Chapter 3 Some Kind Of Hope

CHAPTER THREE

Some Kind of Hope

The tiny little handcrafted earring sat in my hand encrusted with dirt. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was definitely Sid's, I know, I bought it for her. She was wearing them the day she went missing too; they were a favorite of hers. The light copper colored metal with a ribbed texture overlapped by little shiny metal loops that delicately dangled in contrast to the darker copper were made here in a local store, they were one of a kind….and they were….here. Involuntarily, my heart and mind started racing. Was Sid here? Somewhere near? Had she been here for some reason before she went missing? After she went missing? Did this mean for certain that she was alive…..OH GOD…did someone bury her here? I started digging frantically at the spot with my own hands before I realized I was being foolish…..aside from a few inches of loose dirt on the top, the ground here was obviously undisturbed. But she HAD at least been here since the last time that he saw her, they hadn't come to their spot that day…..they had been in town the whole afternoon and evening. I looked over the earring with great care for any detail that might tell me how long it had been there…..there really wasn't much….except that copper rusts fairly easily…maybe it hadn't been here long at all, the copper background of the earring was perfectly shiny and entact….no rust…which means, maybe, that it hadn't gotten very wet, so maybe it hadn't seen rain. It rained just this past Friday. It was Monday…..Sid could have been here as recently as the last couple of days….. the time isn't a certain thing, but there was no way this earring had been here a whole year. "With as much time as I spend and have spent here"�"he thought out loud�""I would have found it by now right?"

I jumped up, intent on telling the Welsh's about what I'd found and alerting the police….but was it really fair to them…..I knew the torment, the mental anguish of going back and forth….ALIVE or GONE…I should just bring her home, that was the right thing to do. The police case had closed quite some time ago, the was the off chance I was wrong about the earrings that she was wearing the last day I saw her….and in that case I was chasing a dead end….but still I think she would have said if she lost them, she loved them so much….I felt pretty sure that this meant something, that it would lead somehow to finding my Sidney….but it wouldn't be fair to break anyone else's heart if I was wrong. I needed to do this alone; after all I'd lost her all on my own.

I spent the rest of the morning looking for any traces of anything else belonging to Sid, the other earring, a hair pin, anything…..I dug through all the loose dirt, combed the paths we walked over and over, and turned up completely and utterly empty-handed….but I still had her earring. I needed to head back to the Welsh household and pick up Marcus, so I headed back to my dirty old truck with a newfound hope and a reinforced state of vigilance.

Seeing Marcus was tough….I almost wanted to crack and tell him I thought his sister was alive. I looked at his defeated slumped shoulders and down casted eyes as he approached the truck with his bike. I put on my best, most cheery smile and said "Hey!"….I am not an Oscar-worthy actor, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm sure Marcus knew that I was trying for him, and maybe he might try for himself to feel a little better. I helped him load the bike into the back of my truck, the tail-gate is stuck and doesn't come down, so it probably was a two person job. After he shut his door I cranked on one of the few radio stations that this town can actually receive. It was CCR, "Bad Moon On the Rise", it was a fun song…..well it was a cool song and it sort of fit half way between Marcus's melancholy mood and my new found sense of determination to accomplish something against all odds.

The road to B&D is boring, and I couldn't think of a lot to talk about, which was okay, because Marcus couldn't either….damn I was really not helping him out any by sitting in silence. Okay….so girls…no…..not appropriate, sports….other than his bike Marcus is the most athletically challenged individual you could ever meet, so scratch that…..ahhh…movies. "So, Marcus…..did you see that new action movie with Will Smith…..he lands on earth, when it's ya know…not really an inhabitable planet anymore?" Yeah….I guess that wasn't a suave and naturally flowing as I was going for. Marcus laughs at my attempt. "Ya know", he says, "I know you hurt as bad as I do, you don't have to try to be cheerful either…..it isn't your responsibility to make everyone else feel better, you lost someone too." At this, I do break….I have to tell her family…starting with Marcus, who was just as sincere and candid with me as he could possibly be. "huuuughhh" I let out a heavy sigh, this is nerve-wracking, if I'm wrong about this being a clue to finding her, if I don't find her after I tell them about this…I let everyone down. Well, I've never like a gamble, but hiding something from him after his attempt to reach out to me seems like a really poor way to pay the boy back. So with my usual amount of social grace and etiquette I blurt out "I-found-your-sister's-earring-in-the-dirt-at-the- place-she-and-I-spend-time-together-this-morning-a nd-I'm-pretty-sure-she-was-wearing-it-when-she-wen t-missing-I-think-she-might-have-been-there-since- I-saw-her-last-maybe-even-recently." I'm not sure how to interpret Marcus's stare, he looks confused, but he breaks out of it the next moment and he HITS me! "Why the hell would you say something like that?! Why would you play games? She gone, don't you know? Everyone else has accepted it, we're trying to let go….why can't you do the same, why do you have to be such an a*s? Don't you f*****g realize that you're clinging to my DEAD sister is hurting me and my mom and my dad?!"

Without thinking I slam on the breaks, it's good that Glendale is a tiny little town and that the roads are consistently dead. I don't even recognize my own voice, I can only assume the growled words "Sid is NOT dead." must have issued from my mouth. Whoever said it, it seemed to effectively render Marcus silent the rest of the drive to the burger joint. After my heart rate slowed back down and I have forgotten the ache in my jaw from Marcus's punch-I need to teach this kid to throw a punch�"I realize I need to apologize for startling him and continue to try to help him accept the truth of things, that we don't know. Not knowing is harder, I think, than pretending that Sid might be really gone….but she deserves it, she deserves everyone looking for her and remembering that she is capable and tough, she deserves to be alive.

"Marcus", I say cautiously, "I know you think I'm an a*s right now, and you are probably right, but I'm a truthful a*s." I stop waiting for him to wind up for another swing, okay so far so good. "If I showed you the earring I found would it give me any more credibility?" �"No response. �" "Okayyyy, well I will show you once we are at the diner." Frazzled from the, admittedly weak attempt at an assault, and from the million thoughts about Sid flowing through my head like an F5 tornado, I forgot to slow down at the turn in for B&D. My truck is a truck, and is it also an old truck with horrible shocks, the bumpy old road into the place reminds me of that without any sort of mercy, I bounce both of us around in the truck hard enough that Marcus bumped his head against the roof of the cab. �"This would have been an ironic justice if I didn't know the guy well enough to know he was already beating himself up over the whole punching incident. As soon as I have the truck parked I hold true to my word, and pull out the tiny earring from the pocket of my gym shorts-I should store it someplace safer once I'm home-and hand it over to Sid's little brother. Marcus examined it much the same way I did, with careful scrutiny and a look of sheer disbelief. Finally he decided to talk. "Where was it Aiden?" he asked still sounding much too downtrodden in light of this new evidence. "It was in the dirt, right next to the log we always sit on, I think it must have been dropped there pretty recently, it's pretty clean and I didn't wash it." I wait patiently for him to process what I've told him and what it could mean.

I'm not really sure what to make of his delayed reaction. "Let's go get some burgers dude, I'm starving." He says, handing me back the earring as quickly as if it were a venomous snake. I don't want to push him further on the subject, because it's fairly clear that whatever he is thinking or feeling about it, he doesn't want to share. B&D has kept its classic 50's diner look pretty well maintained; I think it might even have the original staff. Most of the employees are at least in their 50's and probably pushing 60's in some cases. Since Marcus was still being reclusive and moody, and had decided to slide into the booth near the old jukebox, I went over to the neon wrapped counter and ordered two of the biggest burgers and largest chocolate shakes that the place had, and fries…man they had awesome artery clogging fries. Since the place has done its best to maintain that classic rock n' roll theme, I go and plop myself down waiting for the waitress to bring our food over to us. The seats are black with white pin striping and light pink cushions, and there's neon everywhere advertising summer shakes and Wednesday burger nights. Marcus still isn't talking, so I occupy myself with looking at all the art on the walls. There's a pretty good grouping of 50's singers and classic cars hanging from the walls from metal plaques and tacked up posters. I focus in on Elvis because I recognize him first, he makes me remember.

Sid was in a pretty green dress that hinted at a Marilyn Monroe sort of style, it was our one year anniversary. She liked Elvis, I felt corny as hell, but I did it all anyway. I'd put together dinner, took the time to look up a recipe for pasta and prepare it all from scratch and put on Elvis's "Can't Help Falling In Love" after dinner. We'd done most of the typical things that couples do- I'd made love to her before even if we hadn't established that that was what it was-but there was something special about slow dancing with her. Both of us were barefoot at her parents place with the lights off and the dull glow of twilight illuminating her face while she had the biggest girliest smile I've ever seen on her. Her parents had taken off to go camping for the weekend, and I think they intentionally gave us the privacy, but every article of her clothing stayed on that night. I laid down with her in my arms and kissed her forehead and we talked until she fell asleep. I never slept that night, I just held her; that was the night I started thinking I probably was in love with Sid.

Marcus pulled me out of his parents and away from the memory of Sid- I had it down, right to the way she smelled, and how her hair fell when she looked up at me through it all- but I wanted more than a memory, Marcus apparently was in the same boat. "So, you think you can find her Aiden? Do you think she might be okay, even after all this time? His voice started breaking, so he just looked up at me expectantly. I suddenly felt like Atlas, more like Atlas if he'd been shrunk with that ray thing from the movie where the kids shrunk their parents and then handed the Earth to tote around. You get the gist. Anything but telling him I didn't know was taking on a huge responsibility, and telling him I didn't know might crush him even more than he already was, might destroy him. "Marcus, I said hesitantly, "I won't quit looking for Sid until I know where she is and what happened to her." It wasn't a promise to bring her back exactly, and it certainly wasn't a promise that I'd find her alive, but it was a promise that I would spend my last little bit of energy looking for Sid if that's what it took. It was a promise to give it my all, and he understood it for exactly what it was.

The rest of my time with Marcus was considerably easier going than the drive down to the diner, and we got his bike parts pretty quickly because it was getting 'd laughed a little and chatted after we ate and shared a common sense of relief. I'd done the right thing in telling him, I'd gotten a smile out of him a couple times while we traded jokes and stories in the diner. When we pulled up to his parents I asked him with a quiet and reserved voice, the kind you use for a sick child, or an injured animal "Want me to tell your mom and dad Marcus?" He looked up and smiled, "They are going to be really happy to know that there's even a chance after all this time, I'll let them know Aiden. And uhh….sorry….for hitting you I mean, and thanks for continuing to get it through my thick head." He reached up faster than greased lighting, and I was a little confused and concerned that I was about to get another close up of his fist, but he'd hugged me. He was a teenage boy, to hug another dude meant gratitude beyond measure, yeah…I'd done the right thing, but there was one more thing I realized I needed to do. "Here Marcus", I said, pulling the earring back out of my pocket, "You and your parents should have this, and it will help break the news to them too." Taking the earring he smiled at me wordlessly, and turned back to his house walking quickly.

I was beat; it had been a LONG day. So, I was pretty relieved when I got out of my truck and heard the familiar crunch of gravel under my sneakers. I felt even better when I fell into bed and killed the night stand light sending the entire room into what was just shy of complete darkness. It had been a long time since I had slept with any sense of peace, free of my plaguing guilt, but it certainly felt like I would tonight.