The sheriff didn’t know if it was the clipboard. The handshake. Or the free parking ticket, which always felt like more than the $35 it actually was. But it did the trick. The mother beamed with pride, and the father patted his daughter’s shoulder as if she were the son he would have preferred. Mary Katherine looked down instead of relieved, which instantly told the sheriff that the girl was lying about being early. But after saving a little boy, she deserved to keep her license.
“Thank you, Mary Katherine,” he said, then added a little something to ease the girl’s guilt. “You did a real good thing. God knows that.”
Once he left the MacNeil family, the sheriff walked down the hall to check in on Christopher and his mother. When he looked at her holding her sleeping boy, he had the strangest thought. In the split second before his job kicked in, he realized that he had never seen anyone love more than that woman loved that little boy. He wondered what it would be like to be held like that instead of chastised by an aunt about what a burden he was. He wondered what it would feel like to be loved. Even a little bit. By her.
Dr. Karen Shelton: What made you walk into the woods, Christopher?
Christopher: I don’t know.
Dr. Karen Shelton: Do you remember anything about those six days?
Christopher: No.
The sheriff walked under a canopy of branches on his way to the clearing. The thick trees blocked out the light. Even in the daytime, he needed his flashlight. His feet snapped the twigs like wishbones at his mother’s Thanksgiving table. God rest her soul.
snap.
The sheriff turned around and saw a deer watching him from a distance. For a moment, the sheriff didn’t move. He just watched this peaceful creature study him. The sheriff took a step, and the deer ran in the other direction. The sheriff smiled and kept walking.
Finally, he reached the clearing.
The sheriff looked up and saw the beautiful autumn sun. He slowly walked the scene, looking for any evidence of Christopher’s story. But there were no twigs snapped or broken. There were no footprints except for Christopher’s.
The sheriff kicked at the dirt.
Looking for trapdoors.
Looking for hidden passages inside the coal mine.
But there was nothing.
Just a single tree and a whole lot of questions.
Dr. Karen Shelton: I’m sorry your head hurts, Christopher. I only have one more question, then you can stop. Okay?
Christopher: Okay.
Dr. Karen Shelton: If you never saw his face…what makes you think he was a nice man?
Christopher: Because he saved my life.
The sheriff pressed STOP on the tape. He left the woods and drove back to the hospital. He parked in the space reserved for law enforcement, right next to the ambulance. Then, he walked the familiar hallway to Christopher Reese’s room. He saw Christopher’s mother at her son’s side. But she did not look like the sleep-deprived woman he had known for close to a week. Her hair was no longer in a ponytail. Her sweatpants and hoodie were replaced by jeans and a blazer. If he weren’t so focused on his work, she might have taken his breath away.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Reese?” the sheriff asked after a soft knock on the door. “I just got back from the woods. Do you have a minute?”
She sat up quietly and led him to the waiting room to let Christopher sleep.
“What did you find, Sheriff?”
“Nothing. Look, I promise I’ll have my deputies comb the woods again, but I’m almost positive they’ll confirm what my gut is telling me.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“Maybe it was a combination of malnourishment and dehydration. Whatever it was, ma’am, in my professional opinion, there was no nice man. Just a scared little boy who got lost and in his desperation, saw something that he turned into an imaginary friend of sorts. How else can you explain no footprints other than Christopher’s? On the bright side, Dr. Shelton said that imagination like his is a sign of extreme intelligence,” he said, trying to be nice.
“Tell that to his teachers,” she joked.
“Will do,” he joked back.
“But you’ll keep your eyes open,” she said more than asked.
“Of course. I’ll have those woods patrolled every day. If we find anything, you’ll be my first call.”
“Thank you, Sheriff. For everything.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
With that, Kate Reese smiled and went back to being Christopher’s mother. As the sheriff watched her return to her son’s room, he remembered her back in August. He was having lunch with his deputy when she brought Christopher to the little swing set in the park and asked them to watch her son. The thing that struck him was that she only asked after she quickly looked at their sandwiches with one bite each and concluded that she had at least thirty minutes of premium babysitting time by two policemen. Nothing safer than that. So, whether she was educated or not, the sheriff knew that she was smart. And he didn’t need her change of clothes to know she was beautiful. The sheriff promised himself he would give the case time to be closed properly, then he would ask Kate Reese to dinner. And he hoped she would wear that beautiful blazer. The one with the tear under the arm that she tried so desperately to hide.
Chapter 10
Christopher was staring out of the window when Kate entered the room. She had seen his father do the same thing many moons ago. And for a moment, she forgot about the hospital and thought about his future. He would look more like his father every day. And one day, his voice would change. And one day, he would be taller than her. It was unreal to think that Christopher would start shaving his face in six years. But he would. As all boys do. And it was her job to make sure he would be as good a man as he was a boy.
That and to protect him.
He turned and smiled at her. Her hand found his, and she whispered while she talked. Like a secret.
“Hey, honey. I have a surprise for you.”
As she reached into her purse, she saw his eyes light up. She knew her son well enough to sense his little prayer to Jesus and Mary that she was pulling out a box of Froot Loops. It had been days of hospital food. Days of his second-worst nemesis. Oatmeal.
“It’s from the school,” she continued and watched his heart sink.
Instead of Froot Loops, Christopher’s mother pulled out a big white envelope and handed it to him. They opened it together and saw Bad Cat eating the words “Get well soon” off the front of a huge greeting card.
“Your whole class signed it. Isn’t that nice?”
Christopher said nothing, but somewhere in his eyes, she could see that he understood that all the kids were forced to sign the greeting card, like how they were forced to give Valentines to everyone so no one would feel left out. But still, he smiled.
“Father Tom had the church say a prayer for you on Sunday. Isn’t that nice of him?”
Her boy nodded.
“Oh, and I almost forgot,” she said. “I got you a little something, too.”
Then, she reached into her purse and pulled out a little box of Froot Loops.
“Thanks, Mom!” he said.
It was one of those wax-lined boxes that didn’t need a bowl. He greedily broke it open while she took out a plastic spoon and milk from the cafeteria. When he started eating it, she would have thought he was feasting on Maine lobster.