Leo

LEO

NOW

We don’t need the lady cop anymore. Our crisis was averted when I found you asleep in the basement. Still, Dad doesn’t call her off. He lets her come, though it’s the middle of the night and her arrival sparks much interest from the hacks outside. There are lights and cameras on our house because of her.

“Josh,” she says as Dad ushers her quickly in and closes the door.

“Carmen.”

She takes Dad in her arms. They hold each other too long. It’s embarrassing to watch. “I came as soon as you called. You must be beside yourself with worry.”

Dad pulls back. The lady cop isn’t in her usual detective getup, but the most put-together version of someone who’s just rolled out of bed. I smell her perfume from halfway across the room. “We found her,” Dad says, “Leo did,” and then they look at me, as if they only just then realized that I was here.

“Oh, thank God. Where was she?”

Dad tells her.

Her hand goes to her heart. “Oh my God.”

Dad couldn’t stand the idea of you sleeping on the basement floor, so he woke you and sent you back upstairs. You did as told, though you were disoriented when you awoke. You weren’t so sure you weren’t still in that other basement. You panicked. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” I said when you did, careful not to touch you like Dad had. “It’s just Dad and me. Leo. You’re home. You’re safe. Remember?”

You’re not sure what safe means. Still, you climbed the stairs and went back up to your bedroom. You closed the door. I wonder how long you’ll stay there.

“Good for you, Leo,” the lady cop says now.

I shrug. “It’s not like she was that hard to find.”

Dad tells her, “I should have called and told you you didn’t need to come. But we just found her a couple minutes ago. There wasn’t time.” I silently call bullshit. It’s been at least fifteen minutes since Dad sent you upstairs. Plenty of time to call the lady cop off.

“No, it’s fine. You know I’m always here for you whenever you need me, Josh.”

She’s staring at him. Their hands are still touching. Inside I gag. I don’t announce that I’m going to bed. I just leave, though there’s no chance I’m going to sleep.

I don’t go into my room. I take a seat at the top of the stairs instead. I listen to what they say. One thing I’ve figured out about the lady cop is that she has two voices. She has her cop voice, in which she thinks she’s pretty badass. That’s the one I always hear at the police station. And then there’s her lady voice, which is the exact opposite of this. It’s eager to please. Tonight her lady voice showed up.

“So tell me. How’s it been going having Delilah home?”

Their voices are hushed from the distance. Dad’s chilled out some from his near heart attack upstairs, but I can tell that his nerves are still frayed. After he got you back upstairs, he cracked open a cold one and finished it in two minutes flat. “I’d be lying if I said everything was perfect. It’s far from perfect. She’s not right, Carmen.”

“Of course she’s not.”

“She’s suffered greatly.”

“She has. And you have, too.”

No one mentions me and my suffering.

“It’s been over a decade that she’s been gone. She’s not my little girl anymore. Don’t get me wrong. I’m ecstatic to have her home. Relieved and overjoyed. I keep having to remind myself that this is real, that Delilah is actually home. That this isn’t just another dream I’ll wake up from in the morning, as I have hundreds of times since she disappeared. She’s here, and no one’s ever going to take her away from me again. We’ll get there,” he says. “We’ll get to a place where things feel normal.”

“A new normal. Things may never be how they used to be.”

“You did this, you know?”

“Did what?”

“This. You brought my baby girl back home to me. You never gave up on her, on us. You told me you’d keep looking until you found her, and now you have. I can’t ever thank you enough for this, Carmen.”

“I was just doing my job.”

“You went above and beyond. You are still,” he says, and then it’s quiet for a long time. Too long. In my perverted mind, I see them sucking face, even though I’ve never actually witnessed anything more intimate than their sappy texts and the occasional hug. But how would I know what they do when left to their own devices? They’re two lonely grown-ups, after all. The man has needs, even if the idea of it makes me want to puke.

You’re making noise in your room. I don’t know what you’re doing in there, but I know you’re awake. I push myself off the floor. I go to your door. I knock. And then because I think me knocking might scare the bejesus out of you, I call through the door. “It’s me. Leo.”

Your side of the door goes quiet. If I had to guess, I’d say you’re standing there, trying to talk yourself into letting me in. How do you know that you can trust me? How do you know I’m not here to do something bad?

I don’t blame you for being scared.

I knock again. It takes some time for you to open up the door.

You don’t say anything when you do. You just stand there, looking uptight. “Why aren’t you asleep?” I ask. You don’t say. You’re still wearing the hospital clothes. For whatever reason, you don’t want to put mine on.

“What are you doing in here?” I ask. I look around to see what you’ve been up to. But the room is mostly dark. I can’t see much.

You give your head a little shake. Your hair falls into your eyes. It’s schlumpy. You’ve got a smell to you. You need a shower, but Dad thought you’d had enough for one day, so a shower will have to wait until tomorrow. “Nothing, sir,” you say.

“Leo,” I tell you, getting annoyed now. “It’s Leo. Le-o,” I say, ’cause maybe you don’t know how to pronounce it or something. I could wear a nametag to help you remember, but I don’t want to be a dick and assume you know how to read. “Say it with me. Le-o.”

You say my name. I think there’s going to be something déjà vu-ish about it when you finally do, but there’s nothing. Not the spark of recollection I’d been hoping for.

“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

You don’t say either way.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?”

You don’t tell me.

“Just can’t sleep?”

You don’t say.

I think it would be hard trying to sleep in a place that’s brand-new, surrounded by people you don’t know. You were asleep in the basement, until Dad went and put an end to that.

“Stay here,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”

I go to my room. Kicked to the back corner of the closet floor is my old security blanket. It’s blue. The silk edge is torn. Why I still have this stupid thing is beyond me. I used to go everywhere with it. I’d cry without it. According to Dad, Mom used to have to dupe me to get it out of my hands long enough to wash it. Once, it got left in the grocery store shopping cart and my world almost came to an end.

I’m thinking maybe you need my blanket more than I do.

I half expect your bedroom door to be shut and locked when I come back. It’s not. I thrust the blanket at you. “Take it,” I say.

“What is it?” you ask, feeling the texture of it, the weight. The thing’s been washed so many times it’s anything but soft. It’s thin. It isn’t the kind of thing that would keep anybody warm. It doesn’t look like much.

“My old blankie. My blanket. Some kids have them. Maybe you did, too. I don’t know. I couldn’t sleep without that thing as a kid.”

You don’t say anything. You just hold my blanket in your hands, staring blankly at it, then me, then it, ’cause you can’t hold someone’s stare more than a second at best. “I thought maybe it would help you, you know, sleep. It used to be the only thing that made me feel better when I was sick or sad.” I turn my back to you and start walking away.

Three steps later, you say, “Don’t you need it?” Then you tack on, “Leo.” The way you say it is unsure, like you’re not a hundred percent sure you should say it. It gets a smile out of me, though you don’t see. I keep walking.

“I think you need it more than me.”