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Show All the Variables & Other Love Stories 22 Half an hour after I'd come outside they were ready to start and Dad volunteered to get him. He came out alone, shrugging as he crossed the lawn. "I can't find him," Dad said, "he ain't in there." "Did you try Sheila's room," I offered. He nodded. Sheila's brother asked who saw him last. Mom told him, and everyone turned to me. "He was sitting on Sheila's bed buttoning his cuff-links," I said. Sheila's older sister yawned. Half a dozen calls were made to his cell-phone but they went directly to voicemail. Both immediate families were on the hunt. Eventually everyone in attendance was looking for Brandon. Sheila herself noticed his car was gone. Mom called the house. No one answered. Dad drove home and came back alone. He didn't bother to call ahead-by then it was apparent what had happened. The children were restless and games of tag and kick the can broke out in the yard. Sheila and Mom cried together, Sheila's mother cried apart. Sheila's sisters in their matching peach bridesmaid's dresses took turns squeezing the crying women. The men on Sheila's side congregated together and began picking lint from their suits, preening like birds in the pre-gloaming light. Sheila's dad stood apart from them, arms folded, jaw set mercilessly to seethe. Dad, for his part, paced. From time to time he wrinkled his brow like a bloodhound, huffed, ran his hands through his thinning hair, and took a deep breath. Then he looked around like he didn't know where he was and paced some more. He was trying not to feel sorry for himself, I could tell. At sunset my relations started filtering out and I started feeling less and less welcome in the yard. Dad apparently felt it too; he told me to get my mother, we're going home. |
