Our Son, Michael

by Preston101

When six year old Michael Hodgins goes missing, the lives of everyone he knows are thrown into turmoil. Through the darkest times, Angela and Jack quickly learn who is on their side and who isn't as they are betrayed by those whom they thought they could rely on the most. But at the end of the day, one thing matters the most, finding Michael before it's too late.

1. The journey we had

When Michael first disappeared, we were asked a ludicrous amount of questions by the investigating officers, all of which made it increasing obvious that they believed either Jack, myself or both of us together were responsible for our son's disappearance. We do not blame them, we have worked with the FBI for almost fifteen years, and during that time, we have had the unfortunate task of dealing with dozens of child cases and, as statistically proven, invariably the parents are responsible.

Despite this knowledge, I remember sitting there whilst being asked these inane questions along the lines of if we had gotten angry with him that morning, if he was a naughty child and just thinking, who is actually out there looking for him? I later learnt the answer - two. The police took it that seriously that there were two officers, doing door to door searches for my little boy during the first the first three hours of his disappearance, the first three hours that are the most crucial, the first three hours that, I remain convinced to this day, allowed us to lose him to the city.

The questions which stood out were those which related to the morning: What was your morning routine? Was he reserved? Did he act out? What did he have for breakfast? What did he wear for school? Did he want to go? Where exactly was he dropped off? Could he have had any contact with strangers that morning? They stood out because I did not know.

Of all the mornings that I had not been with Michael it was the last morning where our lives resembled something of normality. I had had an early morning meeting and my alarm had not gone off, making us late, as was usually the case in the Hodgins household. I remember so clearly, kissing Olivia, kissing Jack and not having the extra two minutes to go into the backyard where my son was feeding his pet snails some lettuce to kiss him. I told my husband to tell him goodbye before I grabbed my keys and left. That being the last contact I had with my son that day.

For this I blamed myself, for this, the officers also seemed to blame me. I could overlook this, I had to, I had to live with the belief that I was not responsible because if I had done, the guilt would have killed me. They also accused us of loving Olivia more, not wanting him anymore. I remember one asked me: "Why not just put him up for adoption? You didn't have to go through all this fuss," For their attitude, for their belief that this was a joke, for their failure to act we will never forgive and we will never forget.