September 20, 1999

James tried to corral both boys that morning. Pam had already gone into work, hoping to tackle a backlog of paperwork before she had to leave to pick Blaine up from preschool.

It was a hassle trying to get Cooper out the door in time for the bus while Blaine insisted on being attached to his brother at every moment possible. But those damn boys got blessed with the smiles of angels, and no one could stay mad at them for even a moment. Separate, they got away with a lot. Together, they got away with everything .

This morning, as soon as Cooper was off to school, James focused on getting Blaine to eat his cereal. The little boy was too excited about the future prospect of goldfish that he'd seen going into his lunchbox, so the Cheerios sat forgotten in front of him.

Eventually, James just poured the dry cereal into a plastic bag and carried it with his briefcase, Blaine's bag, and Blaine as they left for work and school. It could be a snack for the car ride, if nothing else.

Blaine loved school so much that he barely remembered to turn around and wave goodbye to James. In the years since, James has always been so thankful for that one small moment though.

All too soon, he was off at work, running around, rushing off to a meeting to sweet-talk some new clients. And when he returned to his office, the secretary could only tell him that the police and Blaine's preschool had called for him. Three times.

When James called them back, his world shattered.

Blaine and his classmates had gone to the Fifth Street Park, just around the corner from the preschool. It was a common enough occurrence, and James knew that Blaine loved playing there. Blaine had been playing by the trees, the teachers had kept an eye on him because he was a climber, and then – he was gone.

Blaine was nowhere to be found at the park. None of the others there had even noticed the four-year-old slip off. No one had seen him since.

James called Pam and she was already on her way out of her office, sobbing uncontrollably at the thought of her lost little boy. They met up at the park, which was filled with onlookers, concerned parents, police officers, firefighters – everyone, it seemed, except Blaine.

They went home that evening empty-handed to find a very disgruntled Cooper waiting on the front porch. He had forgotten his key, and his parents were late, and he had spent several hours sitting and waiting and had to resort to doing homework to bide his time and – where was Blaine?

Initially, the police detectives focused on the people who had been in the park. They interviewed the other parents, the other children, and the teachers from Blaine's preschool. A few thought that they might have seen a dark haired woman at the park, but maybe it had been a different day, or maybe she hadn't been there at all. When nothing turned up, the police shifted focus. They looked at security cameras in the area, monitored registered offenders who lived nearby.

Over the next few weeks, the parks across Philadelphia and its suburbs emptied out. No one wanted to be the next parent to learn that their child had been snatched while playing with his friends. Blaine's picture was on the TV every night and in most papers, images of his pleading parents accompanying it.

And then the focus of the investigation shifted. James Anderson had been in a meeting that morning, but he had left his office earlier than necessary to get to his client's office. He said he'd stopped for coffee, and the receptionist even remembered showing him a trash can to dispose of the paper cup. But still. There was some extra time that wasn't entirely accounted for.

Pam, too. She had been showing a house that morning. The potential buyers and their agent had run into a spot of traffic downtown and had been late. So Pam had been sitting in the house, by herself, with no witnesses. Waiting. And she had dark hair, so if the story of the dark haired woman was real, well then…

Papers soon picked up on this line of investigation. The astute reporters, the ones who had been around for a while and learned how investigations ran, quickly noticed the hints that the detectives left behind. Soon they were writing the stories, too. And once the reputable sources shared what they had learned, it didn't take long for the rags to start reporting on the 'monster parents' who had never wanted a second son and had murdered him, in cold blood, in a Philadelphia park.

It was all too much.

Even when the Andersons got a lawyer and sued for libel. Even when the police department dropped the investigation against the family and Blaine's abduction remained a cold, open case. Even so. There were still whispers. Glances in the supermarket.

Young couples buying their dream family home didn't want to work with the agent who had (maybe, possibly, could she have?) kidnapped and murdered her own son. Pam was relegated to mostly administrative work, not as punishment, but because she couldn't stand the open-mouthed stares from the buyers and sellers who did still work with her.

James was pulled from high-profile accounts at work. His boss had spoken to him about it beforehand. Had explained that it was nothing personal, that James was an exceptional employee. But his name was now associated with too much, and they couldn't risk it with their biggest, wealthiest clients.

So with less demanding work schedules, they both had more time to spend at home with Cooper.

It was a good thing, in the long run. James and Pam both could look at it objectively and could imagine how they could have ended up diving into work to drown their sorrows. Cooper was in crisis, too. He'd lost a brother just as they had lost a son. He needed his parents now more than ever.

Life continued at its new normal for a while.

Blaine's room remained untouched, the door closed. Pam found a shirt of his that had fallen behind the washer and cried for nearly an hour, until Cooper returned home from a friend's house and found his mother, red-eyed and puffy-faced, in the laundry room.

James kept working on the playset in the backyard. He'd initially built it with his brother, visiting from Pittsburgh for a long weekend, when Cooper was nearly five. Since Blaine was getting older and bigger, and his brother was still happy to play with him most of the time, James had decided to expand on it. He wanted to make it bigger, and add a second swing. The second swing was up and unused by the May after Blaine had disappeared.

Cooper got his learner's permit and began learning to drive. His parents took him to parking lots all around the neighborhood to practice parallel parking and three point turns, but they never used the lot at the Fifth Street Park.

Cooper still checked on Blaine's room every night on his way to bed.

One day in May 2001, James' boss called him into his office.

"I know the last year and a half has been tough on you. On your whole family," Kevin said.

James nodded, worried that this was Kevin's way of preparing him to think of unemployment as less bad.

"I wanted to talk to you about an opportunity. There's going to be an opening for a new accounts manager in our Columbus office. Richard Harkins is finally retiring."

James nodded. He'd met with the Columbus office on occasion, at meetings and annual company events. Richard had been old when James had first started with the company, more than a decade earlier.

"I put your name in for the job."

James froze, but Kevin didn't notice.

"You're one of our best guys here, and I'd hate to lose you, but I think – In Columbus, no one knows what your family went through last year, not like they do here at least. You wouldn't have to shy away from the bigger accounts. Plus, it'd be a raise for you, and a nicer office. Think about it."

James did think about it.

He thought about it for several weeks before he even brought it up to Pam. He thought about her family, in Westerville, not too far from Columbus. He thought about how lonely and hurt she'd been, and how much she relied on the short visits from her parents and siblings. Even in a different state, Columbus was far closer to his own family in Pittsburgh than their home in Philadelphia was.

And he thought about the glances he still occasionally got in the neighborhood. He thought about his altered routes to work and the supermarket and anywhere else he needed to get to in order to avoid passing by the Fifth Street Park.

It didn't take a lot of convincing, in the end. Pam was delighted at the idea of moving closer to her parents, to her childhood home.

The only hold-up was Blaine.

What if he remembered their home and came back and they were gone?

All of their memories of him were in this home, in this city. How could they leave that behind?

And then Pam found a beautiful four bedroom home in Westerville, in her hometown. Compared to the real estate market in Philadelphia, the upgrade was still a far less expensive home to keep. Cooper would get his own room, there was a spare room for visiting family, and Blaine... Blaine could still have his own room, when ( not if ) he came back. And it would be such an easy commute for James.

She called to enroll herself in classes to get her Ohio real estate license before she even told James that she wanted to do it.

They put an offer on the house the next day and the seller accepted it by close of business.

Cooper was disgruntled, to say the least, to learn that he would have to move away from all of his friends halfway through high school. But he was also looking forward to a clean slate. He too was looking forward to leaving the whispers and glances behind.

He was registered at Westerville North High School and excitedly poured over the course book, enrolling in theatre and men's chorus – classes he had shied away from in Philadelphia for fear of drawing more attention to himself and his family.

The family moved in August 2001. The movers met Pam's parents at the new home to load the boxes in, while James, Pam, and Cooper stopped to spend a few days with family in Pittsburgh. Soon Pennsylvania was behind them and they all breathed easier knowing that they had left their worst years behind.

And they all felt individually guilty to know that.

Ohio was good for the Andersons.

James was working more hours again, but he came home from work happier, knowing that he was working at the top of his abilities.

Pam got her Ohio license and immediately began working out of a real estate office in the middle of Downtown Westerville. She was back on her home turf, and even after years away she felt like she was on top of the world.

And Cooper…

Well, Cooper told his parents that school was great. That he was making friends and studying hard. He smiled at home, and stayed after school to rehearse for the musical, where he had a role in the ensemble.

And then Pam got a call at her office one morning in October. Cooper had been in a fight at school. She needed to come to speak with the principal right away.

She called James on her new cell phone, a necessity that she'd fought against until she remembered the missed calls the day Blaine had – well, back then.

"I just don't understand! Cooper's never been in a fight a day in his life!"

"I'm sure it's a misunderstanding. Let's see what Cooper has to say for himself. Maybe the other boys were just picking on the new kid. If you need me to be there, though-"

"No," Pam said. "No, you're busy settling in to the new job. I'll handle the school."

When Pam walked into the school, she found Cooper sulking on a bench outside the main office, a black eye beginning to blossom. An ignored bag of ice sat melting next to him, dripping into a small puddle on the floor. Two other boys, in similar states of dishevelment, sat on another bench on the opposite side of the door.

Once they were seated in front of the principal, the truth came out. Yes, Cooper was in the ensemble of the school musical, but that was about all that he had been telling the truth about. There were no friends, no acquaintances, even.

Somehow, his classmates had learned about Blaine. They teased him about his dead baby brother. About his murdering, kidnapping parents. And he'd finally snapped.

"I don't condone any physical fighting at my school," the principal said. "Cooper will be suspended, as will the other boys. That is our policy. But I'll also be taking action against the other students who have been bullying your son. I just wish he'd spoken to his guidance counselor about this, so we all could have avoided this situation."

At home that evening, Pam and James had a long talk about what to do. It wasn't fair to Cooper that he had to deal with this. And that he thought he had to go it alone.

It wasn't fair to any of them that this had happened.

"Cooper," James said, "we're not mad at you."

Pam made a small noise in the back of her throat.

"Okay," James amended. "We're not happy that you punched those boys. That you thought you couldn't talk to us. But we know that the last few years, and especially this move, have been hard on you."

"We need you to talk to us, Coop," Pam said. "We can't help you if you don't tell us what you need."

"We can't read minds," James added. "I know, it's a shock."

That got Cooper to crack a grin. "I don't hate it here," he finally said. "I wanted to like Westerville North. I liked doing theatre and choir and stuff."

"Well, we may have a solution for that," Pam said.

Cooper looked up, confusion across his face.

"This is your decision, son," James said, "but your mother and I called Dalton Academy earlier today, after she left your school."

"Dalton… the private school downtown?"

"Yes," Pam said. "They have a no-bullying policy, and the dean there assured us that you would be welcomed in and made to feel like part of the Dalton family. They have a show choir that you could join and they do plays with the girls' school down the street, so you could still do that, too."

"Isn't… isn't private school kinda expensive?" Cooper asked.

"Son, it's not your job to worry about tuition," James said. Truthfully, Dalton was a little pricey. But it didn't matter if Cooper was safe and happy there.

Cooper was unenrolled from Westerville North before his suspension ended and started at Dalton the same day that he would have returned to the public school. No students commented on his late arrival, or the fading bruise on his eye. In fact, the students welcomed him heartily and warmly. When he spoke with the choir advisor about a late audition, he was immediately granted an exception. He was given a role in the ensemble of the musical even though rehearsals had already been underway for a few weeks.

Cooper never looked back at Westerville North, and if the kids at Dalton knew about his brother, no one mentioned it.

Senior year, Cooper took a class bravely called "Intro to the Internet" at Dalton. The administration strongly suspected that the internet would be more commonly used in the coming years and wanted their students to be prepared. Plus, they had received a grant from a trustee that sponsored a fancy new computer lab with iMacs of every color. They wanted to put it to good use, show it off.

Cooper and one of his closest friends, Gus Hoffman, sat next to each other in the lab. The teacher the school had hired to teach the class didn't know the Dalton students yet, so he didn't know that Cooper and Gus together were guaranteed mischief in class.

The boys had first met in the Warblers, Dalton's show choir. Blaine and Gus had been competing for the same parts, but rather than becoming rivals, they became best friends. Gus had also helped Cooper catch up when it became obvious that Cooper was struggling to adjust to Dalton's schedule and curriculum due to his late arrival in the year. They had quickly become good-hearted troublemakers. Never causing damage or breaking school rules (strictly speaking) but making sure that they and their classmates had fun and didn't take themselves too seriously.

Gus had been excited for the I2I class. He was on his home computer day and night, active on various forums for his favorite TV shows, and had even begun to teach himself coding and how to build websites. He was hoping that he'd learn enough in I2I so that he could even help with maintaining some of his favorite fansites.

Luckily, the class was more on Cooper's speed, rather than Gus'. So while the other students were learning about navigating various search engines and basic how-to guides, Gus played around. When the teacher caught him hacking into the Dalton Academy webpage and making small changes here and there for his own amusement, he finally realized that he needed to give Gus some more advanced tasks.

While all the other students created Geocities pages for class assignments and learned how to find research online, Gus was instructed to create a website from scratch, as best as he could.

That was when Gus decided to finally test his friendship with Cooper.

Back when Cooper had first transferred to Dalton, Gus Hoffman, computer whiz, had decided to see if he could learn more about his new classmate. And he'd found a bunch of two year old newspaper articles from Philadelphia about a kidnapped toddler. Gus had never mentioned it to Cooper.

"Hey, Coop?"

"Hmm?" Cooper was struggling with adding a new block of text to his page about his history assignment on Iroquois and Algonquin Native Americans in Ohio. Not necessarily the kind of webpage he'd wanted to create, but it meant that he could kill two birds with one stone and do homework in class.

"So I was thinking… since Mr. Ellison didn't really say there was anything specific I had to do for the website I'm making… maybe I could make it about your brother?"

Cooper froze. Gus could see the change instantly. Cooper's posture stiffened and while his eyes remained on the computer screen, they were no longer focused on the text in front of him.

"Wh-what?" Cooper said, feigning distraction.

"I just – people sometimes make these websites to spread information about missing kids and I thought, maybe, I could do one for Blaine? For your family?"

"I – uh – how - ?" Cooper stuttered.

"You know me. I like the Internet."

"How long have you known about him? About Blaine?"

"Since you transferred."

"And you never…"

"I didn't tell anyone. It's not my story to tell."

Cooper sagged back in his seat, no longer concerned about the screen in front of him.

"Here, look," Gus said, angling the computer monitor towards Cooper. He'd pulled up a few websites about other missing kids. There were bright colors, news stories, family updates. Pictures of the kids. "I was thinking that if I did something like this… well, maybe someone out there has seen your brother and didn't know. It doesn't hurt, right?"

Cooper blinked. He blinked again. Gus was surprised to see tears forming in the corners of his friend's eyes.

"I don't have to. I can just make a new SG-1 fansite," Gus offered, thinking that Cooper was angry.

"No," Cooper said, shaking his head and smiling. "No, I think it's a great idea."

"Cool."

Neither boy quite knew what to say or do next. So they both turned back to their screens and went back to work.

At the end of the semester, Mr. Ellison had each student pull their webpage up on the monitors. They then went on a round-robin around the classroom, spending several minutes in front of each monitor and making comments about their classmates' work.

It was then that what Gus had done struck Cooper. Sure, he'd been happy at the idea of a website sharing pictures of Blaine with the anonymous internet users of the world. Maybe someone out there would see it and recognize the kid (God, Blaine would be seven and a half by now. He'd be reading and doing math and… Cooper didn't even want to think about it, about everything they'd missed).

But he hadn't thought about anyone he knew, the kids he saw every day, seeing the website and knowing .

He made sure to avoid eye contact with his classmates during the round-robin. He was ultra-focused on his critiques. He tried to shut himself into his own world. When he got the list of critiques about his webpage, Cooper immediately set to addressing them and incorporating the suggestions into his final assignment.

The bell rang, and he waited for his classmates to leave – but he couldn't stay away forever.

The news spread throughout Dalton like wildfire. He saw heads turned his way in the halls. At lunch, finally, the dam broke. Sam, another of Cooper's close friends who was also in I2I was brave enough to ask.

"So, Cooper, was that – was Gus' website about your brother? Is that real?"

"Um, yeah," Cooper said around a mouthful of peanut butter and banana sandwich.

"Are you – I mean, did it… what happened? Why did you never tell us?"

"No one ever asked?" Cooper hoped that was enough. "I don't know, I don't like to talk about it."

"But, dude, your little brother was kidnapped!"

"Yeah, man, I fucking know," Cooper hissed, anger rising beneath the surface. "And it sucks and it nearly broke my parents and I miss the kid but…" He trailed off.

"You could've told us," Sam insisted.

"Yeah, I know."

The website spread just as quickly among the greater Dalton community as well. Early in the second semester, Cooper was called into the Dean's office, where he found the Dean joined by Mr. Ellison; the Warblers' advisor, Mr. Cole; and his parents.

"Did I do something that I forgot about?" Cooper joked when he walked into the office, feeling slightly uncomfortable.

Pam smiled at her son and patted the chair next to her.

"Of course not," the Dean said genially. "We just wanted to talk to you and your parents about something."

Mr. Ellison stepped in. "I'm sure you saw the website that Gus Hoffman made during my Internet class last semester."

The family nodded.

"Well, it has garnered a lot of attention among the Dalton and Crawford community. Lots of people have been reaching out to me, and the Dean, about it. Lots of people want to know what they can do to help your family."

"Mr. Cole and I have been speaking with Mr. Ellison about this since we first started noticing the interest," the Dean continued. "We came up with an idea for a community event, if your family isn't opposed to it, that is."

"I thought that since you're a member of the Warblers, maybe the Warblers' spring concert this year could be a fundraiser. If your family needs financial assistance in finding Blaine, or we could donate the proceeds to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children," Mr. Cole added. "We want to help support you and your family, and we know this is a bit belated, but it never hurts to bring attention to this."

The three Andersons exchanged glances. This was entirely unexpected, and so overwhelming. Cooper's first school had ostracized him for his family tragedy. But Dalton… Dalton was rallying around the family to lift them up.

"I think we'll need some time to discuss this as a family," James finally said.

There was a lot to consider. They didn't need charity, but a fundraiser could go towards hiring a private investigator to look into the case. The family had never been satisfied with the Philadelphia Police Department's investigation and always wished that they had been able to do more.

It could be an opportunity to tell their side of the story and make the public aware of what had happened to Blaine. They could make a donation to NCMEC in Blaine's name to help other kids like him.

But the last time attention had been put on them, it didn't end well. The family had been in shambles, and even though they picked up the pieces once, there was no guarantee they would again.

Ultimately, though, the decision was Cooper's to make. Pam and James decided that since he was 18 and this would impact his school life, he was the one who needed to make the call. It was his life that would be most impacted.

Cooper wanted it.

Before the website had been shared, he was terrified of anyone learning about his missing baby brother. He didn't give up on Blaine, but he didn't do anything to help him either.

But now that the information was out there, it felt like he was failing Blaine if he didn't do something more. Sure, he'd spent many years, both before and after Blaine, as an only child. But he wasn't an only child, and he'd like to go back to being a big brother.

The fundraiser was a roaring success. News of it spread around Westerville and the greater Columbus area. People with no connection to the school or the family turned up. There was more than enough money donated to hire a private investigator, a former detective from Philadelphia, and make a substantial donation to the NCMEC.

And even after Cooper graduated, Dalton's Hope for Blaine Fundraiser for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children continued as an annual tradition.

Cooper and Gus both ended up moving to California for college. Cooper was attending UCLA and studying performance, while Gus was several hours away at Berkeley, hoping to further his technological prowess (while still participating in the school's a cappella groups). Gus maintained the Hope for Blaine website that he had created in high school, and with Cooper's input, continued to update it over the years.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Cooper had been living on a high. Following his graduation from UCLA, he'd enrolled in acting classes in the city, hoping to gain the attention of an agent at one of the various showcases. It had taken some time, but he was finally scooped up and started auditioning. He booked gigs left and right, mostly in the background or for commercials. Once or twice, he'd gotten a line here and there on TV shows.

Today he'd had two auditions and he'd rocked them both: one for a cheesy commercial where he'd be singing and dancing, and another for a recurring role on a soap opera. Neither was groundbreaking work, but both promised steady paychecks.

Almost as soon as he walked into his apartment, Cooper's phone began to blow up.

At first, his ego took the wheel. Obviously everyone wants a piece of Cooper Anderson for their over-dramatic TV shows and cheesy commercials …

But then he noted who had called and texted him. It wasn't his agent or the casting directors. It was his mom, his dad, and weirdly… Gus Hoffman. While the two were still good friends, they didn't speak that often these days. Gus had moved back to Westerville after college and had taken to freelancing as a web designer for local companies while helping out at Dalton with the Warblers and their I2I curriculum (which had certainly changed in the last six years as the internet transformed from a luxury to a necessity).

Gus's text was the first he saw, and didn't really help Cooper's confusion: I need a statement from you & your parents asap if we want to ride the publicity.

Both of his parents had instructed him to call them when he had free time, but he could sense the urgency – if nothing just because they had actually resorted to texting.

His phone buzzed again with a follow up message from Gus with a link to a news report. Hoping it would clear things up, Cooper clicked it. He nearly dropped his phone as the video played.

Over the years of the Hope for Blaine Fundraiser , Cooper had become a bit of an expert in the depressing topic of kidnapped kids. Jaycee Dugard's name was always on the top of the list. She'd been missing since 1991 – before Blaine had even been a thought – and everyone assumed she was dead.

But she'd been found .

18 years later.

It was the best news Cooper had heard all day – hell, all year. If Jaycee could reemerge after 18 years, then Blaine could show back up after 10.

He called his parents, who put him on speaker while they cried about the news. Even though they had never met the Dugard family in-person, they had communicated with them, and other families of missing children. They were like a large, twisted family united by tragedy and a victory for one branch of the family was a victory for everyone. (Though there was a nagging, unspoken, shameful jealousy behind all the good news for others. Why do they get good news and when will it be my turn? )

They worked together to write up a statement to send to Gus to post on the website and newly emerged social channels. The post was widely shared, as were the photos of Blaine that the private investigator had gotten digitally aged.

Cooper's starring national television debut was not exactly what he'd expected. Rather than his big break coming from the commercial or the soap (both of which he'd booked), it came when he and his parents were flown to Chicago. Missing kids were back in the news in a big way, and the media circus worked in the favor of the families who hadn't been reunited yet.

Oprah was the biggest name in daytime television and she wanted Cooper and his family to speak about Blaine.

Maybe it was a ploy by the producers, or maybe it was simple coincidence due to the timeline of Jaycee's return, but regardless of the reasons, the family taped their segment mere days before the tenth anniversary of Blaine's disappearance.

No mention was ever made of the suspicions that the police had placed on James and Pam. That public image debacle had been swept under the rug. Instead, Cooper, James, and Pam were told to remember the happy details of their life before Blaine was taken. To share anecdotes that made them smile.

She coached them through all the potentially tough questions she'd planned to ask, not wanting to retraumatize or alienate the family. It was as pleasant an experience as it could be, but it was anything but pleasant.

It was hard, sitting on the couch and talking about his little brother. Cooper felt like he'd been hit in the chest with a baseball bat. Ten years, and it still felt like yesterday. It was hard, watching the video that had been compiled – images from his childhood that he had erased from memory and home videos of Blaine.

But it didn't matter how hard it was. If it got more people looking for Blaine, then it was worth it.

After that, things went back to normal. Cooper didn't spend most of his time thinking about how his baby brother had been kidnapped back when he was fifteen. But inevitably, there would be the occasional bad day when it was all he could think of. Or, a person he met on set for a commercial or a small play he was doing would look at him deeply for a minute and then say, "Oh, didn't I see you on TV one time talking about an abducted kid?"

Usually, he didn't think of it at all. Not that he wanted to forget Blaine, but he'd only had a little brother for four years before he had been snatched away. He'd lived a much larger portion of his life as an only child, or at least as a brother-less child.

April 2011

Cooper moved into his first apartment on his own 18 months after his big breaks. He'd had a successful stint on the soap, which had led to more roles here and there. Most excitingly, the commercial had been huge and spawned several follow-ups. Each time his commercial aired, Cooper got a paycheck. It might not have been the glamorous Hollywood life he'd imagined at 19, but it was still exhilarating.

To celebrate Cooper's new home, Pam and James came out to LA for an extended vacation. They had two weeks of family time in sunny California, and after spending a few days in and around LA, they packed up the rental car and headed north to San Francisco.

Cooper knew that many people his age were over the whole family vacation thing. Perhaps it was because of their family tragedy, but Cooper never grew tired of his parents. Sure, they could annoy him like any good parents could, but he always felt an ache at living so far away.

They were waiting at Pier 33 to catch the ferry to Alcatraz Island. Cooper usually rolled his eyes and groaned at his father's insistence on the historical tours (a childhood series of Civil War Battlefield vacations had scarred him), but Alcatraz was at least pretty cool. For one thing, it was a former jail, not just a boring field. For another, there was some movie history there and Cooper was definitely a film buff.

Cooper and his dad shared a groan when they noticed the large crowd of high schoolers, apparently on a school trip with the same agenda.

"Great," Cooper muttered. "It looks like we're going to have to deal with a field trip, too."

"Oh, honey, you were once an annoying high schooler," his mom pointed out lightly. "You could go easy on them. They're just here to learn. I'm sure they'll be well-behaved."

"I was never annoying, mother," Cooper joked back. "I was a perfect child." It wasn't untrue. Sure, he'd caused a little mischief here and there and he had certainly been rambunctious as a kid. But after Blaine, he had done everything possible to not be troublesome, to not put more stress on his parents.

It was just their luck that they were on the same ferry as a group of the kids. Cooper tried to lead his parents as far from the kids as possible, but the kids were underfoot and inescapable.

While Cooper and Pam laughed at James as he became increasingly seasick and queasy on the short ride, Cooper felt a prickling on his neck. He turned around and noticed two teens immediately turn away and begin whispering, pointing at him and trying to subtly take a picture with their phones.

He chuckled. Sure, commercial fame wasn't what he'd been shooting for, but it didn't seem to matter to some people. If they've seen you on their TV, you're a star. These kids were probably just star-struck. Cooper decided that he was going to make their day.

The boy was looking down at his phone, but the girl saw Cooper as he approached. She lightly slapped her friend and Cooper heard her hiss a quiet, " Peter! " to get his attention. When the boy lifted his head and caught sight of Cooper, his eyes widened and jaw dropped.

"We are so sorry," the girl was saying, before Cooper could even open his mouth.

He chuckled. "It's fine. I was a teen once, too. Do you guys want a selfie?"

The two stared at each other in awe for a moment and then heartily nodded at Cooper.

Cooper grabbed the boy's phone, and quickly snapped the picture.

"Thanks so much!" the kids gushed.

"Really, it's no problem," Cooper said.

He looked at the kids again before turning back to rejoin his parents and paused. There was something that was holding him back. Something he felt like he had forgotten.

That same something made him turn around and say, "Hey, I bet if you tweet that pic, you'll get a ton of new followers. Tag me in it. At Cooper Anderson." He winked and turned away.