The Never List

stopping Sylvia once she got something in her head. She was twenty when she left, so it was hard for us to tell her what to do.” He shook his head. “I’d hoped she’d at least finish up at the junior college first, though.”
    “What was she studying?” asked Tracy.
    Erline sighed, “Religion. It was all she cared about then. I could see it was taking over her, and it didn’t seem healthy for a girl her age. But you know, everyone has to find their own way. You can’t live their lives for them.”
    “But it was too much,” Dan continued. “Praying all the time, going to religious revivals, church lock-ins, all that stuff. At first I thought maybe she was in love with the young preacher over at Sweetwater. He was a good enough man, despite his profession.” He tried to muster a laugh. “But then he up and married Sue Teneval, over from Andalusia.”
    Dan and Erline stared off in different directions, reflecting on their daughter, I supposed. I wondered exactly what she had found at those terminals in the public library.
    Then Erline pulled herself back from her thoughts and said, “But I’m being so rude. You ladies must have come pretty far from civilization to make it all the way out here. Can I invite you to supper?”
    Tracy nodded almost imperceptibly at me as I thanked Erline for her hospitality.
    While Erline prepared dinner, Dan gave us a little tour of the farm. We stepped out into the still-sweltering heat to explore the land where Sylvia had been raised. I somehow hoped I would be able to sense a kinship with her, seeing these fields where she’d spent her youth, where she’d dreamed of her future.
    As Tracy and I looked out over the rolling hills, Dan took out a small pocketknife and picked up a stick. He started whittling it, his head down, ignoring the gorgeous sunset that was starting off on the horizon. Finally, he spoke.
    “She was a bright girl, our Sylvia. The school said they’d never seen a student score so high on those standardized tests they gave. And she was a delight to be around, warm and helpful and full oflove. It all changed when she hit her teens. People always said it would. We didn’t believe them. We figured she’d go off to some fancy college, and maybe she’d even live someplace like New York City, or even Europe. That we would have been able to handle, even if it meant not seeing her all the time. That’s what we expected. But we never expected the way things turned out.”
    “How did it all begin, Mr. Dunham?” I asked.
    He went quiet for a moment, holding the stick up close to his face, examining his handiwork.
    “The religion thing started her senior year of high school. She would talk to us about it at first—wanting to have deep, philosophical conversations. It really wasn’t my sort of thing, I told her. But I realized if I didn’t discuss it with her, she would shut me out forever. So I went to the library and checked out a bunch of books. I fell asleep most nights trying to get through all of it.
    “I only started to worry when she got on the Internet. Soon she was telling us about her ‘religious leader.’ I didn’t know what was really at the root of it. Was it some sort of scam? Were they trying to get money? But she didn’t have any money, and neither did we.”
    He tossed aside the first stick, its point now fine, and picked up another.
    “She drifted further and further away from us. Barely talking at the dinner table, which had always been the heart of our family life.
    “By the time she physically left, she’d really been gone for quite a while. She finally did pack up her bags, though. Told us she was meeting her leader down at the depot in town, and not to worry, she would stay in touch. We tried to go with her, but she wouldn’t have it. She seemed panicked at the suggestion. So we let her go.”
    “She left us with only her e-mail address. I set up an account that day, with the librarian’s help. She did e-mail us back a few times, but they trailed off very quickly.”
    “Did she … did she write to you when she got married?” I asked tentatively, sure that would touch a nerve but hoping he knew something specific.
    He shook his head.
    “We hadn’t heard anything from her for two years, and then, when we did, it wasn’t from her. It was in the newspaper. Saying she had been writing these letters to a man in jail, and that she was marrying him. When we looked into it and found out who this man was, Erline just