Nightfall

December 30, 1990

The cops invaded our house for days, taking picture, dusting for prints, interviewing neighbors, or at least those that were around. We couldn't stay in our house and had to relocate with our unpacked luggage to a nearby hotel.

My mother spent those first few days in bed, sedated. The stress of travelling all over the country in hopes of getting to Kevin only to find out the worst had happened in our absence proved too much for her.

My father barely fared any better. He carried on because he had no other options, but there wasn't much he could do. Once the initial interviews with the police were over, he spent hours on the phone with my uncles in France. I saw how his hands were shaking as he paced the floor of the room. Up and down, up and down. I got dizzy following him around the room and had to look away.

He delayed calling our grandmother Penelope as long as he could. It was only after the police informed him that the media would be reporting the news of Kevin's disappearance that he picked up the phone one more time to call his mother-in-law, and let her know what had happened.

Even from the other side of the suite our family occupied, my siblings and I jumped at the sound of our grandmother screeching at our father over the phone:

"Alone? How could you leave him alone! Why didn't you call me!"

My grandmother, that sweet woman that had nothing but kind words to everyone… screeching! At my father, whom she always liked, no less!

My father looked shattered at her rebuke. He was too polite to remind my grandmother that living in South Carolina with a heart condition, she never would've been able to travel all the way to Chicago to take care of Kevin. And since my mother had been unable to secure a plane in the middle of the Christmas holidays, I seriously doubted she would've had any more luck.

My father did not smoke, but after that call, he sure looked like he could use a cigarette. Or a drink. While my siblings were not looking, I opened the room's mini bar, and poured him a whisky. I'm not even sure he liked whisky, but he didn't push the glass away when I put it in his hand. He didn't thank me, but squeezed my shoulder.

I couldn't sit down, or sleep, and kept watch at the window. I don't know what I was waiting for. The police? My brother Kevin? All I could do was watch the passing cars, and curse the falling snow. Megan and Linnie were huddled together on the couch. Jeff sat on the carpet in front of them, hugging his knees to his chest. On the television, some holiday special was on, but none of us listened.

Whatever festive mood we had managed to salvage during our trip back from Paris had died upon arriving home. There was no mention of gifts, dinner or parties.

There would be no Christmas celebration for our family that year.

Nor for many years to come for that matter.

"But where's Kevin?" Jeff kept asking every few minutes.

"We don't know Jeff." Megan would remind him.

"But they're going to find him. The police, they're going to find him, right?

– Of course they are. They do this all the time..." Megan lied, running her fingers through his hair.

I did not call out her lie. I wanted to believe her as much as Jeff did. As for the police doing this all the time, that may be true on television, but the Winnetka police department were way out of their depths. They could deal with petty crimes, like shoplifters, vandalism and parking tickets, but they had never dealt with anything as serious as kidnapping.

Growing up with police shows and fast paced action movies, I expected a lot from our police force. Too much it would seem. Where were the helicopters? The K-9 units? Why weren't cops searching the streets, banging on doors, interrogating people? They moved so slowly, it felt like they weren't doing anything at all. Damn, didn't they know that time was of the essence? That line may be a movie cliché, but it was also a fact. It had been both frustrating and eye opening to watch our small police force struggle with how to handle the situation. With the holidays in full swing, it took them nearly a day to call their home office at the Chicago police department who in turn scolded them for not calling the feds immediately.

The FBI.

I hadn't expected them to be called. Not so soon. There hadn't even been a ransom note! With their intervention came fear; I knew the feds would usually only get involved in interstate cases. That's when I realized that, for all we knew, Kevin might be on the other side of the country by now. I kept that information to myself. I'm sure it must've crossed my parents' mind, but I did not want to worry my siblings any more than they already were. Kevin's disappearance was getting more and more serious as the days passed, and yet I didn't feel like anyone was actively looking for him.

"Shouldn't they have found him by now? Why is it taking so long?"

There was quiet desperation in Jeff's voice. I closed my eyes and balled my fists. I could tell it was his way of coping with the situation, but I wished he would shut up.

"The police will let us know, don't worry." Megan did her best to reassure him.

Megan had been doing a lot of reassuring over the past few days. As the elder, I felt this responsibility should've fallen to me, but I gladly let my sister take on that role. The only thing I felt like doing was breaking something. I had been imagining myself hurling the television out the window too many times to count. Oh, and to think of what I'd do to the creeps that had broken into our house… I had come up with a few more uses for those paint cans Kevin had hung from the stairs. I was aware that my attention was much more focused on whoever had broken into our house rather than on my brother, but I would push that thought aside every time it would cross my mind. I wouldn't let myself think about Kevin, or what might've happened to him. I'd lose it if I did.

"Buzz said someone broke into the house." Linnie said in a small trembling voice.

I did not look at my sister when she said that and gritted in teeth in anger. There had never been any burglaries in our neighborhood. Never! We didn't just live on a boring street; we lived on the most boring street in the whole United States of America. That sort of thing simply did not happen. That anyone had chosen the holidays to strike was… cowardly.

But logical, I begrudgingly admitted to myself.

With no one around, our street must've been easy picking for any burglar. But how did they know so many of our neighbors would be gone? When did they turn their attention to our block? Why our street of all streets? Had they been watching? Yet another chilling thought I would keep to myself. I searched my memory, trying to remember if I had noticed anyone weird hanging around over the last few weeks. I couldn't remember. What with the end of term exams, projects to hand over on top of my regular training, that didn't leave me much time to look out the window.

"What did they take? Did they take Kevin?" Jeff babbled on. "Is that why they broke into the house? Why would they take Kevin? It doesn't make sense!" he said, bowing his head to his knees.

Why…? Oh god. I hadn't stopped to think about that! Why did Jeff have to ask? Looking over my shoulder, I met Megan's eyes and saw the horror I felt writing all over her face. We were both old enough to know there were plenty of reasons why some people would jump at the opportunity to take a child of Kevin's age.

That couldn't be it, I tried to persuade myself. That kind of sicko did not live in a quiet place like Winnetka. I had to believe that, cling to that belief so as not to think of the alternative.

"Maybe Kevin ran when they tried to break-in." suggested Linnie, blissfully unaware of our train of thoughts. "He could be hiding somewhere, too scared to come out.

– Yeah… Who'd want Kevin anyway! He's such a-"

Jeff stopped himself mid-sentence. He looked like he was about to cry. I turned away from the sight, least my brother's pain feed my own.

I hadn't cried.

Not once.

Anger suited me better.

I would sometimes catch my siblings looking at me with unspoken accusations. They must've thought I was heartless, or that I didn't care. Of course I cared. I simply could not bring myself to think about all this anymore than I could wrap my mind around the idea of never seeing Kevin again. It was too surreal.

I saw our father close the door of the room he shared with our mother and walk over to us.

"Hey guys, are you hanging in there?"

Whenever he wasn't on the phone with his family, the police, or checking on our mother, he would remember to attend to us.

"Do you need anything? If you're hungry, Buzz can call room service, okay?"

I had ordered nachos, chicken wings and some sandwiches earlier, but nobody was very hungry. My father hadn't had much more than a bite or two of toast since Christmas morning. I think his last real meal had been the one he had taken on the plane back from Paris. He essentially ran on coffee, which did not improve his trembling.

"Any news?" Linnie would never fail to ask.

My father forced a smile on his exhausted features. It only made him look old and grim.

"Not yet, honey."

So we kept on waiting for news that never came. That would pretty much sum up those first days following Kevin's disappearance.

On the fifth day, our mother emerged from her room. The weeping terrified woman we had met on Christmas morning had vanished. She had been replaced by a calm and somewhat harder version of herself. Although she had slept for days, her eyes were drawn, and her hands just as shaky as my father's, but she had regained her natural poise.

She looked about ready to start a war.

That's the mother I remembered.

Drawn to her strength, we all gathered around her, including our father.

"Pack your stuff. We're going home" we heard her declare in amazement.

She sounded like herself again and it felt good to have a fragment of our normal life back.

Our house was waiting for us. I never quite looked at it the same way. I don't think any of us ever did. I had never seen how sinister it looked with all the lights closed and curtain drawn.

But it was home.

We had a lot of cleaning up on our hands. The cops had not exactly been careful as they processed the house for clues, and it was sometime hard to guess what had been broken as a result of the breaking-in, and what had been broken by the detectives. The feathers Megan had spotted on Christmas morning were now all over the place. Someone had however gathered Kevin's micro machines and placed them in a shoe box in the hall.

The basement stairs had been condemned, and the tar that covered each steps was now mixed with dust and some more feathers. From the top of the stairs, I could see imprints on the bottoms steps. My father had told me the police had retrieved a man's shoes and socks. Kevin had apparently also put nails on some of the stairs. Those were so well concealed by the tar I couldn't spot any of them. I hoped whoever had broken into our house had stepped on one and had hurt himself bad. Who would be stupid enough to step not once, not twice, but five times in tar anyway? Someone determined to get up those stairs, that's who. I shuddered at the thought and closed the door.

Kevin's little tree in the living room had not been moved, but someone had unplugged the lights. I found Linnie starring at it with misty eyes, before rushing out of the room and up the stairs, crying.

That tree would have to go.

But not today.

Even I couldn't bring myself to take it down.

I made my way to my room, straightening family pictures on the wall along the way. My room had not magically been fixed during the investigation. They had pushed most of my stuff against the wall, a mix of broken shelves, marbles, training equipment and other games. I considered the mess, not knowing where to begin. I had no interest in cleaning. My eyes rested on Barry's terrarium, still lying on its side. The police had not mentioned coming across a tarantula. Considering how cold we had found the house upon our return, I assumed this meant Barry must've died.

Just perfect.

I really should mention it to the rest of the family at some point.

I threw my bag on the floor and let myself fall on my bed. I stared at the ceiling for a long time, shutting out the cries of my sister in the room across the hall. There was nothing I could've said that might've made her feel any better. I stayed there for a long time, staring into space, until I sensed a presence next to me.

« Buzz?

– Don't you know how to knock?" I snapped back at Jeff out of habit.

Jeff was unfazed by my bad temper.

"Can I sleep in your room tonight?"

Sleep in my room? It would mean I'd have to clean up, and I so wasn't up to it! What the hell was wrong with his room anyway? It hadn't been destroyed like mine! I was about to give Jeff a piece of my mind, when I suddenly saw how lost and small he looked next to me. Regardless of how grow-up he liked to act, Jeff was only a little over ten. Looking into my brother vivid blue eyes, I was reminded that not so long ago, Kevin had made the same request.

Had it only been a week? It felt like a lifetime had passed since I had thrown Kevin out of my room for no other reason than because I could. Had I swallowed my teenage pride, had I let him sleep in my room instead of on the third floor… I felt myself go pale. Oh god, I needed some air.

"Buzz, you okay?

– Sure Jeff, just… give me an hour." I said, sitting up in my bed.

Jeff left, maybe to retrieve a sleeping bag from the attic, and I closed the door behind him.

I hadn't cried that morning when my father and I walked over to old man Marley's house without Kevin. I hadn't cried when my mother broke down and a doctor had to be called. I hadn't cried when my father had entrusted me with my remaining siblings so he could speak with the police. No, in all those days, I hadn't cried, but I could no longer hold back my tears as I ripped the sheets off my bed, throwing them in a pile. I muffled my sobs by kicking my truck closed. I turned my energy and thoughts to anything other than Kevin, and sorted through the broken planks of wood to salvage what I could from the wreckage. My tears fell faster as I worked, making me clumsy. I must've got half a dozen splinters and scraped the back of my hands and arms, but I didn't stop. I don't even remember there being any pain.

I punched and kicked my Michael Jordan poster until it came apart, and I threw it over with the planks. It didn't make me feel any better. I considered going to the basement to take my anger on the stairs, but that would've meant walking through the house with my tear-stained face, and I wouldn't do it.

Everybody in our family had cried, were probably crying at this very moment, as they would be crying for months to come, but I couldn't share my pain with them. It was too raw, and ugly, mixed with so much anger I did not know what to do with it.

I needed some air. I walked over to my window and opened it wide, breathing in the cold air of the night. I found myself shivering in a matter of seconds, but I didn't care. The air calmed me down. I was still burning with anger, but my tears had stopped falling. My eyes scanned our darken street. I ignored the sparkling lights from the nearby houses. The Murphys and the Bensons had returned from wherever they had been spending the holidays upon learning they had been robbed. I'm not sure they were at home. Their Christmas lights were turned off, as ours were, and there was a disaster clean-up truck parked in front of their house. Further down the street, the police tape still marked the Louis and the Young's properties. That sight reignited my anger. So much loss and destruction over such a small period of time…

Shutting the window with rage, I wiped my tears and, my arms full of broken planks, figurines and other stuff, I made my way downstairs. I was not the only one determined to erase the traces of what had happened, Megan, armed with the vacuum cleaner, was in the dining room, chasing the feathers.

I heard my parents in the living room and avoided going in there. I grabbed my coat and boots and went out the back. It took me several trips up and down the stairs to clean out my room. The planks were too big for our garbage can, so I piled them up in the garage.

I didn't feel like going back in the house. It had snowed for days, and our driveway hadn't been plowed. I grabbed a shovel in the garage and set to work. The snow was heavy and there was a crust on top of it, but I welcomed the hard work, it got my mind off things. I was so concentrated on my task it took me a while before I became aware of a familiar scrapping and rattling sound. I stopped shovelling and listened, knowing who it was.

Our neighbor.

Old man Marley.

Clutching his snow shovel, dragging his old garbage can full of salt behind him as always. I watched as he shovelled the sidewalk, before adding a layer of salt.

"You saw my brother."

Old man Marley did not jump at the sound of my voice. I saw his shoulders drop as he turned around, leaning on his shovel. He looked older than I remembered and not half as threatening. I realised that I was as tall as he was.

"Yes, I saw your brother." he said not without sadness. "I saw him a few times while… while you were away."

He looked up at our house.

"I should've asked, I should've wondered what was going on when I saw him out and about so late, but I thoughts it was just a child's game on holidays. I never imagined he was all alone."

I hadn't stopped to think how Kevin must've felt upon discovering we had forgotten him. After the argument we had on the night before our departure, maybe he thought this was a punishment or something, that we did it on purpose. And now, he'd never know…

I pushed the thought aside. I couldn't think that way. We'd make it up to Kevin. As soon as we'd find him, we'd explain, and everything would be alright.

"Did he… Was he looking for us?

– If he was, he didn't tell me." old man Marley had a sad smile as he said this. "He usually ran away screaming whenever he saw me."

Hearing this sent a tremor of shame into my conscience. I could think of a few reasons why Kevin would run away from our neighbor instead of asking for his help.

"It's my fault. I kinda made up stories about you to scare him. I told him you killed a bunch of people with… your snow shovel."

My neighbor considered the shovel in his hand in mild surprise.

"Hum, kids today… It would explain why he ran away from me at the pharmacy too."

In other circumstances, I might've laughed at the idea of my little brother scurrying out of a store because of one of my stories, but not this time. I liked to terrorize Kevin; it was so easy with him believing everything I said, but I had left him ill-prepared to deal with being left alone. He must've been afraid of his own shadow.

"Don't feel too bad about it." old man Marley told me, filling in my silence. "I had a good long talk with your brother at church on Christmas Eve. I think we cleared things out.

– Kevin went to church? Why?"

The church was close-by, but our family didn't attend very often. I never thought of Kevin as spiritual or religious; I mean what eight-year-old is? It came as a major surprise to hear he attended a service with our neighbor.

"Well, I was under the impression he needed some time to reflect."

For the first time, I pictured my brother, all alone on Christmas Eve with no way of knowing when we'd be back, with no one and nothing to keep him company, but his little tree. Did he go to church so as not to be alone? Oh, I didn't like these images. I wanted to shut them away and never look at them again.

"Was he… Did he look okay?

– Oh, he looked just fine. He didn't seem to be starving if that's what you were wondering."

We were both silent a moment.

"He's a clever one, your brother." old man Marley said softly.

I felt a lump in my throat. Not clever enough to get away.

"I am so sorry to hear what's happened. I didn't know. He never said anything about being alone. I never would've sent him back home that night had I known."

I believed him. Old man Marley sounded like a decent man, he would've taken care of Kevin had he only been asked. For all of our neighbors and friends on the street, why didn't we befriend him? He lived right next door!

"And you didn't see anyone? That night, you didn't hear anything?"

I knew the police must've asked him these questions already, but I needed to hear it from his own mouth. Old man Marley shook his head.

"No, I'm sorry. I wasn't there that night. After talking to your brother, I went to see my son. On your brother's advice actually. Had I stayed home… I'm an old man, but who knows."

My family was full of regrets; it was a little unsettling to see this stranger share in our sorrow.

"Listen son, I don't know what you're going through. But I know about anger, I know about regret. Don't let it destroy you."

I looked away. If Kevin wasn't found very soon… Old man Marley might've been right, but it wasn't me so much as the rest of my family I was worried about.