The day of my seventh birthday dawned bright and early, the August sun already intense by ten a.m. I’d woken up filled with joyous anticipation. Romy had declared that for my birthday present, she’d do whatever I wanted for the whole day. I’d given the matter a lot of thought and come up with a list of the things that were usually the hardest to get Romy to do: double-Dutch rope jumping (she’d grown tired of it), play Monopoly (Romy hated board games), play hide-and-seek (she thought it was “dumb”), and visit the chicken ranch.
I’d known that the ranch owners were on vacation, and that by the afternoon the caretakers who came to water and feed the animals would be gone. That’s when I’d planned to realize my dream of riding that bull. I told myself that I wanted to do it when Romy was there so I’d have a witness to my triumph. I didn’t admit that I might also have wanted Romy there to rescue me in case the bull wasn’t on board with my plan. Of course, I kept this part to myself, because I knew Romy would stop me if she knew in advance. So I devised a strategy to spring it on her. I was going to suggest we play hide-and-seek around the ranch in the afternoon, and when it was my turn to hide, I’d make sure Romy did her counting near the bull pen. Then I’d sneak over to the pen, climb up, and call out just in time for Romy to see me swing a leg over the bull’s back.
We’d begun the morning with double-Dutch rope jumping and moved on to Monopoly. By then, I was feeling more than slightly guilty for what I was secretly planning to do, so I called off the game halfway through and said we could end my birthday early with a game of hide-and-seek at the chicken ranch. Romy had gratefully leaped at the offer.
We made our way across the open field that separated our little suburban community from the ranch and the wilds that surrounded it. I let Romy be the first to hide, knowing that would give me the right to stake out where “home base” was, and I purposely positioned myself in front of a big oak tree right next to the bull pen. I’d only counted to seven when I heard the crunch of tires on the dirt road and looked around to see that a pickup truck was slowly approaching. Most of the ranch workers drove those trucks, so when the dusty red pickup rolled toward me, I shielded my eyes from the sun and prepared to wave. But as I lifted my hand, I saw that the driver was a stranger. A big black dog was on the seat next to him. The man wore the battered cowboy hat favored by a lot of the ranch hands, and as he drove by, he smiled and lifted it, showing closely cut dark hair and a round, open face. It was a pleasant smile, and I gave him one of my own before turning back to the tree to resume counting.
When I got to one hundred, I knew exactly where to look. Romy always chose the same spot, and I ran straight for it. Sure enough, there she was, in a large hole in the trunk of an oak tree.
“Come on, Romy!” I complained, forgetting that the game was just a ruse for my planned bull ride. “Pick a real hiding place!”
Romy made a face, but she conceded. “Okay, okay. Jeez, Rache, aren’t you ever going to get tired of these baby games?”
I shrugged, embarrassed but stubborn. Even though I had a bigger goal in mind today, I didn’t think it was such a baby game, and I wanted to play it right. Romy reluctantly trudged back to home base. I turned to face the trunk, closed my eyes, and began to count again. Behind me, I heard Romy run toward the woods.
“Twenty-one, twenty-two…,” I counted, and then stopped. Something felt wrong; there was a bad energy in the air. A wave of apprehension rippled through me. I didn’t want to cheat, but the feeling was so strong, I couldn’t ignore it. I opened my eyes and looked around.
The pickup truck had stopped just fifty feet down the road, and it was pointing into the woods. The driver’s door was standing open, and the truck looked empty. I stared, sensing danger, but unsure of why or what to do.
Suddenly I heard a sharp yelp from somewhere in the woods, then abruptly the sound was cut off and there was a distant rustling noise. Terrified but disbelieving, I whispered, “Romy.”
I began to walk toward the woods, stiff-legged, face frozen, unable even to name a reason for my fear. I walked faster and faster, an instinctive terror growing and solidifying with every step, forming a hard ball in my chest. Finally, too overwhelmed with dread to wait another second, I took the deepest breath I could and screamed, “Romy!”
Silence. Romy had to have heard me. Now the ball of fear rose up from my chest and into my throat. I tried to call out again but choked; nothing came out. I stopped and gathered all the breath in my body and was about to call out to her again, but at that moment the man in the cowboy hat appeared. He was jogging out of the woods, toward his truck. An object I couldn’t identify was draped over his shoulder. I stopped breathing and stood dead still, paralyzed with fear. Then, heart pounding and without conscious thought, I started to run toward him, screaming over and over again, “Romy! Romy!”
But though I was pushing my body as hard as I could, my legs felt leaden, as if I were running through quicksand. Some part of my brain realized I couldn’t make it in time. I watched, mute with terror, as he threw the object that’d been on his shoulder into the passenger side of the truck. I stopped, and with every ounce of strength in my body, arms and legs shaking, I screamed out, “Romyyy!” The man looked up and, for just a moment, our eyes met. Then he jogged around to the driver’s side, slammed the door, and drove off, his tires kicking up a cloud of dirt and rocks. “Romyyy!” I screamed again.
I ran after the truck. “Noooo!” I sobbed in a high, keening wail. “Romyyy! Romyyy!” I screamed in helpless desperation as the truck became a pin dot in the distance and the graveled turn of its wheels faded into silence.
I kept running and screaming long after the truck had disappeared, until a sharp, stabbing pain in my side made me crumple to the ground. I lay there, panting, trying to catch my breath as tears streamed down my face. Finally I pulled myself up, hiccuping and still breathless. It couldn’t be true-I refused to acknowledge what “it” was, stopping the thought before it could complete itself. I began talking to myself-my old baby habit-telling myself that maybe Romy was still in her favorite hiding place. Then I told myself she had to be there. I filled my heart with conviction and began to limp toward Romy’s tree. As I moved, clutching my side, I spoke out loud. One long stream of consciousness: “Romy, please be there, please, oh please, I promise I’ll never make you play it again, I promise, Romy, please, please oh please be there! Please be there, Romy!” My breath was ragged, my voice rasping and hoarse.
The tree was empty.
I have no memory of what happened next, but I was told that I’d been found by one of the ranch hands, stumbling around in the woods, sobbing, filthy, my clothing torn. I either couldn’t or wouldn’t speak, and when the man tried to lead me out of the woods, I’d kicked and bitten him until he’d backed off and gone for the sheriff. I couldn’t explain it at the time, but in my child’s mind, I believed that as long as I stayed in the woods, there was still a chance that Romy would be there, that somehow she’d appear and everything would be okay.
I never saw my sister again.
Eventually her disappearance-I still refused to accept the possibility of her death-claimed both my parents. When my father died, the small light that had continued burning in my mother’s eyes flickered and went out. She slipped into a clinical depression that left her virtually immobile for weeks at a time. When her health insurance ran out, she’d managed to rally and go back to work and put food on the table, but I knew she only did it for me. Up to that point, I hadn’t thought it possible to feel any guiltier than I did.