Your dad is there. You are safe. He will never let another person hurt you. Your mom will always stand beside you. It is going to be okay.
We hugged and cried awhile, neither of us saying anything. Then an officer stepped carefully into the room. “We need to take you to Salt Lake City headquarters,” he said.
My dad turned around to look at him.
“Mr. Smart, could you and your daughter come with us? We have a car waiting.”
We were escorted through the corridors to a back door, where a maroon police car was waiting. We climbed into the backseat. One patrol car pulled in front of us, and another pulled in behind.
The moment we had pulled out of the parking lot, my dad looked at me and exclaimed, “We have to call your mom!” He pulled out his cell phone and started punching at the numbers. I could hear her phone ring and then her voice say, “Hello?”
My dad was shouting, “Lois, it’s her! It’s really her! She’s alive!”
My mom started screaming into the phone.
“Yes, yes, it’s true!” my dad shouted back. “No, I’m with her! She’s alive. She’s okay. I’m with her right now!
I could hear my mom’s voice screaming even louder through the phone, “Let me talk to her! Pass the phone, pass the phone! Is she hurt? Is she all right? Pass me the phone!”
My dad handed me the phone.
“Mom…” I said, my voice barely more than a whisper.
“Elizabeth, is that really you? Are you okay! Is it true? Is that you? Are you all right?”
Her voice sounded exactly as I remembered it, and for just a fraction of a second I flashed back to those first days on the mountain, reliving the fear that I might forget the sound of her voice.
It’s okay. You are home. It’s going to be okay.
“Mom…” I started to answer when the cell-phone battery went dead. Ahhhh! Seriously! Of all of the things that could have happened! My dad looked at me sheepishly and tried to smile.
It seemed to take forever to get to the police headquarters, but we finally made it and I was escorted to another private room. My mom was waiting for me. Seeing her, I almost felt like I couldn’t breathe. She looked just like an angel. Nobody could ever look as beautiful as she looked to me. She jumped up and ran to me and started hugging me so tightly I really couldn’t breathe. She was crying. I was crying. It was the same thing as with my dad. We held on to each other like we would never let go. We cried and hugged and smiled and laughed. “Elizabeth! Elizabeth!” she repeated again and again.
She could hardly let me go when one of the officers came back into the room. “Elizabeth, we need to ask you a few questions.”
I looked desperately at my mom. I didn’t want to go. Why couldn’t I stay with her? My dad was already gone, somewhere in the police station, talking to some of the other officers.
“Elizabeth, we need to talk to you,” the officer pressed. Reluctantly, my mom let me go.
The officer escorted me into another room. A woman and a man were waiting there. They introduced themselves as investigators, then started asking me all sorts of questions. I answered as best as I could, but I felt overwhelmed. I was on the edge of breaking down. After everything that had happened to me, I just wanted to go home. “I just want to be with my parents,” I finally cried. “I just want to see my family. Can’t we do this later? Can’t I please go home?”
My dad suddenly stormed into the room. They had no right to take me from them, and he was very mad. “We will do this later!” he demanded, his face red with anger. There was no way he was going to let them question me right then and there.
He pulled me from the room and out into the hall. Down the corridor we went, back into the same room that my mom and I had been in before. My brothers and little sister were waiting for me. It was all of the crying and hugging and laughing all over again. It was one of the rare moments that is pure and incomprehensible joy. Some people may live their entire lives and never feel what we felt in that moment. It was beautiful. It was magic. It was everything that I could have asked for.
All of our family was together.
I was really home.
We were safe. Mitchell wasn’t going to hurt us.
I had my entire life before me.
Everything was going to be okay.
William, the baby, was four years old now. He didn’t join in the hugging. Instead, he looked at me with great suspicion. I tried to pick him up, but he turned away and reached out for my mom. That broke my heart a bit.
I’ve been gone a long, long time, I thought.
“Don’t worry, Elizabeth,” my mom assured me. “He’ll remember you. Just give him a little time.”