Remembering

Chapter One - April 16, 1976 - 6:00am

It always rains on April 16th, Steve thought as he made the turn through the main gate of the Elgin ranch. Kind of fits, I guess. He looked up at the carriage house; no lights, no sign of movement. Hopefully, Jaime had been able to get some sleep. Steve parked his car next to hers and sat there, lost in thoughts of another rainy day, ten years earlier.

April 16, 1966 - 12:15pm

Steve's car nearly spun out as he rounded the curve up the driveway to his parents' home. The resulting dust clouds blurred his vision almost as much as the tears in his eyes. There was only one thought in his mind, resonating to his very core: I've got to get to Jaime!

His mother's phone call had pulled him out of Physics, his first class of the day. She'd been crying almost too hard to get the words out, and at first Steve had thought something had happened to his stepfather, Jim. "Steve, you have to come home right away," Helen sobbed. "Jaime needs you!"

Jaime - his childhood sweetheart who, when he was honest enough to admit it, he still loved with his whole heart. "Mom, what happened to Jaime?"

"That poor, sweet child...her parents...there was an accident. Oh, Steve - they were killed."

"Both of them?"

"The Sheriff was at the door first things this morning, and we went with him to break the news. She was just leaving for school..."

"Where's Jaime now?" He didn't have to ask if she was ok; he knew she was as far as she'd ever get from ok.

"We brought her home with us. She can stay here as long as she needs to."

"Mom, I'm leaving right now. I'll be home in a couple of hours. In the meantime, hug her tight for me, ok?"

As Steve drove, his mind tried to absorb the situation. Jim and Ann - gone? He couldn't begin to imagine what Jaime was going through. Their families had grown extremely close over the years, mostly due to Jaime and Steve's friendship. They often took their vacations together and both families shared the major life experiences of the other - Steve's graduation, Jaime's tennis championships - as though they were all related. Ann baked the best chocolate chip-pecan cookies on the planet, always in double batches, sending half to the Elgins.

Steve felt as though he'd lost members of his own family, but he knew his pain was nothing compared to the agony Jaime had to be feeling. She had only one other living relative - an aunt she'd never met who'd been estranged from the family since before she was even born. You're not alone, Jaime, he told her in his head. You've got my mom and dad, and me, and...I love you.

Now, as Steve spun up the driveway, leaving dust cyclones in his wake, Helen ran out of the house to meet him. Steve screeched the car to a halt and threw his arms around his mother, who had obviously been crying all morning. "Oh, thank God you're home!" Helen cried.

"Is she in the house?"

Helen stepped back to look at her son, and sadly shook her head. "She's gone, Steve."

"What do you mean, gone?" Had there been another accident?

"She said she wanted to lie down, so I took her back to your room, tucked a blanket around her and came out to call you. When I went back to check on her, just a few minutes later, the window was open, and Jaime was gone!"

April 16, 1976 - 7:05am

Steve had been lost inside his head, remembering, for just over an hour, but there were still no lights on in the carriage house and no one up and moving around. Jaime had always been the earliest riser he knew, and thinking back to how she'd run away ten years ago, a gnawing feeling began to grow in the pit of Steve's stomach. He decided he'd rather be embarassed if he was wrong than have to live with himself if he'd been right and done nothing. He turned the knob on the downstairs door hard enough to break the lock, and quickly but quietly ran up the stairs. As he'd suspected, her bed was empty, and the bathroom door was open, the room unoccupied. He called her name a couple of times, knowing there'd be no answer. He debated taking his car or one of the horses, but decided he could cover more ground on foot, and he set out, determined to find Jaime.

His first stop was her old childhood home, now boarded up and abandoned. He could see no signs of entry, forced or otherwise, so he began to search the yard. He looked up into every tree, paying special attention to the old maple that used to hold 'their' treehouse. No Jaime. At bionic speed, he ran down to the stream about a half-mile from the house, where Jaime liked to go to sit and think - even when she was older - but she wasn't there either.

Steve looked up to the heavens and then deep into his heart, trying to find some clue. "Dammit, Jaime, where are you?"