Lost and Found

Cont'd from Coming Home...

 “Is Mom still there?”

“I’m sure she is,” I told him.  Truthfully, I wanted to go back to sleep and I was sure Jessica was finally exhausted and fell asleep herself.

“I’m going to check,” Jason said and trotted into the sitting room.

“Dad,” he said with a panicked voice. “She’s not here.”

I jerked myself fully awake and rushed over to him. 

“We’ll find her.  We’ll find her.”

With Jason right behind me we went to the door.  I threw on a coat and slid into my shoes.  Jason was out the door before me and was waiting by the car.  In the soft new dusting of snow I could see her footprints making their way out to the road.  It was clear from her tracks that she wasn’t wearing shoes.  I walked to the end of the driveway hoping I could see which was she had gone.  I went back to the car.

We backed out of the driveway and pulled into the street.  We hadn’t gone more than a few hundred yards when we saw her.  She was sitting cross-legged on the side of the road, but still in the road.  Her hands were resting on her knees, her palms faced upward and her forefinger and thumbed connected to form circle. 

I pulled up next to her positioning my car so that it would protect her from any traffic that might come her way.  Jason jumped out of the car before I came to a complete stop.

He was standing next to her, his hand on her shoulder, shaking her while saying “Mom” over and over again.

I crouched next to her. Her eyes were closed and her chin was slightly upturned. The headlights from my car caught the sparkling snow around her. 

“Jessica,” I said.

She didn’t answer. I shook her.  She didn’t respond.  I pushed her harder.  Her body just seemed to absorb my energy and not move.  I stood and looked around.  A car came toward us slowing down as it approached.  The headlights silhouetted Jason.  His breath floated out of his mouth like smoke in the cold air.

I leaned against the hood of my car.

“Dad, what are we going to do?” asked Jason

I ran my hand through my hair and stared  up into the clear sky.  I remember noticing the Big Dipper and for some reason started thinking about when we lived in Maryland.  We had a little house there where we had started our family.  I was just starting out after the military and college, and Jessica was doing coporate nursing.  She thought it was so silly that I’d bought glow in the dark stars and stuck them to our bedroom ceinling in the form of various constellations.

“Dad?”

“I don’t know buddy.”

“We can’t leave her sitting there.”

“I know. I guess I have to call the police.”

“No,” Jason said. “I don’t want them to arrest her.”

“They won’t arrest her.  They will just help us get her to the hospital.”

The last thing I wanted was to call the police, but I had no idea what else to do.  I couldn’t leave her in the road, in the cold, sitting half in a snow bank and half on the wet pavement.  I couldn’t get her in the car myself.

Reluctantly I dialed 911 again.

“The police will be there shortly,” the tinny voice said.

I hung up and waited.