Suddenly, the ache I felt was almost too much to bear. It was hard to breathe and I felt the hysterics creeping back like a sneeze you can’t stop. All I had left was a mother who blamed and hated me, and a father who hadn’t bothered to see me in years, and a stepfather who wasn’t even related to me so why should he care either, even though right then he was holding me in his arms, trying to calm me.
Eventually Earl left me to sleep, and I did, for more hours than I had in weeks. When I woke up the next day—how can I describe it? I felt different. Like I’d had a bad fever that broke and I’d sweated out all the sickness. Somehow, I knew I had no use for drama and tears anymore. None of it would do any good. None of it would bring Sam back. It was time to face a life without him. I was sick of being sad, sick of crying, sick of feeling guilty. Sick of wondering where he was.
He was dead. I knew it.
I felt armored then. The worst had already happened, hadn’t it? I could handle anything. Nothing, nobody could hurt me now.
===
Someone is shaking me. “Wake up, honey.” I’m groggy and confused but I open my eyes and of course it’s Mom. I see her smiling face, and then I remember that Sam is home. Warm relief floods through my body, and I can’t help but smile back up at her.
“It’s a lovely morning, isn’t it?” Mom says. I look toward the window and see the sun pushing on the closed blinds. “I mean, it’s lovely because Sam’s here.”
“Yes,” I say.
“I know we didn’t have much time to take it all in yesterday.”
That’s an understatement. I say, “I still can’t believe it.”
“Believe it,” she says, brushing my hair aside, gazing at me like I’m still her little girl. She hasn’t acted this way in years, even when Sam was here. It’s like I’ve woken up to an entirely different life.
“I want to talk to you about a few things. About what happened to Sam.”
My stomach lurches. With just a few words, all that good feeling floats away, and I feel a chill go up my back. “Okay.”
“We don’t know everything yet. And we’re not going to ask Sam about it.”
At the news conference, I’d listened but didn’t take everything in. I guess I was still in shock, and the words in the air just sounded like white noise. But I do remember that Sam had been found at some man’s apartment, just about two or three hours away.
Mom continues: “He’ll tell us everything in due time, when he’s ready. The thing—the important thing for now is to not push it. We need to give him time to readjust. Dr. Rao said that—”
“Do I have to go back to see her?” I ask. Dr. Rao is this psychologist they sent me to a few months after Sam disappeared. I didn’t see the point of it, so I stopped going after a few months.
“No. I mean, not right now. But you can if you want to.”
“I don’t want to.”
“That’s okay. But I called her—I just, I needed to talk to someone we knew, not some social worker who doesn’t really know us or Sam. She said that it’s going to take Sam time to open up. That he’s probably experiencing post-traumatic stress, or shock, or something like that. So we can’t push him too hard or too fast, okay? And we can’t let him see us upset. We need to be strong for Sam.”
“Okay.”
“Good. I just wanted to make sure we’re all on the same page.”
I hear the phone ringing, and then the doorbell.
“I better get out there. Get up and eat some breakfast.”
I nod, but before she leaves the room, I ask, “What did happen to him?”
Her face kind of tenses and her smile falls off, but then she pastes it back on again. “The important thing is he’s home, safe and sound. Let’s focus on that for now. Okay?” Mom stands there, watching me with a weird smile, waiting for me to agree. All I can do is nod, because I know she doesn’t want me to ask any more questions.
After she leaves I lock my door and then turn on my laptop and go online. Mom knows something, or a lot of things, and she’s not telling me any of it. But it’s easy to find a ton of articles—on the Tuscaloosa News site, but also in all the national news websites, too.
Most of the stories all say the same things. The man who abducted Sam is named Russell Lee Hunnicutt. Judging by his mug shot he’s a scowling fat guy with brown hair and a gross beard and a funny eye. He lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Anniston, Alabama. He worked as a manager at a BBQ restaurant, also sometimes answered phones on the night shift at a funeral home (I’m not kidding). He didn’t have a criminal record. He wasn’t a registered sex offender. When I read those words, I shiver like a blast of cool air has blown through my room. Maybe I should stop.
But I have to continue.
This man had two older brothers, who lived in Georgia. His parents lived in Georgia, too. It doesn’t sound like they were a close family—they hadn’t seen him in years. All of his coworkers at the BBQ place said he was quiet, a hard worker, though sometimes a stickler. They are all shocked that he was harboring a fourteen-year-old boy in his apartment. Almost all the articles say something like “There’s still so much authorities don’t know.”
It makes no sense to me. I shake my head. How could a man keep a kid like this without anyone knowing?
It’s a stroke of luck that Sam was finally discovered. Or maybe it was just that Hunnicutt finally screwed up. The day before Sam was found, he tried to snatch a ten-year-old kid named Brandon in Gadsden, Alabama—maybe a half hour from Anniston. This kid realized something fishy was going on and started screaming, and Hunnicutt sped off in a panic. But this kid snapped a picture of the truck with his phone, and when he reported what had happened to the police, they enhanced the picture, traced the license plate number, and found Hunnicutt. When the police got to his apartment in Anniston, Hunnicutt answered the door and surrendered without a fight. But the police were surprised to see someone else there, sitting quietly, watching them. The police asked this kid who he was, and he said, “Sam Walsh.”
One of the cops recognized that name. “The Sam Walsh who’d been missing for over three years?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.” He also said, “Are you going to take me home now?”
I close my laptop. I’ve read enough. I sit there and clutch myself, and slowly the cold trembling in my body winds down.
I leave my room, wobbly and light-headed, like I’ve just left a dark theater after seeing a terrifying movie. I head to the kitchen. Mom and Earl are in the living room, talking with some man dressed like he’s ready for church—slacks, a nice shirt, a tie. He’s older than Mom and Earl, with receding brownish-gray hair.
“They’ll pay,” he says, “but they want an exclusive.”
Right then someone knocks on the kitchen door. It’s Mrs. Sykes, so I let her in. Beyond her, on the streets, I still see a few news vans, but most of the crowd has died down. Mrs. Sykes comes in holding a bulging Belk’s shopping bag. Mom comes out of the living room and greets her with a hug.
Mrs. Sykes says, “How are we this precious morning?”
“It’s a bit hectic, but we’re still floating on air,” Mom says.