“But you did it.”
“Yes.”
I heard sirens.
Diane looked toward the street.
Her face changed.
“What happened Sunday?”
I demanded.
“He didn’t come back.”
“When did you call Evan?”
“Saturday.”
“What did he say?”
“That Noah was fine.”
“Sunday?”
“He stopped answering.”
“And you still said nothing.”
She started crying harder.
“I panicked.”
I stared at her.
“You panicked.”
“I realized what I’d helped him do.”
“So you protected yourself.”
“I was afraid they would say I’d helped kidnap him.”
“You did.”
“I didn’t know he was taking him permanently.”
“But afterward you knew he hadn’t returned him.”
“Yes.”
“How many days before you understood?”
She whispered:
“Two.”
Two.
For twenty-one of the twenty-three days my son had been missing, Diane knew he had left with his father.
She watched police search storm drains.
She watched volunteers walk wooded trails.
She helped me tape Noah’s photograph onto telephone poles.
