July 4, 1982
As night fell, a small crowd remained congregated in the parking lot. Some of the onlookers were nothing more than rubberneckers, watching another person's tragedy play out before them, while others remained hoping, praying for a miracle: That a little girl lost would be found and restored to her terrified parents.
On the beach below, Barb sat on the sand, clutching a small pail in her arms while rocking back-and-forth, oblivious to the ongoing commotion surrounding her. Police officers, both on duty and off, had shown up in droves as word of a three-year-old child gone missing on the Fourth of July had spread. Beachgoers had been interviewed at length but not a one could recall taking note of a little girl alone on the beach, only becoming aware something was amiss when Josh and Barb had begun their frantic search for Lynnee. Now, on-duty officers remained long after their shifts had ended, to join their volunteer brothers and sisters on searching an expansive length of the beach, leaving no building, no vehicle, no grouping of sea oats left unchecked. Search and rescue had called in divers, and now, in the waning light, heads would bobble to the surface only to disappear beneath the water again. Even as searchers on the beach hoped that by some miracle it would be they who found a little girl who'd simply wandered off, those in the water prayed it would not be they who found her instead.
"I promise, baby, I won't be angry with you. Mommy and Daddy just want to take you home. Please, Lynnee, please, please, please…"
Barb had long ago grown hoarse from screaming her oldest child's name. After hours of running up and down the beach in search of her little girl, Barb's legs had finally turned to gelatin and she'd slumped to the ground next to the sand pail she'd given to Lynnee before issuing the order…
"Go play."
The memory of those words sent a fresh round of guilt washing over her, and she softly keened her despair.
"Lynnee, please, baby, come to Mommy. Please, please, please…"
She rocked, she prayed, she made bargains with and promises to the God she'd never quite believed in if only He'd return her child to her arms.
All those vows, recriminations, promises and pleas had been for naught, for at midnight a haggard faced man in his early sixties had appeared before her with Josh at his side. A surge of hope like she'd never known before sent her leaping to her feet.
"Have you found Lynnee?"
She'd known. In the instant the man's face had crumpled and he'd had to avert his eyes while he tried to collect himself, she'd known. When she'd looked to Josh for assurance, and had found him pale, eyes filled with unbearable grief, she'd known. Still, when the words had come, she'd been unprepared and disbelieving.
"Mrs. Jefferson, I regret to inform you that the search has been called off. At break of day tomorrow, we'll begin recovery operations." She frowned and shook her head at the man, not understanding, even as Josh staggered on his feet as though someone had delivered a physical blow to his midsection, confusing her all the more. Her eyes left her husband and returned to the man leading the search.
"Recovery? I don't understand?" she babbled, edging towards hysteria as the man's words and Josh's reaction began coalescing in her mind. "You're giving up?" She wrapped her arms around her middle, gulping for air. "You think she's…" She could force the word past her lips. "She's not gone! She's not!"
"Barbie," Josh choked out, stumbling to her and wrapping his arms around her. She stayed in his embrace for the span of ten heartbeats, then with a growl, shoved him away.
"No," she yelled. "She's not gone! She's not. I can still feel her," she keened, wrapping her arms around herself again, as she stooped down. Looking from face-to-face, she drew in a large, raspy breath as she absorbed the hopelessness, the resignation in two pairs of eyes. She shook her head wildly. "No. Nononononono. I don't believe you," she pled the denial. A grief she was unable to bear sliced through her. "Noooooooooooooooo." Her wail drew the attention of all on the beach, along with the onlookers milling in the parking lot. She shook her head vigorously. No, she wouldn't believe, couldn't believe, her daughter could be gone and she wouldn't feel that loss. She launched herself to her feet. If Search and Rescue… the lifeguards… the police…
Josh…
She wouldn't. She'd find Lynnee herself and prove them all wrong. Her baby was alive. She'd bring her home.
"Lynneeeeeeee—" she screamed, running down the beach. "Come to Mommy, baby! We're not angry you ran off. Honestly. Lynneeeeeee…"
Josh turned off the engine of the van, and rested the side of his head against the steering wheel to stare at Barb. She'd run back-and-forth along the beach for more than an hour, becoming more hysterical, more desperate as each minute ticked past and Lynnee still had not appeared. The decision had finally been made to bring in a squad of paramedics. She'd fought, she'd clawed at him and the men trying to help her, had flailed at anyone who tried to come near her – finally connecting with the nose of one of the paramedics, giving the man a bloody nose. His partner had quickly injected a dose of a clear liquid into her arm – of what, Josh had no idea – and before he could count to ten, she'd collapsed where she stood.
A sedative of some kind. He'd been too upset to absorb all the paramedic had explained. Sedative, sleep, it was all he could manage to hold on to.
Sleep.
He wanted to lose himself in it much as she had. He wanted to sink into the darkness, to dream it was yesterday when they'd still had three children, when he'd believed those dark days of Barb's postpartum depression might finally be behind them.
Yesterday had been a good day. A hopeful one. A happy one.
He didn't know how they'd ever know another day like that again.
He would never remember how he'd gotten Barbie to their second floor bedroom, but could only speculate he must have carried her.
No, the only thing he'd remember that evening after he'd pulled the van into the driveway was that this was the moment he finally understood what people meant when they'd said they had felt the loss of a spouse, parent, sibling to 'the depths of their soul.' His grief seemed infinite, eternal.
No one had ever given him the words to explain the emotions that accompanied the loss of one's child.
A sudden burst of rage burned straight through him, and he whirled to smash a fist through the drywall above his night stand.
The finger in the dam that had allowed him to hold himself together came loose. He stumbled into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. His knees buckled and he fell to them against the tile floor, as a feral howl of grief ripped free of his throat before morphing into deep sobs that wracked his body. He rested his weight on the elbow of one arm, while he pounded his right fist into the tile over-and-over-and-over again. The porcelain shattered on the third impact, the shards slicing at the skin. It wasn't until he felt the sharp crack of bones breaking that the pain in his hand rivaled that in his heart enough that he could at least breathe. Collapsing face down on the floor, he sobbed until he fell into an exhausted, troubled slumber.
