Chapter 5: What Was Already Gone
They reached the house forty minutes later.
Ryan drove.
I stayed at the hospital with Lily, my sister sitting beside me in the plastic chair she had pulled close to the bed the moment I called her.
Lily was asleep again, her breathing slow and even, her hand curled loosely around the edge of the blanket.
My sister, Paula, didn't say much.
She made me drink a cup of tea from the vending machine.
She put her hand on my knee when I stopped being able to sit still.
"Ryan will call," she said.
"I know."
"She's going to be okay."
"I know that too." I looked at Lily's face.
"I just keep thinking about all the times she asked me.
All the times she said she didn't want to go.
And I thought she was being dramatic.
I thought she was just—" My voice broke.
"I thought she was a child who didn't like rules."
"You didn't know."
"I should have listened harder."
Paula didn't argue with me.
She just kept her hand on my knee.
Ryan called at half past nine.
"She called her sister," he said.
"Diane's sister, Margaret.
She lives twenty minutes away.
By the time the officers got there, Margaret had already been inside."
My stomach dropped.
"The box."
"Gone." His voice was flat.
"The space under the bed was empty.
Margaret said she had no idea what they were talking about.
Said she came by to check on the house because Diane called her upset.
Said she didn't touch anything."
"Do they believe her?"
"No.
But believing and proving are different things." He paused.
"They're still searching the house.
There might be other things.
Carver said the box isn't the only way."
"What does that mean?"
"It means Noah kept things too."
I sat up straighter.
"What kind of things?"
"Letters.
Notes she wrote him.
He kept them in a shoebox in his closet for thirty years.
He said he doesn't know why he kept them.
He said maybe some part of him always knew he would need them."
I closed my eyes.
"He's bringing them tomorrow," Ryan said.
"He's driving down tonight.
He'll be here in the morning."
"Ryan." I stopped.
"How is he?"
A long pause.
"He cried," Ryan said quietly.
"When I told him about Lily.
He cried and he kept saying he was sorry.
He kept saying he should have said something sooner.
I told him it wasn't his fault.
I don't think he believed me."
"We'll make him believe it."
"Yeah." Another pause.
"How's Lily?"
"Sleeping.
Paula's here."
"Tell Paula thank you."
"She knows."
I heard him exhale.
"I'm going to stay until they finish the search.
Then I'm coming back to the hospital."
"Okay."
"Sarah." He said my name like it cost him something.
"I'm sorry.
For every time I made excuses for her.
For every time I told you she wasn't that bad."
"We'll talk about it later."
"I need you to know that I—"
"Ryan." I kept my voice steady.
"Come back to us.
We'll talk about everything when you're here."
He came back at midnight.
He sat down in the chair on the other side of Lily's bed, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, and looked at his daughter's face for a long time without speaking.
Then Lily stirred.
Her eyes opened halfway.
"Daddy."
"Right here, bug."
She reached out one hand.
He took it.
"Is Grandma gone?"
He looked at me once.
Then back at her.
"She's not going to take you anywhere," he said.
"I promise."
May you like
Lily's eyes closed again.
Neither of us slept.
