Day by Day (17 page)

A
lmost nauseous with fear, Ginger struggled to keep calm, but she could feel herself sliding close to the edge and falling into pure panic. “We have to call the police. And Lily. We have to tell her he’s run away. It’ll be dark soon. We need to find him before…” She squeezed her eyes shut in a futile attempt to block out images of what could happen to an eight-year-old boy wandering along major highways at dusk during rush hour.

When Tyler wrapped her in his arms, she clutched at his shirt and sobbed. “We’ll find him,” he whispered. “He can’t have gotten very far. Besides, he has no idea where Boston is, let alone how to get there. He’s probably wandering around, going in circles, so lost he can’t find his way back here.”

“B-but we have to find him and we need help,” she cried. “Please, God, help us find him. Please.”

He hugged her hard until her tears were spent. “It’ll
really get chilly after dark. Go on upstairs. Get a sweater for all of us, and I’ll call the police. They’ll put out an Amber Alert. The more people we have looking for him, the better, but I don’t think we should call Lily. Not yet.”

Feeling calmer, at least for the moment, Ginger climbed back up the stairs. When she came back down with the sweaters, Tyler was still on the telephone in the kitchen. She stood beside him and watched his expressions, listening to his words, to gauge the other side of the conversation.

Tyler nodded and put his hand over the voice end of the receiver. “They’ve got all the information now, but I just got transferred to a Sergeant Floyd. I’m not sure—”

He turned his attention back to the telephone. “Yes, Sergeant. That’s right. Vincent King.” Tyler’s body stiffened. “Yes, he was wearing blue jeans and a long-sleeved school shirt. Yes, Park Elementary.” When Tyler’s eyes flashed with annoyance, Ginger took a step back. “Just stop and listen to me,” he argued. “I gave all this information to the first officer. We’re wasting time. We need your help right now. What do I have to do to get it?” he snapped.

Apparently, Sergeant Floyd’s answer was satisfying enough to keep her husband silent and listening for what seemed an interminable length of time. When his shoulders sagged, however, her heart began to race.

“Yes, I understand…No…Of course…When? Yes, I do…Tell me where to meet…Yes, thank you. No, we can be there in five or ten minutes. Thank you,” he murmured.

When he hung up the telephone, he bowed his head and kept his hand on the receiver for a few seconds. When he looked up at her, his eyes glistened with tears, and he pulled
her to him. “He’s fine. They already found Vincent. He’s fine.”

“Praise God! When you were talking to a second officer, I thought something awful—”

“While I was giving the first officer Vincent’s description, another officer called in. Officer Joe, that young cop they hired to work in the school and ride bike patrol. He was riding around the river, saw Vincent and decided to investigate.” He sniffled and hugged her harder. “He told Sergeant Floyd that seeing a young boy sitting on one of the benches at the river with two backpacks and a suitcase set off alarm bells.”

“Oh, thank you, Father, for a smart, young policeman,” she whispered, along with a litany of prayers of thanksgiving that Vincent was safe and well. Weak with relief, she held on to Tyler for support, crushing the sweaters between them. “Where is Vincent now? Can we see him? Are they bringing him to the police station or is he already there?”

Tyler took a deep breath. “Actually, Vincent and Officer Joe are still at the river, at the end of Mulberry Street. Officer Joe thought it might be a good idea for all of us, especially Vincent, if we picked him up there.”

After stepping back, she handed Tyler his sweater and put on her own. She folded Vincent’s sweater over her arm as the rush of panic receded and the reality of Vincent’s disobedience hit hard. “I don’t know what I want to do first. Hug him until my arms ache or tell him he’s grounded, probably for the rest of his life. Or at least a month,” she added, rather than sound too dramatic.

Tyler took her hand. “We’ll probably do both, but we shouldn’t lose focus on what he did right.”

She snorted. “Disobedience and running away are both mistakes. Big mistakes.”

“But he didn’t get far. When he realized he was lost, he had the good sense to plop himself down on a bench by the river, and he didn’t lie to Officer Joe, either. He told him up front exactly what he’d done.”

“So we just let it go? Forgive and forget? What kind of lesson will that teach him?”

He cocked his head. “Of course not. Think, Ginger. What did we do when Mark ran away?”

“He never…Oh-h-h,” she murmured when her mind cleared away today’s frightening event and let older memories surface about their son. “I’d forgotten about that,” she whispered. “He was just a little older than Vincent is now when he decided to run away to find parents who would let him use his savings to buy a bus ticket to Nashville.” If she remembered correctly, big hugs came first when they found him. Punishment, by way of confiscating his guitar for a month, came second. When she thought about Mark now, living in Nashville and still trying to make a name for himself in country music, she smiled. “I never thought that buying that old guitar I found at a yard sale would cause so much trouble.”

Tyler smiled before his expression turned serious. “I—I’m not sure what I would have done or how I would have been able to forgive myself if anything had happened to him then or to Vincent today, but I do know this. We know what worked before when we were raising our children and what didn’t work. We made plenty of mistakes along the way, but now we have a chance to do it better. No,
I
have a chance to do it better. I’m sorry
I haven’t been as good as I should have been about having Vincent here. I never even followed through on getting those tickets for one of the football games so we could let him take a friend along. I’ve just been so angry with Lily that I didn’t give Vincent the attention he deserved. I—I never really faced that until tonight,” he murmured, “but that changes now. Right here and right now.”

Ginger’s heart trembled. “You’re being too hard on yourself. We’ve both made mistakes, but we’re pros at being parents, right? We can do this.”

He chuckled. “Old pros at that, but we still have a lot to learn.”

“Old?” She nudged him playfully in the ribs. “Speak for yourself.”

He chuckled again and put his arm around her shoulders. “Come on, Grams, let’s go get our boy.”

Hand in hand, Ginger and Tyler stood on the walking path around the river and waited while Officer Joseph Karpinksi, better known as Officer Joe to the town’s children, walked his bike to meet them. Behind him, in the distance, Vincent sat on a bench facing the river. His backpacks were alongside him on the bench. The suitcase usually stored under Lily’s old bed was on the ground at his feet.

Before now, Ginger had not really paid much attention to the joint initiative between the school district and the police department to encourage a more positive relationship between young people and the police. They had hired and trained a young police officer who had grown up in Welleswood to conduct special programs in the schools and to ride
bike patrol to be more accessible to the children outside of school.

Officer Joe approached them. He was tall and brawny. When he smiled, he was all teeth, but it was the nonjudgmental look in his eyes and his calm demeanor that earned her gratitude and her trust.

“Folks? Joe Karpinski,” he said and shook hands with each of them while holding on to his bike.

“Thank you so much,” she said sincerely. “That sounds so…so little to say when we are so very, very grateful that you found Vincent for us so quickly.”

“He’s a good boy. He’s just a little confused.”

She swallowed hard. “Can we take him home with us now?”

“Yes, ma’am. No problem.”

“I think I’d like to talk with Vincent here first, alone, just for a few minutes,” Tyler suggested. “Is that all right, Ginger?”

She squeezed her husband’s hand. “I’ll just wait here for a bit.”

Her husband smiled, shook hands with the officer again and walked toward the park bench where Vincent was waiting. Since the boy was not facing them, she could not see his face, but from the way his shoulders drooped and his head bowed, she suspected he was not looking forward to facing the consequences of his behavior.

“Ma’am?”

She flinched. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”

“Only now that you’re both here, I was going back on patrol. Unless you need something else?”

“No, not unless…You obviously spent some time talking with Vincent. Is there anything you can tell me that
might help us to understand what we should do to make sure he doesn’t try to run away again?”

He drew in a long breath. “Just love him and let him know it. He’s pretty mixed-up right now. Is it true his mother got married, but moved away and left Vincent here with you?”

Shame burned her cheeks. “I’m afraid so.”

“Poor little guy. He’s hurting pretty bad. I told him how it was for me when my mom and dad got divorced. My mom moved out to Ohio, but I stayed here with my dad. I never saw her much, and I talked to Vincent about that,” he murmured.

In his eyes, she saw the pain that still lingered, but she also saw acceptance and empathy for another little boy who was trying to deal with a similar rejection. “I’m glad you were the one to find him.”

He nodded.

“What helped you most after your mom left?”

“Having my dad around, mostly.”

“Vincent doesn’t have his dad.”

“But he’s got you and his grandfather.” He grinned. “And now he’s got me. I told him I’d stop by to see him once in a while. I asked him about playing basketball on the team I coach, but he didn’t seem to be interested.”

“He doesn’t like sports. Not even a little.”

“What about ice cream?”

She chuckled. “That’s different.”

“I take a group of kids to Scoops once a month on a Saturday. We eat ice cream, talk about stuff. If it’s all right with you, I’ll make sure to invite him next time we go.”

“I’ll check with my husband, but I think that would be wonderful.
You’re
wonderful. Thanks again.”

He laughed and climbed back onto his bike. “And I’m going to tell my girlfriend your opinion the next time she tries to tell me otherwise,” he teased. “I’ll be in touch.”

As she watched him bike away, she offered a quiet prayer to thank God for sending this young officer to them and turned her attention back to the park bench where Tyler was sitting with their grandson. Above them to the west, the sun was barely hanging on to the edge of the horizon and streaked the sky pink and purple and gold in a glorious display of God’s imagination as dusk lengthened, about to drop a veil of darkness to end the day. The river was very calm.

Framed by near-barren trees and a copse of vibrant evergreens, Tyler and Vincent were silhouettes in a picture that she tucked into her heart. Vincent sat cuddled close to his grandfather, who had one arm around the boy while he pointed north. To Boston? Or where the North Star would appear later?

She waited, reluctant to intrude, yet anxious to hold each of them close to her, to whisper words of forgiveness and words of comfort to Vincent and words of love to her husband. Maybe, just maybe, Vincent had been the wisest of them all. By running away, maybe he had forced all of them, however unwittingly, to reevaluate the way they had been living together and the way anger and shame and disappointment had kept them from having what Vincent needed most of all: a family.

A family that loved without conditions.

A family that bonded together by recognizing one another as individuals, each flawed in their own way, yet each with individual talents and needs that should be nourished with love and understanding.

A family she and Tyler could make for Vincent so that one day, when he was a man, he would follow their example and create a loving family of his own.

A family that kept God at the center of their lives.

When Tyler turned and motioned for her to join them, she walked toward them with a renewed sense of commitment and a vow to try to become a grand mother to Vincent, as well as his grandmother. She left behind her, as best she could, all the mistakes she had made so far and all the plans she and Tyler had had for their retirement, but she held on to the dreams they would make together for the years to come.

She would try to be stronger, like her friend Judy.

She would try to be more patient, like her friend Barbara.

And she would try to be more forgiving, like the child of God she was supposed to be, and one day, she would once again be able to love her daughter, in spite of what Lily had done.

When she reached them, she put the backpacks on the ground and sat down next to Vincent. She noticed that Tyler now had the old suitcase on his lap with the lid open. Inside, she saw all sorts of snacks—near-empty bags of potato chips, pretzels, corn chips and some bars of candy. From the looks of them, Vincent had raided the pantry before he had left home.

Vincent, however, kept his gaze on his grandfather. “What’s all this?” she asked.

“Gramps said we needed a
’fess up
party, but we had to wait for you.”

She lifted a brow. “Really? What’s that?” she asked as she slipped his sweater around his shoulders.

He shrugged. “I never been to one.”

“It’s simple,” Tyler prompted. “Whether you’re a child or a grown-up, you have to take the good with the bad and accept responsibility for whatever you do. At a ’fess up party, you have to confess to something you did wrong, apologize, and then you can take something to eat. That’s the good part of a ’fess up party. I’ll go first.”

She met his gaze, smiled and mouthed,
I love you.

“Let’s see,” he began. “I didn’t talk to you about your mother very much before tonight, Vincent. I’m sorry.” When Vincent did not respond, Tyler nudged him gently. “You get to say it’s okay.”

“Oh. O-kay.”

Tyler grinned and took a pretzel.