—BUT THE THING IS, YOU SAID YOU WOULD NEVER LEAVE AGAIN, AND I ACTUALLY BELIEVED YOU THIS TIME

                                             The Missing Boy

I fell in love with the missing boy, who looked to be about my age, 14, in the posters stapled on nearly every telephone pole.

He resembled a cherub or half man, rosy-cheeked and concerned, his eyes cast away and wandering in the photo, as if a bird had taken flight just before the camera flashed.

Some say he was in the fields looking for a lost dog when he disappeared that day. Others wondered why his folks didn’t seem more beat up about all that’d happened, why they didn’t join along with any of the search parties.

I figured his were like my parents, the architects of absence who had built a family with too much white space in it, mom and dad present, there but not there, the wine glass in their hand as important, or more so, than me or where I’d been.

I found the missing boy in Storm Lake by the old dock no one ever used anymore, his face grinning up all wet and glossy from the reflected moon. “Come on in already,” he called. “Water’s not getting any warmer this time of night.”

He was a good dog-paddler, probably part mermaid, even though he was a boy, and his legs flapping and flashing in the murk only made me love him more.

We swam naked that night and many others until Dad busted up Mom one time too many and she and I moved across the country to her sister’s Reno place. Aunt Caroline was special and read cards that told about your life. One night she read me and said, “This means you’re in love.” “This means it’s a secret affair.” “This means you’ve found what’s been lost.”

I wrote a book that sold well. Most of those readers think I made it all up, which is only half true, because I had pages to fill. Even though I’m older now and married, and even though he’s older too, I still swim many nights with the missing boy. What I’ll do is I’ll pull out that folded and faded flyer and spread it out on the lip of the tub, light me some candles, run a bath, lean back and swim with him wherever he wants to take me.