Five Days in Summer

three children he had drawn stacked on each other’s shoulders. David was on the bottom wearing his gi , eyes closed, standing on one leg, arms spread wide to demonstrate his balance; Sam was in the middle, loosely straddling David’s neck, spouting talk bubbles; Maxi was on the top, squeezing Sam’s head with her knees, grabbing a fistful of his hair with one hand, holding her velour bear in the other.
    “Do the kids know?” Will heard the steadiness of his own voice and recalled the moment he learned about his parents’ accident. He was chasing a basketball through the newly cut grass in his front yard — his father had mowed it just that morning — when Mrs. Simon from next door rushed across the driveway in her floral housedress and curled bluish hair. She was crying. When she picked him up he felt her tears sticky on his neck. The babysitter was in the yard with him and hadn’t heard the phone ring. Caroline had been reading on her bed and had not gotten up to answer it.
    “I pretended to talk to her on the phone,” Sarah said. “I didn’t know what to do.”
    “That’s good, don’t tell them. This is probably nothing, Sarah. She’ll walk in the door the minute we hang up. But just in case...”
    “You’ll come, Will?”
    Will had planned another long day at the restaurant tomorrow, so he could take time off for his interview on Wednesday, and most of the day Thursday to help get the boys to school in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon. It was a family tradition; the first day of every school year was a big deal, and he wouldn’t miss it.
    He drew a line with the blue marker between the stacked kids and the detective’s name.
    “I’ll call the detective right now. Then I’ll call you back. I’ll let you know what’s happening.”
    “I’ll wait.”
    “Sarah, call me the minute she gets there.”
    “Of course.”
    Will hung up the phone with the certainty that Emily was alive. She had to be. It was simply not possible for his soul to be swallowed up twice.
    Detective Al Snow answered on the third ring, in a pleasant voice, stating his own name in greeting: “Detective Snow, how can I help you?”
    “This is Will Parker. I’m calling because—”
    “Yes, Mr. Parker, I had a call from your mother.”
    “My mother-in-law. My wife’s mother. It’s about my wife.”
    “Mrs. Parker told me all about it.”
    “Mrs. Goodman called you. Mrs. Parker never came home.”
    The detective took a moment before speaking. “I’msorry, Mr. Parker. Yes, I have it written down right here.”
    “I’m calling because—”
    “I understand,” Detective Snow said in a tone that was mild but somehow firm, as if he had heard this all before. “I want you to know that nine times out of ten the missing party turns up. What I mean is, they turn out not to be missing at all.”
    “But it was eight hours ago,” Will said, “and she was on her way home.”
    “I understand, Mr. Parker. I took the report. It’s right here. She’s filed missing.”
    “Filed?”
    “It’s an open report, Mr. Parker. Not filed like in the cabinet. We’re looking into it.”
    Then why, Will’s mind raced — as it hit him, really hit him, that Emily might have vanished — are you sitting at your desk answering your phone? Talking to me?
    “Are the police out looking for my wife?”
    “Yes, we are, Mr. Parker, as we speak. But I can’t emphasize enough that these cases usually resolve themselves. That’s what we always tell the family so you don’t worry yourselves to death. That’s why it’s twenty-four hours before a person is officially missing.”
    Will didn’t like the but or the usually or the twenty-four hours . He said good-bye to the detective and hung up the phone, called Sarah and told her he was coming. Then he called Thrifty Car Rental down the block and asked for whatever they could have available quickest. It was a top-of-the-line SUV, and he booked it, figuring they were cashing in on the tension in his voice. He didn’t care. Even if he drove all night only to find Emily asleep in her bed, he had to go.
    It took six minutes to turn off the stove, toss thefood either into the fridge or the garbage, pack the basics in a canvas bag, and lock up the apartment; two minutes in the elevator; and half a minute to sprint down the block and get ripped off by the night shift at Thrifty. He shoved his wallet into his back pocket, tossed the bag onto the passenger seat and sped down West