Jack

I couldn’t play with Jonny that day.  His mother came to the door and looked so tired, so dead, and said that you couldn’t come out and play.  I ran all the way home.

I didn’t dare come back.

            He came and visited me a little while later, though, and explained that he hadn’t come out because his sister had left.  I asked where she had left to, and he hit me.  He’d never hit me before, and I was so surprised that I just stood there, holding my cheek.  I tried very hard not to cry, but it was okay because he cried first.  He sat down in the dirt and hid his head under his arms and shook with sobs.  He said he didn’t mean to hit me.  He said he didn’t know where his sister had gone, and maybe he’d never know.  He told me his mother didn’t look for her.

            He told me a lot of things that day.  Some I don’t remember any more, and some I remember too well.  He told me that you were quiet, so very quiet the days before you left.  He told me he heard you, across the hall, tell Rachela that you were getting a snack.  He, just like Rachela, believed you and fell back asleep.

It was the last time he was able to sleep so easily.

You never came back upstairs.

And he doesn’t know if you’re going to come back at all.

And he’s scared.