Reposting, Worthy, "Not Yet"

I just realized a little while ago that it's been twenty years, tomorrow, since I flew to South Dakota to get my son back. No wonder it's been so heavy on my mind these last two days.

In light of that, I thought I would repost this.

“Not Yet”

August 16, 1989.

The oppressive heat had become beyond unbearable. There was a window air conditioner, which left only one small window at either end of the apartment. That window offered very little sunlight. The air conditioner made an enormous racket and was not doing a very good job. It was still better than it would have been without the unit, but in extreme heat like what we had been experiencing, it really wasn’t even in the ballpark of being cool.

We went to bed early, since it was too uncomfortable to do otherwise. Sam had fallen asleep quickly, but was restless from the heat. I couldn’t rest; not just from the heat but from something else, which I couldn’t put my finger on. Partly, it was Sam’s fitfulness, which rocked the bed incessantly. Mostly, though, it was just that my mind, not really focused on any thought in particular, couldn’t shut down. My mind was racing. It had been known to do that, from time to time.

Sam’s father, Murray worked on a tugboat. When a call came in at night, it was either Murray calling home, or someone calling Murray to come to work. The phone in the apartment was the same as the main number; it rang in the house. Murray had set up an intercom system in the garage and garage apartment, and Marilyn would beep the intercom if the phone was for Sam.

When the phone rang well past eleven, that night, I didn’t think twice about it. I knew Murray was working. When the intercom beeped, Sam stumbled out of bed and into the kitchen to answer. He paged Marilyn on the intercom, half asleep, to ask who it was. I heard her say, “It’s for Julie.”

I got few calls there. In fact, the last time it rang for me, it was Lily, telling me that Mom was in the hospital again. I choked back the tears which sprang to my eyes. If Lily was calling at that time, it must be serious. I climbed out of bed with a sense of dread washing over me. I slipped Sam’s t-shirt over my head as I made my way to the phone. Sam was still half-asleep, but he knew what was in my mind. He hugged me as I took the phone from him, and then he went back to lie down.

“Hello?” I spoke into the mouthpiece, my voice quavering. I was ready to burst into tears, and the caller had to know that, before I even knew who it was.

It was my mother’s voice, and it was obvious that she was weeping. “Julie,” She said. “Are you sitting down?”

I inhaled deeply. “No,” I said, but pulled a chair near and leaned into it, steeling myself for the worst. At least Mom’s okay, I thought. “Okay, I’m sitting now.”

“Julie, Stephen’s here.” She spoke.

I gasped, but then I knew I must have heard her wrong. “What did you say?” I asked. I had waited for so long to hear those words that it must have just been a matter of wishful thinking.

“It’s true.” She sobbed. “I’ve had it confirmed.”

I don’t remember a word of the actual conversation, beyond that. She told me that a family friend had taken it upon himself two years earlier to drive past B’s parents’ house every single day, “just in case.” He had thought he spotted a child there one day previously, but couldn’t swear to it. He hadn’t seen a sign of him again until earlier that day. When he saw a child that day, he had called Mom.

Mom didn’t want to tell me about it without confirming it through another source, so she had called yet another friend and had her drive by as well. Only then, did she dare call me with the news.

When I hung up the phone, I was sobbing uncontrollably. Sam, wide awake from concern, asked me what was wrong.

How could I explain what was wrong? How could there be anything wrong? For two and a half years, I had not known whether Stephen was dead or alive, and now I knew he was alive. During all that time, I had “known” that if I only knew where he was, I would be all right.

But I wasn’t all right. In fact, I was more terrified than ever. There were so many “what if’s.” What if B and Stephen were simply visiting, and left town again before I could get there? What if his grandparents still lived in Wyoming, and were just back there visiting? What if I called the police and tried to get some help to keep him there, and they told me they would look into it and they notified B or his parents and then Stephen disappeared again, never to be seen?

In the pre-internet-era limbo in which I’d been left hanging after Mom’s call, I had to wait for morning. I had to figure out how to get the money to fly to South Dakota and then I had to make reservations through a travel agent and pay cash because I didn’t have any credit cards.

I got up at 6:30, having not slept for more than a few minutes at a time. I was afraid, I think, that if I let myself sleep, I would wake to find it was just a dream and Stephen was still missing just as he had been for well over two and a half years. I’d tried to soothe myself to sleep with prayers of gratitude for at least having word that Stephen was safe, but the questions haunted me and I couldn’t rest.

Sam and Marilyn both hugged me. Marilyn cried happy tears with me and said she’d continue her prayers. It was hard to imagine, watching her, that her joy was over a child she had never even laid eyes upon. He seemed, to her, very much a part of her life, and I wondered at what that said about her attachment to me.

I was at the office at 7:45. Why I went in, I don’t know. It was probably just due to the fact that it was another hour and a half till the bank and travel agencies opened, and I needed something to do to keep my mind occupied.

Bella, my co-worker and best friend, had always had a way of keeping me grounded. When I shared my news with her, though, her response was to grab both my hands and to shriek with laughter, and to dance. I don’t think the events of the night before had fully impacted me till then. Bella’s giddy reaction produced both a sense of overdue relief and intense panic. Within minutes, I felt I was bouncing off the walls. Bella instructed me to go home. I told her that I would as soon as I told Dr. Wills, our boss, in person.

Thirty minutes later, my boss showed up, as he always did, dropping the money in the cash drawer on the way to his office halfway down the main hallway. From where I was seated on the floor in the back of the hospital, I heard his office door creak as it shut. I leaned back against the wall, drawing deep, shaky breaths and trying to let them out in a controlled slow exhalation.

It was pointless to try, and after a moment I rose to my feet with a hand from Bella. She had gone quiet, and was wearing a tearful smile.

I stepped down the hallway and knocked gently on the half-open door.

Dr. Wills turned his head toward the door, a question in his eyebrows.

“Can I come in?” I asked, my lip quavering. “I need to talk to you.”

“Come in!” He said, and the expression on his face showed a now-familiar anticipatory alarm.

I made another shaky attempt at a deep breath, and began to cry again.

“Oh, no!” He exclaimed. I shook my head in reply and tried to wave away his concern because I couldn’t get the words to come out of my mouth.

Suddenly, Bella was behind me, saving the day. “They found Stephen.” She said, and she was crying again as well and I could have sworn there were tears in that man’s normally calm eyes as well, as soon as she had said it.

“Why are you here?” He asked me, and Bella and I both burst into a laugh.

“I don’t know! I needed something to do till the bank opens, and until I can get to the travel agency. And I wanted to tell both of you in person.”

Dr. Wills glanced at his watch. “Do me a favor,” He told me. “Don’t leave just yet.”

I agreed, but didn’t know why I was agreeing. I couldn’t for the life of me imagine why he would want to keep me there, under the circumstances. As I left the room, he was picking up the phone to make a call.

Ten minutes later, he called me back to his office. I was more calm, but still crying a little when I walked in.

“I needed to check with my wife to make sure she didn’t object to this,” He told me, and he handed me an envelope with my first name on it.

I opened it, having no idea what to expect. Inside was a check for $1,200, made out to me.

“For travel expenses.” He told me.

At that point, I was weeping again but managed to get out a “Thank you” which he could probably make out.

“Now, get out of here.” He said. “Go get your boy back.”

I went straight to the bank and cashed the check, then to the travel agent where I booked tickets on the next flight I could arrange, the following morning. I hated waiting that long, but there was no other way. Flights to South Dakota weren’t exactly abundant.

After another sleepless night, I boarded a flight to Chicago first thing the following morning, saying goodbye to Nancy at the gate and heading out toward a destination I knew could very well be another hell.

“Dear God, thank you for sending your angels to watch over Stephen and keep him safe from harm.”

I flew from Norfolk, Virginia to O’Hare, and then a quick flight to Minneapolis where I could catch a connecting flight to my hometown.

During my layover in Chicago, I called Lucy, an old friend of my mothers, whose name Mom had given me the night before. She worked as a secretary in the state’s attorney’s office. She gave me the name of a couple of lawyers, with an “unofficial nod” toward one she said would be her choice if she were in my position. I then called my mother. Dad was with her, as Adam had looked him up, at Mom’s request, to give him the news.

Dad took the attorney’s name, and when I called him from the airport in Minneapolis only an hour and a half later, he had met with the attorney and had given him a retainer to represent me.

I waited while there was a delay in boarding the plane. It just kept getting delayed further, while I paced and tried to make use of my wait time with phone calls. Finally, ninety minutes after the flight was supposed to take off, they announced that it had been canceled.

I was standing only feet away from the counter when it was announced. Panic overtook me once more. The airline representative told me they would put me up in a hotel and get me on the next flight to my hometown in the morning. I was hysterical, by this point. I didn’t blame anyone for the cancelation but I still didn’t know how to wait. I had been waiting for too long already.

“Tomorrow he might be gone again!” I cried. “My son has been missing for more than two and a half years and now he has been found. I have to get to him before he disappears again!”

I couldn’t expect them to understand. For their sakes, I was glad they didn’t. But after conferring between themselves for a moment, they offered me an alternative. They could get me to another town, ninety miles away. Maybe I could get a ride from there? They asked if there was anyone they could call for me.

I had them dial Mom’s number but there was no answer. She was probably on the phone with someone else, and anyway, Dad’s car was in the shop. Mom didn’t have a car. My brothers were working, and I didn’t know even know where they worked. I didn’t have anyone else’s number.

Except Lucy. I handed them the slip of paper with Lucy’s name and work number on it. One of the agents picked up the phone, while the other came around to my side of the counter and escorted me to a chair, talking me in a calm voice, telling me it would be all right.

A moment later, they called me back to the counter. “Lucy said not to worry; that she will find someone to pick you up.”

Lucy didn’t even know me. I had known who she was when I was a little girl, but she hadn’t even seen me in more than twenty years.

It didn’t matter. It was out of my hands. I had to get to the plane right then, having no idea what was ahead of me. Once on the plane, there was more waiting. Half an hour on the tarmac, and then, I was finally airborne.

An hour later, perhaps less, the plane touched down at a tiny airport 90 miles north of my hometown. As we passed over the airport on our approach, I could see one car, pulling in to the otherwise empty parking lot. There were four other passengers on the plane, so I knew the chances were slim, that the car was there for me.

Then I deplaned, walking the tarmac to the glass door and the waiting area inside. My brother Jim was standing there with his arms open. I rushed into his arms. I knew, then, that everything was going to be all right. Jim was the miracle I had needed.

As it turned out, Lucy had phoned my mother’s apartment to get ideas of who she could call for me, just as Jim walked through the door. Jim lived in St. Joseph, Missouri. That morning, my mother had called him to tell him Stephen had been found, and he had filled up the gas tank and headed north, to be there “just in case” I needed him. He told me that he had said hello to Mom and she’d told him to get back in the car and go pick me up.

I’m sure that we must have been traveling 100 mph on that two-lane highway leading to Stephen. We must have been, because we arrived in record time at my mother’s apartment where we met my youngest brother, Adam. The three of us hugged our mother, and then were out the door.

I sat on the overturned bucket which was a makeshift seat behind the console of Adam’s van, my hands on the sides of the seats my two brothers occupied. We drove to a warehouse which was across the street from where B’s parents lived. We parked where we had full view of the front of the house, but we were not obvious and were half a block away. We were sitting there, watching the sun slide down the sky behind that house, trying to formulate some sort of plan, when suddenly, the front door opened, and out stepped my mother-in-law. Behind her, looking tall and lanky and with darker hair than I remembered, was my son. Despite the physical changes, I knew that I would have recognized him anywhere.

As we watched, transfixed, the two of them came out the front door and then turned toward the back yard.

With the sun setting on the other side of him, as it was, he looked as if he were bathed in gold. My heart cried out. I didn’t notice at first, that my voice had, too. Then I saw both of my big, strapping brothers wiping away tears, and the reality began to sink in.

I had found him.