on purpose. Hannah sucked her thumb, and Leah’s hands outstretched wildly, her temper evident even in dreams, with her Uglydoll lying next to her. They slept with their backs to each other, but touching. Hiney to hiney, Hannah would say. I fell asleep on the floor and woke in the morning with the sun.
The days blended together, as they tended to do on vacation. I planned no activities, save for going to the beach. I did want to try to find the boardwalk once, if there was one, but every night I told myself, Tomorrow, we’ll go. I was simply enjoying the seclusion of our hideaway. I felt protected from the world, and all the evil in it. I tried every few days to get the girls back to the house for midday naps. As the sun and sand took their toll, the girls’ energies drained, and their dispositions would deteriorate. During those naps, I would take a baby monitor and a book out to the pool in the backyard and read.
The Arnolds’ aboveground pool was small, but it did the trick. I would float and, for an hour or so, get lost in another world. I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone because the story seemed like something I would never accidentally relate to, and it was absorbing.
One day, when I checked my watch, I realized I had been floating and reading for over two hours. I dried off and ran inside to wake up the girls. If they slept any longer, they definitely wouldn’t sleep at night. When I opened the door to their room, Hannah sat straight up in bed, blinking, startled from sleep. Leah’s side was empty.
“Where’s Leah?” I asked, alarmed.
Hannah shrugged, unconcerned, as her sister frequently went missing. Leah was usually found hiding somewhere nearby.
I pulled Hannah up by her hand. “Come on. Let’s go find her.” We went through the house calling “Le-AH!” in every room, looking under beds and in closets. I kept checking out the window of the back bedroom that overlooked the pool, relieved to keep seeing the calm, undisturbed water.
After ten minutes, I started to feel a tightening in my throat. “Leah! If you are hiding and you don’t come out right now, I will put Uglydoll in time-out for a whole day!”
I ran back down the hall and checked the bed. I looked under the bed and in the closet. No Uglydoll. I went back to the kitchen and sat at the table to calm down and think. Panic scrambled my thoughts. Surely, she was hiding.
Hannah came out of the bathroom, shaking her head. “She’s not in there.” She sat in a chair next to me, watching my reaction. I stood up and grabbed her hand. There were so many places Leah could go. And oh, God, the ocean—only a block away.
Pulling Hannah, and then eventually picking her up, I ran out the front door, down the block to the beach, yelling Leah’s name the entire way. When we got to the sand, I put Hannah down and instructed her to wait by the gate.
“Do not move. Do you understand? Your feet are glued to the sand. Glued, got it? I need to find your sister.”
Hannah nodded solemnly.
I ran toward the water, scanning the beach and screaming, “Le-ah!” as loud as I could. I ran parallel to the ocean to the jetty. Looking back, I saw Hannah parked where I’d left her. I scaled the rocks and looked over the other side. “Le-ah!”
No Leah.
I had no idea what to do. I ran as far as I could while still being able to see Hannah, up and down the shore. Leah was not on the beach. Backtracking to the house, we ran through the streets, calling Leah’s name.
No Leah.
When we got back to the house, I thought to check the car. No luck. I instructed Hannah to go inside and look everywhere she could think of for Leah. I started at one end of the house; Hannah started at the other. The house was small. In fifteen minutes, we had both searched the entire house, closets and all.
No Leah.
I sat down on the porch and pulled out my cell phone. A person should not have to file a missing persons report twice in the same year. It was unreal that I had to go through it again.
I dialed 9-1-1. “I need to report a missing child.”