Sandy looks over at his wife, who is sleeping in the passenger seat. In the back, Theresa is sleeping soundly as well. Sandy wonders why sleep comes to them so easily, when it has eluded him for the past three nights, a shadow dancing just out of his reach in the darkest hours of pitch-black mornings. The sun never seems to shine then, its all-mighty rays unable to penetrate the thick gloom of an unpromising, starless cloudy night.

They've been driving for fifty minutes now. Sandy's GPS speaks to him and dully he responds with the wheel, turning right onto North Haven Avenue. According to the built-in direction service that Sandy affectionately refers to as 'Denise', the hotel will be coming up on the left in 0.1 miles.

He can't help but wonder if he's doing the right thing, if they're doing the right thing. Once Petey has the proper materials for the tests, it will be a few days before the results come in, before Sandy and his family can sleep soundly.

Sandy had hesitated, coming to stay in Corona until the results were in, one, because if Seth called the house, he and Kirsten wouldn't be there to answer, and two, because...well, because Sandy himself wasn't quite sure he'd be able to handle the results—if the body was Ryan's—in person.

But the phone made things seem less real. And Sandy needed real. He needed concrete evidence delivered right into his hands, not his eardrums.

Denise speaks to Sandy, and he quickly makes a left as the Hilton Ontario Airport comes into view. He looks over at Kirsten, and cranes his head back to see a still-sleeping Theresa. Sandy doesn't want to wake them up but they can't sleep in the car all night.

"Kirsten, wake up." Sandy gently shakes his wife, who murmurs inarticulately and reluctantly opens her eyes. He gives her a shaky smile, remembering where—and why—they've driven to this hotel. "We're here."

Kirsten nods and closes her eyes for a moment, sighing. Sandy drives around the circle to the front entrance of the hotel, where young valets stop their overt gum-chewing and straighten their jackets.

Sandy turns around, smiling at Theresa. So carefree, without worry, that Sandy fears waking her, for in her waking hours Theresa is troubled, too troubled for a girl of her age.

"Wake up, Theresa." Sandy gentle prods Theresa. She opens her eyes immediately, she's scared. Her eyes soften to a knowing hue when she realizes that Sandy is there.

"How long have I been sleeping?" she asks, sitting up straight and unbuckling her seatbelt.

"Less than an hour," Sandy tells her. "Come on, let's get out of the car so we can go to sleep."

Theresa nods. Mr. Cohen always knows what to do. She wishes that she'd been the one the Cohens had taken in, because in the several months Ryan's been with them, Sandy's done him a lifetime of good.

Through sleep-clouded eyes dulled by the lackluster promise of a disappointing tomorrow, Theresa stands by as Sandy checks into the hotel. She allows herself to be led into the elevator and up to the seventh floor.

To her surprise, her bags are already on the suitcase stand by the window and her bed has been turned down for the night, a green-foiled chocolate mint lying on her pillow.

Sandy bids her goodnight and leaves her alone with Kirsten. Theresa is guided to her suitcase, where she grabs a large sleep-shirt—Ryan's, to be exact—and manages to change into it.

"The bed's over here, Theresa," laughs Kirsten tiredly, and takes Theresa by the elbow and gets her under the covers.

In her half-awake state, Theresa makes a mental note to thank Mrs. Cohen in the morning. The woman is a godsend, honestly. She must be entirely too exhausted and yet she's seeing Theresa to bed before she thinks of herself.

"Are you cold?" Kirsten asks, gently tucking the covers around Theresa's shoulders. Theresa shakes her head no. Kirsten hesitates, and then sits down on the edge of the bed and smoothes a lock of Theresa's hair off of her face. "Do you want me to sing to you?"

"Okay," mumbles Theresa. Kirsten feels like family to her. She's so warm and welcoming and not snobby like Theresa first imagined her to be. Kirsten is the mother Ryan never had growing up, the mother who isn't perfect and makes mistakes but she's human and that's the part of her that is so endearing.

And Kirsten begins to sing to Theresa, as if she were her own little girl. "Hush little baby don't say a word, Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird, and if that mocking bird won't sing, Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring, if that diamond ring turns brass, Mama's gonna buy you a looking glass..."

Theresa remembers her mother singing her Spanish melodies when she was three, four, five...Ryan singing to her while he helped her clean a scrape from falling out of a tree at age nine...Ryan singing outside of her window when they were twelve and she was mad at him for liking Maya Peters...her best girlfriends—admittedly though, Theresa had few—singing to her on her fourteenth birthday.

She remembers kissing Ryan while her jewelry box with the ballerina inside that twirled while a lullaby played was tinkling in the background. Every other memory fades away as Theresa slips off to her dreams, aided by the sweet, sure, hopeful voice of Kirsten Cohen.

As soon as Theresa begins to snore lightly, Kirsten turns off the light and heads back to her and Sandy's room, which is two doors down.

Sandy's already got the lights off when she comes in, but she can see his silhouette by the bay window.

His back is facing her but he speaks to her. "Ryan's out there somewhere, in that great big black hole of a night."

Kirsten joins Sandy at the window and gazes thoughtfully at the moon, brighter and closer than it's been in a month. She doesn't say anything, but hopes Ryan is somewhere out there too, watching the full moon on the clear night and thinking of her.

After a few minutes of silent contemplation, both Cohens decide it would be wise to get some sleep.

Sandy leans over and drowsily kisses his wife, who is sitting up in bed with her hands clasped together.

"We're going to find him. I can feel it in my bones," says Sandy, after Kirsten—equally drowsy—returns his sloppy, wet, chock-full-of-love kiss.

"Dear God, I hope you're right," Kirsten replies, sliding down and turning on her side to signal that she's ready to sleep.

"Me too," says Sandy, before letting his mind wander, "Me too."


Dolores busily dusts the unfinished wooden desk and the curtains shadowing her daughter's bed. She hasn't set foot into the room since the day Ryan left, but now there is much work to do. The air inside is hot and stifling, the lack of air conditioning ever present to nag at the nape of Dolores' neck.

She pauses, looks curiously at the freshly made bed, and shakes her head. Another wrinkle found in the bedspread; perfect grounds for re-starting the cleaning process and spending more time in the co-existing scents of Ryan and Theresa.

First, Dolores opens the windows, letting a gentle, unobtrusive breeze tickle her neck, sticky with the sweat of labor. The air is temperate, but feels cool in contrast to the trapped heat that lives in Dolores' house.

Like a lone butterfly in the sandlot by the elementary school the yellow curtains flutter languorously. The light wind rustling the curtains and a few unimportant letters of Theresa's lying on the desk, Dolores draws back the bedspread and begins to attempt perfection at making the bed once again.

Breeze picking up, Dolores feels almost hopeful. She begins to sing, plumping up the pillows just so before tucking them under Theresa's bedspread, with the faded flowers that seem to smile wearily, hopelessly from one too many wash cycles at Rita's Laundromat. She smoothes out the top cover and stands by the bed to admire her handiwork, seemingly satisfied.

The phone rings and Theresa hurries out of the room to answer it in the kitchen, because, while the phone in Theresa's room operates just fine, Dolores likes to busy herself in the kitchen while she has a caller on the line.

The wind blows a slightly crumpled piece of paper from underneath the desk. Gaily, it prances, aided by the draft, over towards the window, the ink-smudged words on Theresa's stationary.

It is not Theresa's handwriting that covers the paper.

The directions, phone numbers, and possible job opportunities that fill the page are written in small, neat but hurried man's print.

Wedged into the corner of the stationary in miniscule writing are two letters so small they are practically indivisible. The letters AZ might catch the eye of an observant reader.

Or perhaps they were two other letters at some point in time.

Dolores re-enters the room as the paper drifts to the floor, guided below the bed in a terribly wrong twist of fate. Her eye does not catch the paper on its way down, or under.

The way things were meant to be? With no one there to bear witness, maybe so.

She lifts the small wicker wastepaper basket easily from the floor and carries it out of the room. In the kitchen, she turns it upside-down and shakes its contents into a more capacious trashcan.

Dolores glances around pensively at her small, homely kitchen, the kitchen Theresa and Arturo and Ryan grew up in, eating ethnic home-cooked meals and squabbling good-naturedly.

A creased, dog-eared card clings to the side of the wastepaper basket momentarily, hanging on for dear life by a strand of putty-colored chewing gum. Dolores uninterestedly shakes the basket harder, and the card drops effortlessly this time into the kitchen trashcan.

If only Dolores had picked that card out herself, maybe her curiosity would've led her to read it. Now, nobody but the banana peels or the orange rinds will know what sort of offer, an invitation, one might say, a certain 'Sean' has extended towards a certain 'Ryan.' The card, dating back only a year and a half ago, will never be pored over by greedy eyes, searching for clues.

No, this is not how things were supposed to be, some might argue. But sometimes, when things slip right out of our grasp without us knowing, we are supposed to let them go.
"Honey, I'm going in the shower," yells Kirsten to Sandy, who is watching TV in bed, eyes not on Jerry Springer but on the idle telephone that lies on his nightstand, taunting him with its lack of activity.

"Okay," Sandy yells back. Kirsten pops her head out of the bathroom and shakes her head pitifully at Sandy. For the past two days he's been cooped up in bed, refusing to get up lest he's in dire need of the toilet.

They've delivered the materials necessary for the tests and now all there is left to do is wait. And wait. And wait.

Kirsten takes a long, steamy shower, swiveling the shower spigot so that different combinations of water burrow into her skin, making the lightly tanned, toned flesh ache.

She tries to concentrate on the hot water flushing her cheeks but her mind refuses to stray from her two sons. And their whereabouts. Of which, Kirsten has no idea. And it makes her want to scream. This just isn't fair. What did she do to deserve this, to deserve losing both of her sons?

A small cry of anguish escapes her lips, and Kirsten can hear Sandy yelling through the locked bathroom door to see if she's okay, but she remains silent. This feeling—of being slicked away by a boiling stream of water—it doesn't feel too unreasonable, too out of reach, right now.

Once Kirsten's gotten out of the shower with reddened skin that burns when she towels off, she dresses in a simple pale rose tank top and white linen capris. Her feet effortlessly slide into rose sandals with a kitten heel, and she walks out of the hotel room.

Kirsten knocks on Theresa's door. The girl answers it, purple bags under her eyes and a fluffy white hotel robe wrapped tightly around her drained skin. It's obvious the girl hasn't been out of her room. She's politely declined the Cohens' invitations to dine out and to go see movies while they wait for the results, opting instead to mope about her hotel room, curtains drawn and the bare minimum of lights casting shadows along the walls.

She's not quite sure what she's doing here, or what she's going to say to the girl, but something needs to be said and soon.

"Can I come in?" Theresa nods and steps away from the door so Kirsten can enter the room. The first thing Kirsten does is turn on a few lights, because, quite frankly, the mood Theresa has set is gloomy and downright depressing. Those are two things Kirsten could use a lot less of in her life right now.

Theresa sits down on the king-sized bed in her room, curls up in her bathrobe. She's miserable, in case anyone missed that memo. Ryan is gone. It's only just hit her again, but he's gone. She may not have been the dynamite, but she was definitely that one last piece of string eaten by a hungry flame before the explosion.

Ryan is gone. If only she hadn't bothered him so much about that damned screen door. It was just a screen door, after all. If only she hadn't gone to Newport and lured him into temptation and a stupid one-night-stand...oh...the abortion...Eddie...

"Theresa, honey, look at me." Kirsten tilts Theresa's chin upwards so she's staring her straight in the eye. "Theresa, you look terrible."

"I feel ten times worse," says Theresa quietly, but not too quietly. Kirsten nods her head and hugs Theresa, the younger girl's head resting against her chest. Theresa hiccups and feels tears welling up in her eyes and a lone sob escapes her throat, rubbed dry from crying so much.

"Theresa, why don't you go see your mother today? I'm sure she's been missing you greatly and you probably want to get some fresh clothes," Kirsten suggests. Theresa nods, although she wants nothing more than to sit, sheathed in darkness, alone in this very room until the results of the tests are in.

"I'll go get dressed," Theresa says, after a few moments of silence in which she's calmed down a bit. She removes herself from Kirsten's embrace and goes over to her suitcase, taking out a pair of well-worn jeans and the first tank top her hands can grab.

"Do you need Sandy or me to drive you?" asks Kirsten. Theresa nods.

"That would be great...if it's not too much of a burden. I mean, I can take the bus—"

"Theresa," Kirsten interrupts, "Don't do that. You know you're not a burden...don't be in the same mindset as Ryan..." She trails off suddenly, looks away from Theresa. Theresa can see tears gathering in the corner of Kirsten's eye and the woman angrily bats them away. Having composed herself, Kirsten turns back to Theresa. "I'm sorry. Are you ready?"

Theresa's small black suitcase fits easily into the trunk of the car. She sits up front with Kirsten, who cuts the half hour drive in two, managing to pull up in front of Theresa's house in fifteen minutes. It helps that it's not even eleven in the morning, a slow time for traffic around here.

Kirsten carries Theresa's suitcase to the front door. Theresa opens the screen door and feels a pang of regret against her heart. That damned screen door still isn't fixed, although by this point Theresa couldn't care less if it squeaks and is ripped in a few places. Oh, of course she cares, but she cares more about Ryan. Finding him—alive, is at the top of her to-do list, not getting a stupid door repaired.

Dolores meets them inside the house. She's in the kitchen, stirring a small pot of stew at the stove. She turns and her eyes light up when she sees Theresa and Kirsten.

"Theresa!" Dolores, also with bags under her eyes but not a bruised purple like Theresa's, squeezes Theresa tightly.

"Ma, ma," squeaks Theresa, "I can't breathe."

Dolores lets her daughter go and stares at her curiously for an uncomfortable few seconds. "You look pale." She puts her hand on her daughter's forehead. "Are you getting enough sleep?"

"Yes, Ma." Theresa nods her head unconvincingly. All three women know that Theresa has tossed and turned until the wee hours of the morning since Ryan's disappearance. Dolores clucks her tongue. "All this for that..."

"Ma..." warns Theresa, "Don't you dare say it." Dolores fixates her eyes on Theresa, a steely glare, but bows her head and refocuses her attention on the simmering stew.

"Theresa, I'm going to go. Why don't you call us at the hotel when you want to come back?" Kirsten, slightly unnerved by Dolores' lack of friendliness, feels that it's time to go. She's sure Dolores has a reason for not being very hospitable. After all, Kirsten did 'borrow' Theresa from the old woman, who is probably struggling to get by without her almost-grown daughter to help her out.

Theresa stiffly hugs Kirsten, all traces of emotion gone from her face now. The girl looks like she might pass out any minute now, that, or break down in tears. Kirsten wants to get back to the hotel, back to Sandy and back to the phone, every second closer to the moment of truth.

"Thank you," she whispers into Kirsten's ear, offering her just the slightest of smiles—two corners of a mouth curving upwards.

Once Kirsten's gone, Theresa turns to her mother. "Ma, why were you so rude?"

"What are you talking about, Theresa?"

"Ma!" Theresa shouts exasperatedly. She wants to be done with this so she can go to sleep in her own room, in her own bed still layered with the faintest traces of Ryan.

"I have nothing to say to the woman. It would be awkward anyways."

"You could have said hello, at least! Forget it, Ma. I'm going to sleep." Theresa storms off to her room.

"I expect you over at Mr. Gonzalez's later. You owe the man a visit," shouts Dolores from the kitchen. "I'd really prefer if you went now."

"I'll go later, Ma, I'm tired."

Theresa can hear her mother clucking her tongue in the kitchen, probably muttering about how she has such a lack of respect for her elders. Theresa doesn't care at this point. She walks into her room, the windows open and a slight breeze cooling her nerves. Theresa looks around the room, looking for something to remind her of Ryan. She just needs one thing to trigger the happy memories and then she'll be able to sleep.

After looking in the drawers and being less-than-satisfied with Ryan's present-day clothes, Theresa remembers the box of old photos and mementos from junior high she'd stashed under the bed in ninth grade.

Bending down on her hands and knees, Theresa's back throbs with a dull pain. She lifts up the bed-skirt and peers beneath the bed. In the darkest corner nearest the window a crumpled up sheet of paper sits with the dust bunnies Dolores always misses when she cleans.

But Theresa does not set sight on this paper, so her curiously is not drawn to it; she spots the box she's been looking for right below the sagging center of her bed. Pulling it out, Theresa coaxes quite a few dust bunnies out from their hiding spaces. She sneezes twice and then opens the box excitedly.

As Theresa pores over movie stubs, Polaroid pictures, Popsicle sticks stained with the formerly sticky red syrup on a hot summer's afternoon, and the like, the crumpled paper sits not quite so innocently under her bed, unseen by prying eyes yet again—the second close call in a matter of days.

The way things were meant to be? Perhaps...or maybe this pen-covered paper is bound for great things...in time.
"Mr. Gonzalez, it's Theresa, open up!" Theresa pounds impatiently on her neighbor's front door. Her mother jarred her from a pleasant sleep, in the midst of a dream of the summer before eighth grade. Chiding Theresa as usual, Dolores demanded she go over to Mr. Gonzalez's house to see how he was doing.

So Theresa stands on his front stoop, waiting for Mr. Gonzalez to open the door but hoping he'll sleep through the knocks or perhaps isn't even house—though she knows this is highly unlikely. Mr. Gonzalez is always home. Always.

Theresa turns, after another minute or so, and walks down the steps. She's cutting across the lawns back to her house when a voice halts her.

"Where do you think you're going?" Theresa turns around and Mr. Gonzalez is standing by his front door, smiling that crooked grin of his at her.

She forces her teeth out in an effort to smile back and walks towards his house again.

"I thought maybe you'd gone out for the day," Theresa says.

Mr. Gonzalez laughs knowingly. "Theresa," he says, shaking his head, "When do I ever leave this house?"

Theresa laughs along with Mr. Gonzalez as he ushers her into his house. "What brings you here today?" he asks. He takes his usual seat in the torn overstuffed armchair, seemingly more faded and aged than before. And Theresa isn't just noticing the chair.

"I'm home for the day and I wanted to know if you needed anything from the store." The truth is, besides the fact that her mother forced her to come, Theresa wants information on Ryan. She knows that Mr. Gonzalez must have heard something from Ryan, because the two were quite close and Ryan is thoughtful like that. Maybe Ryan knows that Theresa will undoubtedly ask Mr. Gonzalez if he's heard from him and...

"Actually, I do." Mr. Gonzalez smiles and Theresa can tell from his tone of voice that he's grateful she stopped by. "List's in the kitchen." Theresa goes into the kitchen and spots the shopping list right away, lying helpfully on the counter with an envelope full of one and ten dollar bills.

"Mr. Gonzalez," Theresa calls, wanting to ask him about Ryan. She takes a deep breath and musters up just enough courage, "Have you heard from Ryan?"

The old man is silent for a moment and Theresa doesn't know what to think. Has he heard from Ryan or is he sleeping or thinking? She mentally slaps herself; she's getting too worked up and paranoid about every little nuance in her life. Not everything means something, Theresa decides. Not every sigh, every pause, can be deciphered into a hidden meaning of Ryan's whereabouts or just him in general.

"Maybe I have," the old man speaks slowly and deliberately, "and maybe I haven't. Theresa, all I can say is, do not worry about the boy."

Theresa's not quite sure whether it would be appropriate to laugh, cry, or shake Mr. Gonzalez until the whole story comes spilling out but she's pretty sure that Mr. Gonzalez has just informed her loud and clear: Ryan is alive and well.

Unless of course, he's a little loopy and not all there, which is what Theresa and Ryan used to think back when they didn't have to worry about missing persons and DNA tests and the like.

Theresa decides that, while she has faith in the veracity of Mr. Gonzalez's words, she should not get her hopes up—at least not quite so high. Yet.

"I'm going out," says Theresa wisely, dropping the subject. "I should be back within the hour, Mr. Gonzalez."

"Always knew you were a smart girl," she can hear Mr. Gonzalez saying as she exits his house.
The cashier lazily snaps her gum as she scans each item Theresa has dutifully gotten for Mr. Gonzalez. She looks up at the cashier and recognizes the girl after staring hard at her.

"Maria?" Theresa asks dubiously.

The girl looks at Theresa. "Theresa? That you?" Theresa nods her head happily and the two girls share a hug over the groceries.

"How are you?" asks Theresa, as Maria stops bagging groceries for a moment.

Maria shrugs half-heartedly. "Okay. I'm still with Greg." She holds up her ring finger and displays a small diamond set into gold.

"Wow! Congratulations," Theresa exclaims sincerely. "How long have you been...?"

"A year. Ma wants me to wait until I'm nineteen before we get married. Greg doesn't care either way, really, long as we're married soon. But enough about me. How's Ryan?"

Theresa looks at Maria. Ryan. Before she can control herself, tears start to well up in Theresa's eyes and she blinks furiously.

Maria looks confused. "Did I say something wrong? Is it Eddie now? I never knew which one of those two you was with, Theresa."

Theresa waves away the questions with her hand. Sniffing, she assures Maria, "No, it's nothing. It's just...nothing. Sorry." Determinedly she wipes her eyes with her bare arm and hands over the money for the groceries. "Thanks."

"Sorry," Maria says, while Theresa maneuvers three grocery bags in each hand and one under her armpit. "Sorry. It was good to see you."

Theresa manages to nod her head before she quickly walks away from Maria. She's so embarrassed at her behavior. All Maria did was mention Ryan's name...and if he and Theresa were together...nothing big. Theresa is a big girl. She can handle things like this, or so she thought.

"Wait, Theresa, you forgot the change!" Maria calls after Theresa's hastily retreating figure.

"Keep it, Maria," Theresa insists, walking out of the grocery store.

She teeters halfway down the block before the groceries spill out of her hands and more tears threaten to spill out of her eyes. Sinking down on the rough concrete Theresa hunches over, huddling in close to her knees, crying. She's acting like a baby, and can only imagine what her mother would say if she saw Theresa like this. Dolores isn't around though, and Theresa's past the caring point.

She wants to be numb, to not feel anything, because then, losing Ryan won't be her fault anymore, because it won't feel like it.

The groceries are everywhere and Theresa's sure the eggs are broken, ruined, and she's going to have to replace them with her own money.

"Hey, there, don't cry." Theresa hears a familiar voice behind her but can't connect it to a face; it's definitely been a while since she's hung around with the characters she grew up with. She opens her eyes, the bright afternoon sun cruelly dancing spots before her. Theresa closes her eyes and squeezes them tightly. When she reopens them Juan is standing before her.

Good old Juan. Theresa smiles. He's always been there for her throughout the years, even when she was just Arturo's little crybaby sister.

He bends down and begins to pick up the groceries from the sidewalk and replacing them in bags.

"What happened?" asks Juan as he works. Theresa feels terrible that she's not helping him pick up the fallen groceries, but right now she's not finished crying.

"It's stupid," Theresa sniffs, "You'll only laugh at me."

"Hey." Juan stops in the middle of bagging a head of lettuce and puts his hand on Theresa's shoulder. "I'd never laugh at you for something that could make you this...upset."

Theresa really has grown up externally, thinks Juan, but on the inside, she's young and uncertain.

"I was...someone in the grocery store asked me if I was still with Ryan and I—I guess that kind of just set me off...and now I'm a mess." Theresa chokes on a few of the words. She lets one more tear fall, before wiping her eyes and straightening up her face.

"That's not stupid at all," Juan reassures Theresa. "I know you miss him and it's got to be hard on you, not knowing where he is and all...but enough of that. Let's get you home and then we'll go out for ice cream or something, kay?"

Theresa nods. Juan smiles, his teeth glittering in the noonday sun. Those white teeth are strangely attractive to Theresa...oh, she shouldn't be thinking of things like these when her...Ryan—he's not hers but he's Ryan—is missing.

She lets Juan help her to her feet and tries to carry a few of the grocery bags, but Juan insists on lugging all of them to Mr. Gonzalez's house.

He's not a bad guy, Juan, decides Theresa as she walks back with him, her packages in his arms.