Anniversary

My mother was kidnapped forty-five years ago today.  My father is at church now, praying for her, I assume.  He hasn’t lost hope.  My brother called from Sidney in his punctilious way, saying that this helps to unite us.  I didn’t reply.  He called the police chief as well.  Given the sham of new clues and progress, it would be better if he’d admit once and for all how helpless he is.  He’s just like my father.

Yesterday my father got a new note from the kidnappers.  They’ve lowered the ransom again, still overlooking his inability to pay.  He has forgiven them, granted—but in a dark deadly way they, too, have been kidnapped.  They’d never have bothered my mother at all, it seems, if he hadn’t bragged forty-five years ago about wealth existing only in his head.  And if rather than stalling the issue now he forgot his pride and was honest about his lack of funds, maybe they’d be as happy as we’d be to see her free, and release her immediately.  But no.  And as a result I still haven’t met her.  Knowing a person in pictures isn’t the same.

In the meantime we’re all getting old.