Two Months Later . . .
It’s been two months since Carter sent me the text of his kidnapping. I had immediately called the cops and should them the message, and they explained how there were making his safety a priority. But it has been so long, and mom and dad have been fighting even worse now. Mom has locked herself in the room, with the radio blasting to the weirdest 70’s pop-jazz so I have no idea what she does. I’ve gotten two jobs, plus on the A honor roll, because mom quit her job two weeks after Carter’s disappearance. She barely comes out, only to go to the bathroom and put macaroni in the oven for us. Then there’s dad, who pulls us out of school, brings us to B. Dub’s Snack Shack, the local bar and grill, and screams at us, especially me, wondering where the heck Carter was.
“If he was really kidnapped, why hasn’t anyone found him yet?” he would shriek, his eyes blazing. The poor twins looked mortified. Dad had never shown this side of him to them until now.
“No one knows, dad, okay? So stop taking your anger out on us.” He chugged his whiskey and slammed the bottle down furiously. “Well he’s got to be somewhere, and someone’s got to know!”
He rose up his hands and his ragged, cutoff plaid shirt rose, revealing a freshly branded tattoo of a soaring eagle, with unidentifiable words, and my eyes rose. He saw me starring at the tattoo, on the left side of his rib cage about four inches by four inches and quickly slammed his hands down on the table. “Don’t you dare mention this to your mother,” he whispered harshly, alcohol trailing off his breath.
“You’ve told me to withhold a lot of information from mom, and what have you noticed? I never do.”
“Right—you tell her everything, and end up causing a divorce, your brother to get kidnapped, and me to be stuck with an accountant who is too pushy, pregnant and moody for her own good!”
I stood up irately, daggers shooting from my pupils into his brain. “We’re leaving, guys. C’mon, let’s go! Move it!” Toby was the first to get up, then Wyatt. Melanie just sat there, starring at dad, crying silently. “What is wrong with you?” she asked quietly to dad, then led us out of the Snack Shack.
Life at school wasn’t much better, either. Everyone looked at me differently, all except for Heather and our best guy friend, Tyler. Our little trio sat in the far corner in lunch, away from all the glares and terrible gossip. “That’s Brea Beckham, the daughter of the town drunk and the neglectful ex-nurse, whose brother was kidnapped.” “She’s the girl whose drunken father cheated with a ten-year younger accountant and is leaving his family completely, deserting them while the oldest brother is missing.” The rumors were endless, from Carter’s body being dumped in Lake Michigan Port—“Bobby Nixon’s brother works at the Port and saw a figure dump Carter’s body overboard!”—to Carter secretly working with the CIA overseas.
“Can you believe what people will believe?” I asked, nibbling on the fake lettuce the cafeteria provided.
“No kidding,” Tyler replied. He was a football, baseball and basketball player, though didn’t have many friends because of his twin sister’s reputation. “If Emily didn’t exist, or didn’t do the things she does, both of our lives would be a lot easier.”
“I just want Carter to be found, preferably alive. It would help Wyatt, Toby and Melanie’s self-esteem, and mine, too, of course.”
“Don’t worry, Brea, we’ll find him. The police are searching for any new leads in the case.”
All of a sudden, my phone vibrated. The number said “Restricted”, which only happened when political candidates or recordings called, but I decided to answer it anyways. “Hello?”
“Is this Brea Beckham?” croaked a deep, mechanical voice.
“Who is this?”
“Tell no one of this conversation. I have your brother, and he is alive—for now. I want a ransom of two hundred thousand by tomorrow night to be brought to the abandoned Lavender House on Milton Trail outside of Harriet. At midnight you are to deliver the money, and we will supply your brother. You two will only escape if you bring the proper amount of cash. I will see you tomorrow night, Brea—and I will be watching your every move before. Chao.”
He hung up, and I starred misty-eyed at my friends, who had accidentally overheard the entire conversation.
“Where on earth am I going to get two hundred thousand dollars?”
“Even if you get the cash, you have to distribute it at the Lavender House. You know how haunted and vacant that place is? No one has lived there since 1961, when Tim Weston and Muriel Weston bought the place and their son Jacob got…”
A tear ran down my eye. “Do you think that is why they put the meeting place there? Because a boy got murdered and they want to show me it’ll happen again?”
“No, Brea, there has to be other reasons,” Heather firmly assured me. “He knows no one would look there, and there aren’t any neighbors for acres. After school, we’re going to the sheriff’s department, got it? You, me and Tyler. We are in this together.”
Tyler blushed guiltily. “Actually, I have basketball practice right after school, then a date with Josie afterwards…” Josie was his new girlfriend—his first, too—and he was obsessed. They had only been dating for a little over a month and were constantly being together. She was the head cheerleader and super popular, so Tyler got good credit for that, canceling out his sister’s behavior.
“Well Tyler will be there mentally. I’ll drive you there.”

Right after school Heather and I met in the juniors’ parking lot by her light blue Chevy pickup and started our voyage to the sheriff’s department, a little over twelve miles away in the neighboring town of Maple Lake.
All of a sudden, a black Ford Escalade rammed us into the center median, totaling Heather’s truck. We weren’t going anywhere, but the owner and two other people in black jumpsuits were as they sprung from their truck and hopped into Heather’s. Terrifyingly, a man holding a knife stuck his head through the passenger window.
“Where do you think you ladies are going?” he asked maliciously, his beady eyes focused grimly on me.
Rather confidently, I replied, “The Maplewood Mall, yourself?”
He grinned with yellow, grimy teeth. “The Lavender House. I hope to see my guest later this evening—that is, if she wants her big bro back.”
They ran back into the Escalade, did a U-E and sped away from the accident, however they hadn’t escaped it. Several cars came to our aid, and a few even called the cops when squad cars, an ambulance and a tow truck arrived.
“I’m Chief Donavon,” explained the younger, tan man with completely gray hair, glasses and a beer belly. “I would like to take you ladies in for questioning—not that you’ve done anything wrong, but about the kidnappers you’ve been dealing with, and the accident that just occurred.”
I nodded, and Heather did, too. We both desperately wanted to figure this out once and for all.
In the safety of Chief Donavon’s office, we sat in comfy spinning chairs, sipping on glasses of hot chocolate, as Chief reviewed the case.
“Here’s the gathered timeline: Early evening on Monday Carter leaves the ice cream shop, doesn’t come back, and at nine o’clock you check your phone to find a kidnapping message from Carter that was sent at 4:4o, about twenty minutes after he left the parlor, correct?”
I nodded, and he continued. “Two months later there’s no break in the case until today at noon when you receive a restricted phone call with the kidnapper. You leave after school to head over to the sheriff’s department and tell us of the call, when you get rammed and interrogated by the kidnapper and two accomplices themselves. Thankfully they weren’t too bright in their planning, because there were several witnesses on a highway. Did you catch the license plate?”
“Yes, I did.” He wrote it down in his computer and searched it. “The 2009 black Ford Escalade is owned by Daniel Hoffman of West Point, Minnesota. He has a past DUI and battery charge, both within weeks of each other three years ago. Do you know him?”
“No, I don’t think so,” we both responded.
“So Hoffman just wants the ransom, dispose of you two and run off with the money. Well the Lavender House will be introduced to a new group of unruly spirits—the SWAT team.”

The clock struck midnight. Since we had been gone since eight in the morning, my mom asked me where I was. At the police station; we’re getting Carter back. Don’t answer the door for any strange men or women, and call 911 if you see a black Ford Escalade. Stay inside, I replied.
It was pitch dark, and I had been, technically alone, in the Lavender house for over two hours. It had been abandoned for fifty years—besides the occasional teen pranksters—since anyone had lived in the place. There were still the exact paintings, the exact wallpaper and furniture, that the Weston’s had used, including Jacob Weston, who was brutally attacked and killed by his father, Timothy. The story made national headlines, and many news shows dubbed the scene of the crime as the “Lavender house”, because of the odd lavender color of the house. Since then, nobody went in this place, just because many were too scared to find a sixteen-year-old’s body, dead—even though they already buried him fifty years ago.
I had investigated Jacob’s old room with candle light, which was extremely dim itself. There were records of baseball pitchers back then; the local newspaper dated May 1st, 1961, the last paper Jacob Weston would ever read. It was still folded open on his blue-and-white clad bed, as if he had been laying there, reading the newspaper, when the attack started.
My spine was tingling from all the nerves. Being that there were two SWAT members hidden in the closet, and one scaling the outside ready to pop through the window, I shouldn’t have been, but what if I was to be shot? What if this Daniel Hoffman guy just wanted the money—which he didn’t know was counterfeit—and didn’t even have Carter to begin with? Was he already dead? The mystery went on and on, until the doorbell rang. Goosebumps shot up and down my arms and legs, and I just about peed my pants when the ancient wooden door creaked forebodingly open. The enterer’s cautious steps made me realize he was scared himself, as if expecting me to come out and attack him.
“Where are you, Brea Beckham? Say hello to my tall friend, Carter.” I heard Hoffman punch someone, and then a quiet “oof! Hi, Brea.”
SWAT Officer Femora popped his head quickly out of the closet and mouthed, “Speak!”
“Carter, I’m in here, and I have the money.”
The footsteps raced up the stairs and into Jacob’s room, where I sat a few feet away from the window, which was on the other side of the room from the door. Hoffman, who was the guy who rammed me into the median and the guy in Hoffman’s mug shot, came in first. Carter came second, bounded and gagged. Hoffman locked the door and threw Carter to the middle of the room.
“You give the money to Carter. Once he hands it to me I will unbound him.”
“No way!” I replied, trying to buy time for the SWAT team to capture him safely. “You unbind Carter first but keep him close to you. Then I will throw you the money and you are to leave, never bothering my family again.”
“And what if I don’t comply?”
All of a sudden something shot out from the closet. It was a taser, shot from Officer Femora’s gun. Hoffman fell down to the ground, writhing in pain, as the two officers inside and the one outside handcuffed him. It was the perfect capture.
“I guess I wasn’t as specific as I should have been,” Hoffman snarled. “But when I get out of jail, which will be very soon, I am coming for you, Brea Beckham. And you won’t have the cops on your side.”

Officer Jenson, one of the rookies at the Sheriff’s Department, clicked his audio recorder off. “That, my friend, is how you won’t be getting out of jail too soon. C’mon, let’s book him.”
As two officers guided Hoffman to the SD, Femora high-fived me. “Good job, kiddo. Now, about your mother…Do you think she’s still sad about the divorce?”
I laughed. “Actually, she probably is. But you are definitely welcome to introduce yourself as the guy who saved her two eldest kids. How about you come to dinner with us, in celebration? That’ll lift up her spirits and, consider her new guy possibilities.”
Carter rolled his eyes. “Mom isn’t pathetic, Brea.”
“Don’t listen to him. He’s been tied-up for two and a half months.”
Femora nodded. “I’ll be waiting in the squad car to give you two a lift home. You two can catch up for a bit.”
As he shut the door, I hugged Carter. “I missed you, bro! Dad has been on the four remaining kids’ cases lately, blaming me, especially, for your kidnapping.”
Carter groaned. “That’s ridiculous. How are Toby, Wyatt and Melanie taking it?”
“Oh, you could have had better timing, just after the big divorce scandal and all, but they’re surviving. What did you even do? Where did Hoffman keep you?”
“He wanted to know some sort of information…Something that our mother knows. It’s a song that she used to sing at high school, that her mom taught her, apparently. I hadn’t got a clue what he was talking about, and he kept torturing me to try and twist it out of me. I had nothing, and just kept taking beat after beat. And I thought dad was abusive! I learned about Hoffman, though, and his motives. He has always been in love with our mom, ever since they attended the junior prom together in high school at West Point. He’s been under the radar since she married dad, always plotting his revenge. He wanted the song to torture her, whatever his reasoning was. After the two months of feeding me and endless tortures, I guess he just got bored of me and wanted you, too, so he came up with the ransom scam to nab you. It obviously didn’t work, and now he is more vicious then ever.”
I sighed. “Great. How long do you think he’ll stay in jail? Maybe a year or so, if that—that’s how much time I have left till I’m being tracked down for kidnapping.”

One Week Later—November 5th…
It’s two A.M. and the wind is howling. It’s the first snowfall of the year, and I’m excited to start snowboarding again. I am up because of a huge CIS Econ test tomorrow, and all the stress is piling up on me. Suddenly, my window slams up and I scream. The problem is, no one’s there, the wind just blew it up. As I put it back, though, I hear my mom shriek from downstairs, a noise she has only made once another time: when I told her dad was cheating.
“GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! CALL 911, SOMEBODY! DANIEL’S HERE!” I heard her yell from downstairs, like she was preoccupied doing something else. Was she defending herself? I didn’t have time to check, so I rounded up my siblings, gave them each a supply bag I’ve kept in my room for a week, just in case this kind of thing occurred, and one by one we slipped out of my window to the backyard. Carter carried a knife, and Toby had one of dad’s old handguns in his bag. Melanie quickly dialed nine-one-one as watched the front door and listened to mom’s confrontation.
“What are you doing here, Daniel? What about your house arrest? What has happened to you?”
“You don’t get it, do you, Laurie? Do you remember when you used to call me Danny?”
“Get away from me, and you leave my children alone, too.”
“Oh, but that’s unfortunate. I’m going to finish what I started, no matter what you say.”
“Why have you been stalking me for nearly two decades? Haven’t you ever gotten over me?”
There was a pause of silence, then Hoffman spat, “I have always loved you, and that will never change.”
“We were sixteen! How could you love me, and never get over it?”
“It just will never happen. You were more than a junior prom date.”
“You’re psychotic!”
“I wish. But don’t you think the divorce is too good to be true? Now you’re single. What are the chances?”
“I am not single, actually.”
“Oh yes, your friendship with Officer Femora is quite the pickle.”
“The police will be coming any second now.”
“You better hope not—if Femora tries to come to the rescue, he won’t be alive much longer.”
Just as Femora’s squad pulled up, and right as he opened the driver’s door, shots were fired from the house. Good thing Hoffman was a horrible shot, because the bullet hit the light pole about three feet away from the squad car.
“Shots fired!” we heard Femora shout into his radio, sending shots back in Hoffman’s direction. That’s when I heard the door close, a woman’s scream, and the door open once more.
“Drop your weapons! If you shoot, I shoot.” I could hear mom’s pleads to let her go, that the kids weren’t here, but it was no use.
“Why would you shoot her? I thought you loved her?” Femora asked.
“I do, but she betrayed me. She married him, and is now falling for you. She will never love me back, you see. But this isn’t just about revenge, but escaping jail. Because of Brea, I had to endure an entire year of jail time, taunts from my cellmates, and constantly replaying everything about that night that went wrong. I need to demolish your daughter for how horribly she spiraled my life into a pit of agony.”
“It was a pit of agony to start with!”
“And it is all thanks to Laurie.”
With that, we heard a gunshot, and heartbreakingly, it wasn’t from Femora’s gun, but Hoffman’s.
Mom’s scream was ear-splitting; the entire world could hear it at the exact time, at such a high frequency even the most with-standing glassware could be instantly shattered. I heard her body drop, collapsing onto the pavement with a crack. Hoffman bolted into the house and locked the door tight. Femora brought the SWAT team, which had just arrived, along with an ambulance, into the house in search for the wicked jail-junkie. Paramedics swarmed my mother and hauled her into the ambulance via gurney. Seeing her writhing in pain, but alive, brought tears of mixed emotions to my eyes. I led my family into the car in my neighbor’s driveway. (They were gone for two weeks in Hawaii and allowed us to park it there.) I didn’t wait around to see whether Hoffman would be captured.
“Where are you driving to?” asked Melanie, her words coming out in stutters and various octaves. She was shaking from head to foot, despite the heater blowing massive amounts of hot hair directly at her in the Jeep.
“I have no clue—just away from here. You can grab pop if you want. There should be a cooler in the back. Wyatt, your iPod is in your bag, along with Toby’s guitar.”
Toby’s eyes bulged in surprise. “That’s where my guitar went?”
“Yes. I’ve been planning this since the night we saw Hoffman get released on the news. I knew, under whatever circumstances, he wouldn’t stay in house arrest for the entire two months. That would be way too much a waste of freedom for him. I packed several weeks’ worth of clothes for everyone, snow gear, camping supplies and took out the money from my bank account. There should be a few thousand.”
Carter groaned. “I have a huge test tomorrow. We should go to my dorm; I’m sure Robby won’t mind.”
Robby, Carter’s roommate, was adopted when he was sixteen from Denmark and, though remarkably brilliant, had a tough time learning English. Now he was attending college, with no one else to know, so Carter took him under his wing. Amazingly, they had a lot in common, and instantly became best friends.
“But don’t you think Hoffman will find that out, too? If he learned anything in jail, it’s to analyze every possibility. He will find us if we stay in your dorm.”
“Fine, we’ll stay in Hanna’s apartment.”
Melanie giggled. “We’ve only met your girlfriend once, at your graduation party. Is she nice? Are you sure she’ll let us all stay?”
“Of course; I’ll just tell her that a guy who wants to murder us is tracking us down and we can’t stay at my dorm.”
I rolled my eyes. “You are not saying that, got it? Just say your dorm room is under construction or something. Anything but the real reason.”
We got to Hanna’s house at six in the morning, so we decided it wasn’t even worth asking to stay. Carter went to his class to take the test. During this time, the rest of us spent time in the Bemidji Mall, munching on Baskin Robin’s ice cream and purchasing new clothes. While eating our breakfast at nine, something on the TV caught my eye.
“At two in the morning today, officers responded to an insane case in Harriet, Minnesota. Forty-seven-year-old Laurie Beckham was shot by Daniel Hoffman, who was supposed to be on house arrest after kidnapping Laurie’s now nineteen-year-old son, Carter, and plotting to also kidnap his sister, Breanne. Laurie is said to be in critical condition at North Memorial Hospital, and Hoffman is still on the loose. Carter, Breanne, and their three younger siblings are said to be missing as well.”
Dad popped up on the screen, in front of B. Dub’s Snack Shack. “Daniel Hoffman is a nutcase, shooting my ex-wife like that. Now he scared my children away, too; but they’re a smart bunch, and have been through a lot, so I’m not surprised they are hiding.” The cameraman asked, “How do you know Hoffman didn’t find them?” Dad’s response, “Hoffman learned a lot in prison, but so did my kids. They’ve outsmarted him once, they can for sure do it again.”
I couldn’t help but smile at Dad. At the most unexpected times, he actually seemed to support us—indirectly, of course. All of a sudden, I saw my face, along with my four other siblings’, on the news. Our server, and the families sitting in booths next to us, starred suspiciously. Maybe it helped that Carter wasn’t here, so that it could throw off the people’s suspicions.
Our server, a woman in her fifties with black frizzy hair, yellow teeth and wearing a nametag that read KATHY, appeared cautiously with four waters and our breakfasts.
“Anything else you need?” she asked me, eyeing my HARRIET BASKETBALL sweatshirt I stupidly had on.
“No thank you.”
She reevaluated us in indecision. “Are you sure? Because if you are who I think you are, you must be in a load of problems.”
“Who do you think we are? We’re just a young family from southern Illinois.”
She shook her head, smiling sadly, as if she was convinced we were the Beckham’s. Then, she whispered, “Please don’t be afraid to ask for help. You can trust me.”
I looked at her awkwardly. What if she was working with Hoffman? It was a stretch, but a possibility. “What did you say your name was again?”
“Oh! My name is Denise.”
Wyatt and Toby gaped, and Melanie was about to correct her when I replied, “I’ll ask you for help if I need it, miss. But if we could, we’d like our check.”
“But, you just got your…”
“Please, we’re in a hurry.”
She nodded, the frustration clearly building. “Right away, Brea.” Right when she left, I collected our breakfasts into a plastic Wal-Mart bag. “Come on, we have to go now! I’d bet anything she is working with Hoffman, and because she knows we’re here, so does he.”

The kids followed me into the Jeep, which was parked behind the restaurant, and not in the ostentatious front parking lot. I quickly slammed the key into the engine and drove off to the college. Suddenly, I noticed the forebodingly familiar black Ford Escalade right on my heels. At the wheel, of course, was none other than the terrible Daniel Hoffman.
“Melanie, call the cops—we’ve found Hoffman. Toby, call Carter and make sure he’s okay, and tell him that Hoffman is on our trail. Wyatt, stay calm, and stop looking back.”
All of a sudden gun shots erupted from the behind, and I gunned the Jeep, flying by all the other cars in the small town, whizzing past stop signs, and ignoring all red lights. Melanie was practically screaming into the phone, her conversation with the cops going something like this: “Help! Daniel Hoffman is after us in his 2009 Ford Escalade! Ahhh! We are in Bemidji, Minnesota, on I-94 going eastbound. Please help us! Brea, look out! My name is Melanie Beckham, sister of Brea and Carter Beckham, you know, the missing kids who got kidnapped a year ago, daughter of Laurie Beckham, who got shot. GUN SHOTS ARE FIRED!”
The dispatchers swore they were sending squad cars, but it took what seemed like forever for them to come. By the time we saw a police cruiser, there were obvious bullet holes in the poor olive green Jeep that belonged to my Grandpa Quincy. We heard the sirens blare and didn’t even slow down or move for them. We were the victims that needed the help, and didn’t want to interfere with them apprehending Hoffman. But it took awhile for them to crash his truck. We got to a bridge over the Mississippi, and looking through my rearview mirror, all I saw was a huge truck do four flips in the air, on fire, and as if slowed down by time, splashed into the river with a sploosh!
I pulled over on the bridge, onlookers already examining the scene. We all joined the police officers and other witnesses, who didn’t understand the circumstances.
“Do you think he’s dead?” Toby asked, a hopeful ring in his voice.
An elderly man, who looked remarkably similar to Mickey Rooney, only maybe twenty years younger and with a head of long, white hair, held his police badge up to us. “My name is Thompson Weatherly, the Chief of Bemidji Police. I apologize it took so long to track him down, and that it had to end like this.”
A tow truck was already bringing our Jeep to the mechanic shop for removing the bullet holes and examining the evidence. Firemen were trying to figure out a way to get the Escalade to get out of the river, but it was much harder than it seemed.
“So is he dead or no?” Toby asked again.
“We are 98% sure he is dead,” Weatherly replied with a firm smile. “But, however, he did escape house arrest, and the Harriet policeman, so we do have an escape artist up our sleeves. Fortunately, our firemen are the top in the state, and will thoroughly examine the crime scene to make sure we find Hoffman, dead or alive.”
Wyatt was on the phone with Carter, who was freaking out with Hanna at her place. “Where are you staying, kids? How did you, too, escape the Hoffman adventure earlier this morning?”
“Well, our mom saved us. We were all upstairs, and we heard her screaming. We climbed out my window, ran to our Jeep parked in the neighbor’s driveway, and waited till we made sure everyone’s attention was inside the house, away from us. It sounds horrible, thinking back, deserting our mom to be shot…”
“No, you did the right thing. You’re a hero.”
“Do you know how our mom is?” Melanie asked.
He grimaced. “Last time I heard…” Another officer came up to him, whispered something in the Chief’s ear, and with a wave goodbye, they made their way under the bridge and down by the river.
“We have to grab Carter and go to North Memorial Hospital,” Toby demanded. “I don’t care anymore about Hoffman—mom needs us. What if we’re too late?”
Wyatt nodded in agreement, and I groaned. “If only we had a car, guys.”
All of a sudden, a cherry red truck pulled up. “Hey! Hop in!” cried Carter in the passenger seat. There was Hanna, Carter’s blonde-haired girlfriend of two years.
We all hopped in Hanna’s crowded backseat. Boy, was everyone happy to see her and Carter.
“How did your test go?” Wyatt asked casually.
Both Carter and Hanna laughed. “After forty-five minutes, I got Toby’s crazed call, and I just booked it out of that room, explaining a family emergency. My professor will probably understand once he turns on the nine o’clock news. So, is that car totaled or what? Have the cops found the body yet?”
I shrugged. “The Chief Weatherly says he’s 98% sure Hoffman died, but they were still searching for any signs of him, because they knew how sneaky the guy is. Honestly, I’m freaked out that he’s still alive.”
“So where are we going now?” Hanna wondered, driving down I-94 like it was her daily routine.
“North Memorial Hospital, please. That’s where our mom is. Carter, she’s in critical condition. That always means bad things, because the news said it, and they always underestimate things.”
Carter looked embarrassed. “Brea, North Memorial is a long ways away—in the Cities! You can’t just expect Hanna to…”
“No, I’m okay with it, really. I am happy to go there. I want your mom to be as good as new too, Carter.”
With that, we started our five-hour trek to Robbinsdale.
When we got to North Memorial Hospital, a huge, colorful building with a neat fountain in front, Hanna parked her car and we jogged into the place. The ceiling was huge, and a receptionist greeted us with a lazy smirk, her eyes barely leaving the Vogue magazine she read ravenously.
“How may I help you?” she drawled.
“We’d like to see our mother—Laurie Beckham?”
She immediately grimaced, which was not a good sign at all. “Who are you?”
I rolled my eyes. “We are the Beckham family, and we’d like to see our mother! Where is she?”
“Okay, okay, let me make some calls. She’s been sleeping…a lot…” She dialed a few numbers, argued with multiple people, and finally hung up, looking frayed. “There will be a nurse meeting you at Room 304. She’ll summarize all the details for you, before you see Ms. Beckham.”
“Thank you,” Toby replied sarcastically, as we sprinted into the elevator. Melanie was already tearing up. What was going on?
We got to Room 304, in the Extensive Care Department. A short woman in blue scrubs and black glasses awaited us with an uneasy frown.
“So you are the famous Beckham family, huh? Ever since Laurie was checked in I followed the news reports, wondering when you guys would show up. I just saw that you caught Hoffman, that’s good!”
“Was he dead or alive? Did they find his body?” Wyatt asked.
She shrugged. “I only saw the minor info they gave. It’s too early to tell. But your mother, on the other hand, is in a coma.”
Everyone gasped in unison. It was better than hearing “your mom is dead”, but not by much.
“Did the bullet hit her brain or something?” Carter wondered aloud.
The nurse nodded. “Yes, it did, and Hoffman leaving her to fall on the cement steps didn’t help, either. Her brain underwent extensive treatment, so we forcibly put her in a coma because of how horrible her pain was. Unfortunately, Laurie stayed in the coma. It has been six hours since she should have woken up. It isn’t a good sign.”
I barged my way into mom’s hospital room, and there she was. Three doctors were trying to revive her, or so it looked. She looked like she was in hibernation. At this point, I wished she was.
“What happens when she wakes up?” Carter responded.
“She’ll be in a massive amount of pain from the incredibly difficult surgery we did about eight hours ago, but other than that, she should be back to normal, with a possible migraine issue, but alive.”
“How long do you wait for someone to get out of a coma?”
“One month.”
We spent only a little more time in the dreary hospital room, and then escorted ourselves out the door. I couldn’t help but wonder what being in a coma felt like, or if it was just like sleeping. Maybe some people ended up like Rip Van Winkle, starting in 1980 and waking up in 2000. Wouldn’t that be a change! Mom only had a month…
“What if she doesn’t wake up?” Toby asked, putting our thoughts out in the open.
“Toby, don’t think like that,” Carter scolded. “Mom will wake up. That is what we are thinking of, as of now, got it? In the meantime, we have the Hoffman issue to discuss. Hanna, want to take over?”
She nodded. “It’s four-thirty, and the accident happened at nine this morning. Firemen are still looking for a body, and have investigated the empty Ford Escalade. From the projectory of the fall, Hoffman has a 60% chance of living—many are suspecting that was enough for him.”
Everyone groaned. “That means that we still have to shake Hoffman off our tail,” Melanie exclaimed. “How much longer can we run away from the psycho before he gets captured, or we end up like mom, alive yet dead?”

Two Weeks Later—November 9th…
We’ve been living with Hanna and her roommate, Sonya, in her apartment since we found out about mom’s coma. Speaking of comas, mom still isn’t out of hers, which is extremely disappointing and stressful. Hanna’s apartment is always on watch from four rookies, two for each shift. Carter is still attending college and working, and I’ve been driving the kids and I the hour to Harriet, where we continue to go to school and I work at B. Dub’s. Dad has been a regular, which is horrible, because he always pressures me to tell him the latest. He hates being out of the loop, but what is most disappointing, is that he still cares about us.
“I saw your mother yesterday,” Dad told me as I handed him his third dark coffee.
“Oh, did you? How is she doing?”
“She’s the same since the incident—silent.”
I swallowed uneasily, sitting on the booth opposite to him since he was the only customer. “Do you think she’ll ever wake up within a month? Time is already half up.”
He shrugged. “Anything can happen, Brea. I’m not going to get your hopes up, because if she doesn’t, life will be tough. Besides, Hoffman your main worry right now. I would ask you to come live with Amy and I, but…”
I couldn’t understand him. “But what?”
He took a few more sips of his coffee. “Well, Amy doesn’t like being associated with all of this Hoffman madness. She gets jealous, I know she does, when I’m in the spotlight on the news defending my ex. It’s complicated, and if I housed you guys, it would be like accepting that I’m not letting go of the past.”
“Dad!” I shouted, my boss giving me a strange look. “There is a major difference between letting go of mom and letting go of your children. We may be mom’s kids, but we’re also yours. We have nowhere else to go, and you are supposed to be there for us, like a normal father. No matter who you marry, no matter who you live with, no matter how much you hate mom, we are your children, and we need you.”
He rolled his eyes. “It isn’t like that, Breanne. I still love you.”
I rolled up my sleeves and shook my head violently. I screamed at my boss, a scrawny guy behind the cash register, “I quit!”

We sat in the Bemidji Community Library, sipping on hot cider, reading the latest newspapers about the case. Forty-eight-year-old Daniel Hoffman’s body is still not found; Where is Daniel Hoffman?; and even Daniel Hoffman: kidnapper, coma-causer and escape artist on the loose once again. Dad kept calling, trying to apologize, explaining that the press was getting to his head, and that was the reason he couldn’t be a regular father. He still never invited us to live with him and Amy.
ONE WEEK, FIVE DAYS LATER—November 26th…
Two days left. Carter, myself and Toby have been taking turns guarding mom, while Wyatt and Melanie are at school or at home. We’re all miserable, and can’t stand the wait. The nurse, Ms. DaLuca, constantly tried to pull us away from our mother, explaining time after time she’d call us first thing if mom wakes up. We didn’t budge; time was precious, and we only had forty-eight hours of it.
Thirty-six hours now, and mom hasn’t moved an inch. Just then, dad comes in the room, awkward and looking like he could drop and sleep for a few years. His hair was frazzled, and he had massive stubble. His clothes were ripped and torn, and his work boots looked dreadfully warn down. He had bags under his sad, gray eyes, explaining the tired vibe he brought in.
“How’s she doing?” Dad murmured softly.
We all shrugged, hardly acknowledging his existence. He continued, “Listen, guys. I really need to talk to you—all of you. Where are the twins?”
“Wyatt is at hockey practice, and Melanie is cheerleading at the basketball game. They wouldn’t listen to you even if they were right here, anyway.”
“Please, Brea, work with me here. No matter what Amy says—she isn’t the boss of me—you are invited to stay with us. No, I want you to stay with me. I’ve been a jerk lately, with all of this madness, but I know what I want now.”
The three siblings all kept their faces silent. “Can you step out of the room please so we can discuss this decision?”
Carter turned to face him. “What makes you change your mind all of a sudden?”
“Sophie is growing up, and it reminds me when you three were youngsters, too, all helpless and innocent. In a way, you still are. Sophie needs her parents, but just because she’s a month old doesn’t mean anything. You guys need parents, too, and it has taken me so long to realize that.”
I didn’t know what to think. Should I accept the offer, giving in to her father’s confused brain, or reject it, and continue to cause family traumas?
Toby nodded to me, so I reluctantly told my father, “Fine; because you seem so willing to have us live with you…we accept your offer. However, this is only temporary for the time being. In twenty-seven hours, we will discuss whether the arrangement is permanent or not.”
Dad smiled. “I knew you guys would come to eventually!”
Carter frowned. “Dad…you look really tired, and stressed. Are you sure you still don’t have feelings for mom?”
He sighed. “I do admit I still care for your mother, and my elope with Amy was quite rash. However, I do not regret divorcing Laurie because I found I didn’t want to be with her anymore. It is nothing personal; I have moved on and started a new life with Amy, but that does not mean I don’t want your mother to be happy, or forget about you five! Just because Sophie was born doesn’t mean I want to start a completely separate family.”
“I know that,” I told him. “Now can we please focus on mom?”
TWENTY-FIVE HOURS LATER…
We’ve been watching, and sleeping, and eating, around mom impatiently. It was hard, moving into Dad and Amy’s new home; it was a beautiful lakeside home in a gorgeous town. Sophie was spoiled; she had a gigantic room with all the latest kid toys. Even though I envied her, she was adorable, and I couldn’t ever be mad at the darling. Melanie and Wyatt joined us in the hospital; it’s now five in the morning, and everyone’s exhausted. There’s only two hours to go until mom’s time is up, and Ms. DaLuca would pull the plug on mom’s life. Everything seemed so catastrophic, like nothing good would ever come out of this. If mom didn’t wake up, dad would have paid thousands of dollars for nothing, and Hoffman would get his revenge once in for all.
One hour and forty-six minutes till Ms. DaLuca would come in and a miracle occurred. First, the heartbeat monitor, which had been sitting silently in the corner for the past thirty days, started beeping violently, the lines it created going up and down rapidly. Suddenly, mom’s eyes open, and she sits up, gasping for breath, like a person being rescued from drowning. It was the scariest and most amazing sight I have ever seen.
Doctors filed in and conducted experiments to make sure mom was going to make a full recovery for the next few hours. Everyone looked so surprised, so shocked, that she had awoken; as if there was a zero chance of recovery. Mom appeared daze, her body numb and weak, and she couldn’t talk. Either she was too bewildered, or physically couldn’t.
We were forced to leave till tomorrow morning, DaLuca’s orders. It made me horribly anxious, because the entire day at school, I was jumping up and down, telling everyone my mom was awake again. Everyone seemed so down and tired compared to my ecstatic mood, which made the day go by even slower.
Finally, my alarm clock hit five-thirty, and Melanie woke me up three minutes later like it was Christmas. “Dad’s ready to go to the hospital! We’re going now! Get dressed and hurry!”
When we got to North Memorial, mom was smiling as we walked in her room. The first words she said were, “Was Hoffman caught?”
Unfortunately, the news was dim and awful, so I said, “We’ve teamed up with cops all across the state, mom; they’re going to find them as soon as they can.”
Mom nodded understandingly. “So it really took me thirty days to recover? What did I miss?”
“A lot,” grumbled dad, and we left it at that.
FOURTEEN DAYS LATER . . .
It’s been two weeks and mom has been staying at home the entire time. We’ve moved back into mom’s house; Amy seemed like she was planning a not-so-secret goodbye party that would occur after we’ve left. When mom was in the hospital, she acted as if she was as sad as the rest of us; only, of course, because if mom didn’t wake up, Amy would be stuck with five children from her husband’s previous marriage.
Mom could talk and walk and remember things just as fine as she did before the incident. However, there were some startling differences. She stuttered, and when anyone brought up Hoffman or the incident, she’d start cringing and crying. She was still quite weak, and had lost over twenty pounds. As a petite 5’ 7” lady of 130 to begin with, she now looked like a skeleton. Toby once asked her if being in a coma was like sleeping. “Yes, just without the dreams. There were painful feelings—some would be comparable to touching a hot curling iron and not being able to let go—which were most likely caused by the surgeries and extensive medications they put me on. Other than that, yes, it was very sleeplike.”
Though Dad showed up ever so often to check up on Mom, Officer Femora stayed over several nights in a row. Over winter break we all went on a skiing trip in Colorado, Femora included. They were very serious, I could tell, though I didn’t know when they would come out and make it official. The most sufficient reason why they wouldn’t would be the whole Hoffman issue.
Finally, on January 2nd, the day after New Year’s, Hoffman was spotted—only, very near the vicinity.
“Breaking news: Daniel Hoffman has been reported seen filling up gas in Buffalo, Minnesota, about fifteen miles from Harriet, where he shot Laurie Beckham and kidnapped her oldest son, Carter. Lisa,” the reporter said, speaking to the anchor, “Can you tell me more about Ms. Beckham’s condition as she progresses from the incident?”
Lisa replies, “Laurie Beckham is still taking several physical therapy sessions, and has been checked into a therapist to calm her anxiety. This is a brave personal decision for her, and I would do the same in a heartbeat if I’d been in her shoes. It is said that she and her family are laying low, waiting for the worst of Hoffman. More details coming up, Bill.”
I was watching the nine o’clock news when that came on. Buffalo was so close to here; I remember Carter driving back and forth to his job at Scoops. It would take less than ten minutes. What if Hoffman was here, watching us? Watching me?
I ran out of my room on the third story and dialed officer Femora’s number before realizing he was already at my house. That would never get old.
“You rang, Brea?” he asked, chuckling in the kitchen.
“Femora,” I whispered back to him, noting mom’s shaky figure a few yards away in the TV room. “What if Hoffman strikes again? We might be too late this time—a standoff won’t be the last of it.”
“No worries, I’ve got it under control. I’ve set up panic buttons in nearly every room so the police will be instantly notified, and I carry a gun on me at all times while I’m here. Hoffman won’t get any of you.”
That’s when the front door crashed open, and in comes a giant Toyota Tundra blasting through the front of the house! Wyatt, Toby and Melanie come racing down the stairs, screaming at the top of their lungs. I wished Carter was here, not off at college, because he’d know what to do at a time like this.
In the truck was Hoffman, slumped over in the driver’s seat. Looking very professional, Femora hid us behind the counter, stuck his gun out at the vehicle and screamed, “Get on the ground!” Mom started shrieking and ran upstairs, Melanie following her nervously.
It took awhile, but Femora finally dragged Hoffman’s half-intoxicated half-sleeping body in the ground, handcuffed him and showed mom before Femora would bring him to the station. She seemed relieved, but the tears didn’t hold up. My once-brave mother had vanished.
Watching the midnight news made my heart do flip-flops. “Forty-six-year-old SWAT officer Jake Femora apprehends forty-seven-year-old Daniel Hoffman just two hours ago. Hoffman drove his truck into the Beckham residence, clearly intoxicated, and Femora had been over at the house during this time. Femora arrested Hoffman and now he sits in jail, awaiting his trial. Charges against him are as follows: attempted murder, driving while intoxicated, will have to pay for the damages to the Beckham house and more. Finally this guy is caught and will never be let out.”
I couldn’t believe my luck. Out of every other scenario—which could have very well included killings and Hoffman winning this entire feud—it ends like this. Unbelievable.
However, what is yet to come, is substantial.
It’s been eight months since Hoffman crashed into our house and his trial still hasn’t happened. Many are excited by this, including me; he could stay in there for as long as I live for all I care. It is now August 13th and I’m loving summer break before senior year. In the end of July, Femora and Mom married on a beautiful beach in San Diego. They’ve been on their honeymoon since in Australia, so we’ve been staying in Carter and Hanna’s apartment in Bemidji. Nothing is new with Dad and Amy—we see them every holiday, and they always act like we’re inconvenient.
Femora came back on August 14th with mom. They’re both suntanned, filled with stories and cameras are used up. Mom is ecstatic, telling us every detail of the trip, though Femora is hesitant and distant.
That night I corner my new step-father, who I’ve always secretly liked more than my own father. “Femora…can you please tell me why you are so nervous? Was the trip not as good as mom makes it sound?”
He shook his head, smiling sadly. “Your mother has it exactly right. It was the best trip I’ve ever had. But on the plane ride home, I got a call from my friend who is a prosecutor, the prosecutor who happens to be in the Hoffman trial. He tells me the trial will be starting on the 16th—in two days—and the four of us will have to make witness statements.”
“Wait, which four?”
“You, your mother, Carter and I. We’re the most involved in the case, and they don’t want your siblings involved. They know the four of us can handle it. You can do it, Brea; I believe in you.”
“The trial is in two days! How did mom react when you told her?” His face grimaced in shame, and judging by mom’s happy-go-lucky personality, I knew what Femora told her. “You didn’t tell her?”
“I plan on doing it tonight. It’s been eight months, and the therapy sessions have been helping dramatically, but I’m frightened she’ll go back to the way she was…”
“I’ll butter her up, okay? Hopefully she’ll try and see it in perspective.”
At six, when she was washing the dishes after dinner, I came in. “Can I help you, mom?”
“Oh, thank you! How are Carter and Hanna? I’m so sad they couldn’t be here tonight.”
“They’re great, but they have to work in order to go to those summer classes and pay for the apartment. Mom, have you been thinking about the trial lately? I mean, Hoffman’s?”
She shrugged, scrubbing the dishes angrily. “I’ve been in Australia, honey. The only things I’ve thought of are my camera, suntan lotion, and rattlesnakes.”
“Well, maybe you should think about it now.”
She threw the dish down into the sink. “Why, Brea?”
“Because I think his trial is coming up very soon. You think he’s guilty, right?”
“Do I think he’s guilty? Brea, that’s like asking me if I know how to count the alphabet in my native language.”
“Okay then. Would you be able to, if you were forced to, tell people what happened that night when Hoffman came to our house? If it would be the difference between proving him guilty or innocent, could you do it?”
She nodded vehemently. “Of course I could! It’s been eight months; I think I have enough courage to do that.”
I smiled. “Good.”
The next morning when the family was eating breakfast—minus Carter and Dad, obviously—mom looked horribly shaken and pale, and Femora didn’t look much better. Obviously I hadn’t done a very good job at buttering her up.
“Mom, is there something wrong?” asked Wyatt.
She slapped down her fork, eyeing Femora and I. “Yes, I believe there is. Did anyone else know that Hoffman’s trial is tomorrow?” Toby spit out his orange juice on Melanie, who screamed, not helping the situation at all.
“I did,” I replied confidently.
“Of course you did. Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“She tells you everything, mom,” Toby told her.
“Oh, but not this!”
“I didn’t you would freak out!”
She told the younger three, “Carter, Breanne, Nick and myself have to be on the stand tomorrow to profess what we know, and to prove that Hoffman is guilty. I have to tell about the night when I was shot.”
Wyatt and Melanie flinched, and Toby replied, “In order to prove Hoffman’s guilt, yeah, you do. It kind of depends on what you feel like telling, mom; if you want him behind bars, tell the jury everything that happened. Don’t just stop with the facts, but dramatize your moods, which I know you’ll do easily. You are the meat in this pig; the other witnesses, no offense, are just the fillers.”
She groaned, but nodded defiantly. “That guy can’t hurt me anymore—he’s going down!”

AUGUST 16TH—THE TRIAL . . .
Walking into the courtroom was menacing. Not only did I see Hoffman first thing, it was like everyone in the building was convinced he was innocent. However, they watched the news shows, didn’t they? They read the papers, with graphic photos of mom when she was first shot, his Escalade floating in the river, and our house after his new truck slammed into it. Every single charge Hoffman was accused of was factual and undeniable. Why was this trial even happening, when everything was pinned on him?
First on the witness stand was my eldest brother, who was modeling a gruff five o’clock shadow and a classy tuxedo borrowed from Hanna’s father’s tux shop. He looked calm and poise, unlike my sweating-bullets mother, who bystanders might suspect to faint at any moment.
“Please state your name and age to the jury,” said the prosecutor, Femora’s friend Gregory Hill. If anyone were to win this war, it’d be Gregory.
“My name is Carter Beckham and I am twenty.”
“Now Mr. Beckham, where were you on the night your mother got shot?”
“I was in the house upstairs, in Toby’s bedroom.”
“Can you please explain what exactly happened to the court?”
“Yes. Toby and I were creating song lyrics in his room. My other siblings—Wyatt, Melanie and Brea—were each in their separate bedrooms, all on the top level. All of a sudden, we heard mom screaming downstairs about Hoffman being right there, on our property. We could hear scuffling, and that’s when Brea runs in Toby’s room, trying to corral us all together, because she has these insanely fast instincts. We jump out of Brea’s room using an escape latter into the backyard. We ran to the side of the house, waiting to make a break for the car, which was in our neighbor’s driveway. We knew it was too risky to wait and get our mom; looking back, it was an awful decision. Officer Femora drove up and tried to convince Hoffman to quit the standoff. No one could see us because it was pitch black, and we couldn’t see Hoffman or our mother. That’s when Hoffman shot my mother, locked the door behind him, and ran into the house. We booked it to the car, being there was an ambulance to take care of our mom, and drove to Bemidji.”
Femora went and so did I. We were asked different variations of the same question: what happened when Hoffman came to our doorstep? Where were you when Hoffman fell into the river, and how did he escape? That’s when mother was forced up on the witness stand, clearly shaking, though her eyes glared defiantly at Hoffman, who was smiling right back at her.
“Please state your full name and age to the jury,” said the prosecutor for the fourth time.
“Laurie May Beckham-Femora, and I am forty-seven.” As I watched Hoffman when mom replied, his face twitched at the additional word “Femora”. He obviously hadn’t gotten the wedding invitation.
“We’ve heard the scenario three times previous, and each statement has been the same with a few tweaks here and there. We will hear your side of the story and Hoffman’s afterwards, so you are very key to our prosecution because you were the ideal victim. But to understand that night in perspective, we have to go back to go forward.
“Let’s go back to the 80’s in Rockville High. You were a cheerleader there, is that correct?”
“Yes; I was a captain by sophomore year. It was a passion.”
“So you went to prom with Daniel Hoffman, right, for junior year?”
Mom grimaced, and I didn’t blame her. That was probably her most regretted move to this day. “Yeah, I did.”
“Was he a jock, or someone you greatly admired?”
“Objection, your honor,” cried the defense attorney, Mike Hendelson. “Irrelevance to the trial.”
“I’m just trying to understand the background, your honor,” Gregory explained, and the judge granted Greg to continue.
“Hoffman—as I recall—was extremely smart and quiet. I never…fell for the attention-lovers. I was quiet on the social scene myself, and being it was already the beginning of May and everyone taken, he asked me, and I decided to accept. I didn’t know the guy, but I didn’t hear anything negative about him back then.”
“So you had a fun time at the dance, though you didn’t wish the relationship to continue?”
“No, I didn’t. Like I said, I hardly knew the guy, and he just wasn’t someone I wanted to be with, you know? He dropped out, and I figured I’d never see him again…”
“That brings us to the standoff. Where were you when he arrived at your house?”
“In the kitchen, of course, baking cookies for my coworker’s baby shower.”
“Did he knock first, barge in—how did he enter the home?”
“He crashed the door open with a bat, as you can see in the photos officer Femora took, as he was the first to the scene. Once I saw him, I immediately started screaming to my kids, who I knew were upstairs. They were the ones I was worried about. I don’t think my own personal safety crossed my mind till I realized he had shot me.”
“Why didn’t you call 911?”
“It was all happening too fast. I screamed and screamed, and by that point he had already twisted my arms and led me outside while pointing the gun to my head. He kept taunting me about the past and my relationships, especially the divorce of my then-husband and Femora. Just as he spoke of Femora, Femora pulled up. He tried to reason with Hoffman but Hoffman ended up shooting me. The rest is all a blur, until I woke up in a hospital bed a thirty days later, with a terrible headache and my family surrounding me.”
“Is there any doubt Hoffman didn’t purposely shoot you?”
“No, there is none. Watch officer Femora’s squad car tapes—they’ll show you the exact standoff.” What no one else knew besides mom and I, was that mom hadn’t dared seen the tape herself, for it contained the night she was shot, and it showed every second of it.
When the lights turned off and a projector turned on, mom cringed, her eyes getting teary. Her therapist, Ms. Lipinski, was sitting in the chairs for the spectators, trying to calm my mom, but nothing was going to help. All of the memories of the night were flooding back.
“Drop your weapons! If you shoot, I shoot.” I could hear mom’s pleads to let her go, that the kids weren’t here, but it was no use.
“Why would you shoot her? I thought you loved her?” Femora asked.
The camera was pointed towards the house, with Femora’s body facing away from the camera. Mom was being held by Hoffman with the gun pointed straight at her head. Crazily, I could see the five kids perfectly, meaning that Femora could see us the entire time!
That’s when Hoffman started talking to Femora about loving mom. Hoffman said, “I do, but she betrayed me. She married him, and is now falling for you. She will never love me back, you see. But this isn’t just about revenge, but escaping jail. Because of Brea, I had to endure an entire year of jail time, taunts from my cellmates, and constantly replaying everything about that night that went wrong. I need to demolish your daughter for how horribly she spiraled my life into a pit of agony.”
“It was a pit of agony to start with!”
“And it is all thanks to Laurie.”
I tried to look away, but it was too late. I saw Hoffman blast a shot into my mom’s skull, her body slump onto the cement with a splash, and blood immediately burst. Wyatt fainted, and Toby looked so close to himself. It was the nastiest thing I have ever seen. Even Judge Hatcher had a disgusted look on her face. I looked over to Hoffman, who had the perfect poker face on.
Mom, on the witness stand, was crying. She didn’t need to pretend to be tough—it was hard to watch for everyone. Judge Hatcher pounded on the table, saying, “I have reached my verdict. The defendant is guilty of all charges. Case dismissed.”
There were several cheers but many boos. Hoffman shrieked, “What about my testimony! Everyone deserves a fair trial! Where are my rights? Where are my rights?”
“You just got a fair trial,” exclaimed the Judge, “and you have just been proven guilty. Goodnight, folks. Hoffman will be serving forty years in prison, and will—”
“NO!” he yelled as he was getting pulled out of the room in handcuffs. “I am not going to jail!”
I sighed. If Hoffman made it out of jail alive in forty years, he’d be eighty-eight and very weak. I no longer had to be scared of him, and mom no longer had to worry. He was gone, and he always will be.