Chapter 2 - What Micah Did for Three Days
Elsie was severely dehydrated.
Her blood sugar was dangerously low.
She also had a stomach virus that would probably have been manageable under ordinary circumstances.
Nothing about the circumstances had been ordinary.
At the hospital, fluids went into her arm while I sat beside the bed feeling as though every decision I had made since divorcing Delaney was lined up behind me for inspection.
Elsie woke briefly after treatment began.
“Daddy?”
“I’m here.”
“Micah?”
“Right here.”
Micah was sitting in another hospital bed across the room because the ER team wanted him checked too.
He was dehydrated.
His feet were scraped.
His stomach hurt.
Otherwise he was physically stable.
Emotionally was another question.
A social worker named Joanna Bell interviewed him carefully.
I was not allowed to sit there coaching him.
That frustrated me for approximately ten seconds before I understood why.
They needed his memories.
Not mine.
Later, Joanna explained enough for me to understand what happened.
Delaney left Thursday afternoon.
Before leaving, she put two bowls of dry cereal on the coffee table.
She told Micah there were snacks in the pantry.
“She said she was coming back after one sleep,” Joanna told me.
“She didn’t?”
“No.”
Micah said Delaney called through an old tablet Thursday night.
She told him there had been a problem at the lake and she would return in the morning.
Friday morning became Friday night.
The tablet battery died.
Micah did not know the charger was in Delaney’s bedroom.
He had been told not to go in there.
The children finished the crackers, cereal bars, and applesauce pouches in the pantry.
Friday afternoon Elsie started vomiting.
Micah gave her water.
Then juice.
Then he stopped giving her much because she kept getting sick.
He did not know dehydration could make her worse.
He was six.
He knew only that his mother said she would come back.
He waited.
Saturday morning, he tried the front door.
Delaney had told him never to leave the house alone.
He opened it anyway.
Then the security alarm started beeping.
He became frightened and shut it.
He did not know the code.
The system reset before sounding externally because Delaney had placed it in home mode.
He returned to Elsie.
At some point Saturday, he found a bag of pretzels beneath the couch.
He gave most of them to his sister.
She ate two.
By Sunday morning, she stopped answering him normally.
That was when I walked through the door.
I sat beside his hospital bed after the interview.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
His eyes filled.
“Mom said not to.”
“Why?”
“She said you’d get mad.”
“At you?”
He nodded.
“For calling.”
My chest tightened.
“I would never be mad at you for asking me for help.”
He looked uncertain.
That hurt more than if he had accused me.
“Did I ever say that?”
“No.”
“Then why did you believe it?”
He stared at the pillow in his lap.
“Mom said you didn’t want us this week.”
I stopped breathing.
“What?”
“She said you had important work.”
I had been in Atlanta for two nights.
That part was true.
I was scheduled to fly home Friday afternoon.
Delaney knew that.
Friday morning she texted:
My mom wants the kids through Sunday. Don’t rush back.
I changed my flight to Saturday evening.
Then a client asked me to stay for dinner, so I drove back Sunday morning instead.
One text.
One choice.
One extra day.
I kept staring at Micah.
“Did Mom tell you where she was going?”
“The lake.”
“With Grandma?”
He shook his head.
“She said Grandma already went.”
Delaney’s mother, Susan Price, lived in Murfreesboro.
She did not own a lake house.
She borrowed a friend’s cabin occasionally.
I called her from the hallway.
Susan answered immediately.
“Rowan?”
“Were the kids with you this weekend?”
Silence.
“Were they supposed to be?”
Another silence.
Then:
“Delaney told me you had them.”
The floor seemed to move.
My ex-wife had told each adult the children were with the other.
May you like
And then she disappeared.
The gold wristband and hotel keycard were no longer evidence of a simple lie about a weekend trip.
