The Stolen

4

Shelly led me through the foyer and into what looked like their family room. A thirty-eight-inch television sat on a wooden stand; toys and video-game cartridges were spread about haphazardly. The couches and chairs were all dark fabric and wood, the kind you buy when you expect stains to make regular appearances.

"I was going to clean up for the senator, but…you know…" Shelly said, slightly embarrassed at the mess.

"You want Daniel to get used to living in a normal home," I said.

"Best for him to get used to a real home again," Shelly said, nodding.

A man entered the room. He looked weary but happy.

He was a slightly paunchy man with a receding hairline and deep bags under his eyes.

"You must be Henry," he said, offering his hand.

"Randall Linwood."

"Mr. Linwood," I said. "Thanks so much for having me.

I'm grateful for you letting me into your home."

"Thank you, Mr. Parker. With so many vultures circling us since Daniel's return, it's good to have someone we feel we can trust handling the story. Shelly and I have done our homework on you and your newspaper. I think we're all in good hands."

"You are, sir. I ask for nothing but the truth, and I give nothing but my word." Shelly smiled at this, flicked at her eye as though wiping away a nonexistent tear.

"Anyway, I have to get back to the office. I wanted to be here to meet the senator, but if I miss any more time,

Daniel'll have to eat Spaghetti O's for the next few weeks.

Pleasure to meet you, Henry."

"Likewise, sir."

When Randy Linwood left, I heard a brief scuffle come from another room. Looking through the doorway, I saw two pairs of eyes peering at me from between the slats on a staircase. Just as quickly as they appeared, the legs they were attached to ran back up the stairs, whispers following.

"James and Tasha," Shelly said, brushing a strand of hair from her face, the red still there. "They're not really sure how to deal with all of this. We're so happy, but all this…attention, it's not what they're used to. They deal with it in their own way."

"I can't imagine going through what you've been through.

But I have to say, Mrs. Linwood, you're handling it well."

"I'd say thank you, but it's not on purpose."

"Have the police been helpful?"

"Oh, my, incredibly so. I actually thought it'd be much worse, but they've barely spent more than half an hour here since Danny came back. In fact, when the senator came, that's the first time I saw more than two of them at the same time." I found that strange, but allowed Shelly to continue. She paused for a moment, said softly, "We're just so glad to have Daniel back. It's like, a wave crashing over you when you're ready to burst into flame. I can't explain it. All I know is I love him now more than I ever did."

Without thinking, my hand went to my briefcase and I started to unlatch it. My eyes snapped back to Shelly, a sheepish grin on my face.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'd kind of like to keep the tape recorder running, if you don't mind. Things like that, what you just said, they'd add a lot to the story. I don't want the piece to be just about Daniel and how his return has affected him, but what it's meant to your family. How it affects you, your husband, your other children." Shelly smiled, nodded once. I took out the recorder, raised my eyebrows, clicked it on.

"Are you recording now?" she asked.

"I am."

"So this will go in your interview?"

I laughed. "Not everything. Not what you just said, only if it relates to Daniel and your family."

"Can you print swear words?" she asked.

"Uh…no."

"Okay, I curse sometimes and I don't want Daniel to get embarrassed by his potty-mouthed mother."

I smiled at her.

Behind Shelly, I noticed a row of photographs lining a gray shelf. Inside the frames were pictures of the Linwood family. Most of the photos had just four people in them.

Shelly, Randy, James and Tasha. Two pictures had been placed in front of the others. One was of all five Linwoods:

Randy, Shelly, Tasha, James and Daniel. It looked like a photo from a Christmas card, all five bundled in warm sweaters, posed on a couch with smiles as big as they could muster.

"The last photo we took as a family," Shelly said.

"Tasha was only a year old."

"It's beautiful," I said. Then I looked at the photo next to it.

The picture was of their daughter, Tasha, when she was just a child, maybe one or two years old. Tasha wasn't facing the camera. Her head and body were turned away, short blond hair caught in the wind. There was nothing particularly photogenic about the pic, nothing that seemed extraordinary.

"Tasha's birthday," Shelly was quick to point out.

"There was a leak in the basement. We lost so many photo albums. This is the only one we could save. Not the best shot, but it's what's in it that matters. She's just so carefree."

I smiled back at her. "Should we get Daniel?"

Shelly bit her lip, then relaxed. "Have a seat. I'll be right back."

I sat down on the couch. An oak coffee table separated me from a chair where I assumed Daniel would sit. The couch was dark brown, microfiber, half a dozen stains of varying color and size spattered about. A silver robot peeked out from beside the television set, and a few stray doll hairs were tucked between the cushions. The

Linwoods' living room was well worn, well used. The photos on the mantel didn't look like they were placed there for Senator Talbot. I could tell from the dust patterns and slightly faded wood surrounding them that they were barely ever moved. That photo of Tasha, though, captivated my interest. It just seemed so out of place.

I placed the tape recorder on the coffee table; better to keep it in plain sight than unnerve Daniel by taking it out after he'd settled down. I breathed easy. Waited.

I heard Shelly say, "Come on, sweetheart," and into the room stepped a young boy. He was a little over five feet tall, with dark, tousled hair and hazel eyes. Those eyes appeared less curious than slightly fearful, as though he was being led through a curtain into somewhere unknown.

His cheeks bore a few freckles that surely got him teased as a kid, but in ten years would make him look cute, even handsome. His limbs were gangly, face thin. I remembered my growth spurt at about the same age, thinking I'd end up being eight feet tall and starting at center for the

Lakers. Of course neither happened. For a moment I believed Daniel's tentativeness was directed toward me, but then I realized that there was a gap of nearly five years in this boy's memory. He wasn't just feeling me out, but his whole life.

Shelly kept her hands on his shoulders, gentle but muscles tensed, as though he could topple over at any moment and shatter. Daniel's only hesitation was in his gait, otherwise he looked like a regular boy, ready to lose himself in too much homework, too many video games, and the dreams of years he had yet to know.

"Hey, Daniel," I said, standing up slightly, trying to make him relax. "I'm Henry. It's nice to meet you."

"Danny," he said. "Just Danny." No hesitation there. I saw a frown glimmer across Shelly's face, but she said nothing.

"Danny," I said. "Well, Danny, thanks for letting me talk to you." His nod said he wasn't quite as happy as me.

He smiled tentatively, sat down in a wicker-backed chair across the table from me. "Could I have a soda?" he said to Shelly. She was up and heading to the kitchen before the question was finished. When she'd disappeared, he looked at the tape recorder. "Is that thing on?"

"Yeah, it is. See that red light?" He nodded. "That means it's on."

"So it's recording what I'm saying right now?"

"That's right."

"Okay. Shit." I looked up at him. Danny had a mischievous grin on his face, slightly red with embarrassment.

"Sorry, just wanted to, you know…"

"Yeah, I know."

"That won't be in your story, will it?"

"Nah. I'll keep the uncensored version for my personal files."

Shelly came back in carrying a tray with a glass of soda, another glass of water and a plate of assorted vegetables.

Danny and I shared a smirk. Then I noticed what else was on the tray: a gauze pad, a bottle of what appeared to be rubbing alcohol, a cylindrical tube the size of a pen and a vial.

Shelly noticed me looking at this and said, "Daniel, sorry, Danny has diabetes. I thought it'd be good to give him his insulin before you got started."

"Fine with me," I said. "Danny?"

He nodded. Shelly said, "We did your arm this morning, right? Let's go with your leg."

Danny rolled up his right pant leg, exposing his calf.

Shelly inserted the vial into the pen until it clicked. Then she unscrewed the cap from the rubbing alcohol, tipping just enough onto the gauze pad to wet it. She rubbed the pad on Danny's calf until it shone. Then she took the pen, pressed it against his skin and depressed the plunge. Danny winced slightly.

Shelly removed the pen, wiped down Danny's leg with a towel, then took the materials back into the kitchen.

Danny rolled down his pant leg as Shelly returned.

"Sucks," he said. "Dr. Petrovsky says I have to take it three times a day."

"Petrovsky?" I said.

"Dmitri Petrovsky. He's Daniel's pediatrician," Shelly answered.

I nodded. "You should listen to your doctor. This medicine helps to keep you healthy," I told Danny.

"Still sucks."

"Do you mind if I stay during the, the interview?" she asked.

"Not at all. If it makes Danny more comfortable, I'd prefer it."

"Honey," she said, "do you mind if Mommy stays?"

"No, I don't mind if Mommy stays." "Mommy" came out with a slightly sarcastic bent. I smiled. I kind of liked

Danny Linwood.

Shelly, satisfied, nestled into a love seat, holding a lace throw pillow on her lap.

"So, Danny," I said, "how are things going here? Are you having a hard time adjusting?" He shrugged. "I need a little more than that, buddy."

"It's okay, I guess. I'm supposed to start school in two weeks, but I don't really want to."

"Why not?"

"I don't know anybody. They're all going to think I'm some sort of freak."

"They do know you, Daniel," Shelly interrupted. "You started out in grade school with most of them. Like Cliffy

Willis, remember Cliffy? Or Ashley Whitney?"

I listened.

"No, Mommy, I don't remember Cliffy. Or Ashley. I don't remember anyone."

"Mrs. Linwood?" I said. She looked at me. Nodded.

Got it. She held the pillow tighter.

"Danny, tell me about the day you came home. You came to this house, knocked on the door." Danny nodded.

"Can you tell me what happened right before that?"

Danny shifted in his chair. "I remember lying down, then suddenly waking up. I was on the ground, like I'd fallen asleep or something. I recognized where I was."

"And where was that?"

"Doubleday Field," Danny said. "I played peewee baseball there."

"What position?"

"Third base."

"Like A-Rod," I said.

"No, he's a shortstop for the Rangers."

I was about to disagree, when I remembered that in

Danny's mind, he was correct. The year Danny disappeared, Rodriguez hadn't yet become a Yankee, hadn't yet changed positions. I wondered how much else of

Danny Linwood's world had changed unbeknownst to him.

"What happened then?"

"I remember hearing a siren. Like a police car or an ambulance. And then I just started walking home."

"You knew how to get home?"

"Yeah, I used to walk home every day with…" Danny searched for the rest of his sentence.

"Cliffy Willis and his mother," Shelly offered quietly.

Danny looked at her angrily, then the reaction slipped away.

"Where did you walk?" I asked.

"Home," he said. "Past the corner store and that brick wall with the graffiti of the boy that got shot a long time ago. I got scared for a second when I saw the police car pull up at the field I just left, but I didn't think I did anything wrong so I just went home."

"Were you hurt?"

"No. Maybe a little tired, s'all. The doctors said they found something in my system, dia-something."

"Diazepam," I said. "It's a drug used to sedate. The police report said it was administered a few hours before you woke up. When you woke up, that's when it wore off." I said this as much to Shelly as Daniel. "I'm sorry, keep going."

"So, anyway, I walked home, knocked on the door. James opened it. I knew it was James, but he was, like, three feet taller than I remembered. And all of a sudden everyone is squishing the life out of me. Mom, Dad, Tasha, my brothers."

I saw Shelly smile, the pillow gripped tight in her arms.

"Brothers?" I said.

"James," he said, "my brother."

"Right," I continued. "Do you know how long you were gone?"

"Mom says almost five years."

"Does it feel like you've been gone a long time?"

"Not really," Danny said. "I mean, it's hard when I, like, go to do something and can't do it. Like there used to be a radiator in my room where I could turn up the heat, but now we have these electronic-control things. And I don't recognize anything on TV, which sucks. All of a sudden my brothers and sister are, like, old." I felt a strange mental tugging sensation. Something Danny had said triggered it, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

"Danny, I know the police have probably asked you these questions already, but did you have any enemies at school? On the team? Someone you were scared of?" He shook his head vehemently.

"I remember breaking up with my girlfriend once and she got mad and cried, that's it."

"You had a girlfriend?" Shelly said. "When was this?"

"Mom, come on," he said.

"What, you can tell the whole world but you can't tell me?"

Danny looked at me, his eyes pleading. I smiled at him.

Six-year-old Danny Linwood with a girlfriend. I wondered if she'd missed him, or even understood what had happened.

"Mrs. Linwood. Shelly," I said, looking at Danny from the corner of my eye. "I need to be able to talk to your son with his full concentration. I know this is hard and you have a lot to catch up on with Danny, but I need this to do my job."

"Your job." She sneered. "My job is my son."

"I know that. All I want to do is tell the truth about your boy. Trust me, I don't want to upset your family at all."

"Mom…" Danny said softly. This was likely the first chance Danny had had to talk about what happened, and it seemed to even be a bit cathartic for him.

"You're right. I'm sorry. Henry, please."

"Thank you," I said politely. "Danny, what was the last thing you remember before you woke up on that field?"

"I remember being at baseball practice," he said. "I don't know if that's the last thing that happened. But I remember Mike Bursaw got hit in the knee by a line drive and was crying, and Coach was going to send him to the nurse but Mike wouldn't let him. And I remember watching the Yankees on TV and my dad saying Jason

Giambi couldn't get a hit to save his life, which is weird because he used to be so good. I mean, I had his poster on my wall, and every night I'd tell it to go three-for-four with a home run. I noticed the poster wasn't on my wall anymore. My dad said he took it down but didn't tell me why."

I didn't have the heart to bring up the fact that Jason

Giambi had admitted using steroids, and his deteriorating performance was likely the result of his body breaking down. Danny Linwood was going to have enough prob-56

Jason Pinter lems reentering society; tearing down his boyhood heroes would happen eventually. Yet I understood his father's hesitance to wield the sledgehammer.

"Do you remember feeling pain?" I asked.

"No."

"Do you remember a face, someone unfamiliar, something frightening you?"

"Not really."

"Do you remember anything about the past few years?

Sights? Sounds? Memories?"

Daniel sat there for a few moments. He seemed almost to be in pain, searching his thoughts as hard as he could for something, straining to find what wasn't there.

"A room," he said. "Like mine, but…I don't know."

"How like yours?"

"I think there were toys, but I don't know."

"Okay…what was the first thing you thought when your mom came out the door that day? The day you came back?"

"I remember being kind of confused. She didn't hug me like that when I came back from school or practice usually, so I kind of knew something was different. I was a little scared, like something might have happened to James or

Tasha or my brothers. When my dad got home and started crying, that's when I started crying, too. Like maybe I was sick and didn't know it or something. All those TV shows where someone gets sick and then everyone is really nice to them, it's usually because they're going to die."

Again I got that feeling. There was more to what Danny

Linwood was saying than even he knew.

I noticed Shelly Linwood's lip trembling. She was aching to say something, gather her son up and hold him.

My heart hurt for her.

"How did you find out what actually happened?"

"I still don't know what happened," Danny said, anger rising.

"I didn't mean…Who told you that you'd been gone?"

"My mom," he said, looking at Shelly. "She took me in here, sat me down where you're sitting. James and Tasha and my dad were with her. Then Mom told me."

"What did you think when she told you?"

"I didn't believe her," he said. "I thought it was, like,

April Fools' or something."

"How did you realize she was telling the truth?"

"My dad showed me the Derek Jeter baseball rookie card he bought me for my birthday a while ago. He told me to look at the back. He said he'd bought the card the year I was born, 1996, Derek Jeter's rookie year. Jeter was twenty-two. Then he showed me a brand-new Jeter card. From this year. And on the back of that card, Jeter was thirty-three."

"How did you feel?"

"Scared. Upset. I mean, he'd been my favorite player and I didn't get to watch him grow up."

"What did you think about what your parents told you?"

I clarified.

"Really scared," Danny said. "I cried, I think, because

I didn't know what else to do. But I didn't really know why. I mean, I didn't feel sick, I wasn't hurt, it's not like

I missed anyone, it was just…like, weird. Like you know when you wake up from a nap and you're not really sure what time it is?"

I nodded. The past few months of my life could have been accurately described that way.

"Do you think it'll be hard going back to school?

Starting your life again? Just being a kid?"

Danny chewed his lip, looked at his mother. I could tell it was killing her to stay quiet, but she also knew her son needed to heal. And talking would help that process.

"I don't feel different. And I probably won't until I go back and, like, see people. Or like today when I want to watch a show but don't recognize anything that's on. I don't even really recognize myself, if that makes sense."

"In what way don't you recognize yourself?"

"Just, ways."

"Like what?"

He eyed his mother, a look of worry on his face. "I don't know if I can say with my mom here."

"Say whatever you need to, baby," Shelly added, for once chiming in at the right time.

"Well…I don't think I remember having hair down there."

I snorted a laugh without thinking. Shelly's face turned beet-red.

I said, "Moms don't usually like hearing things like that."

Danny shrugged. "She told me to say whatever I needed to."

"She sure did."

"How's your mom taking it?" I said. I looked at Shelly.

She knew I needed this from him, as well.

"I don't know. Fine, I guess. I mean, she's always hugging me and kissing me. I mean, like the kids don't have enough to make fun of already, I don't want to show up at school covered in lipstick."

"She missed you is all," I said.

"Yeah, I know, but she could back off a little bit."

"I was your age once," I said. "I kind of wish my mom was more like yours."

Danny laughed. "Yeah, right," he said. "I guess she's just glad to have me back." Shelly was nodding, her face in the pillow. Danny looked somewhat at ease. I knew that likely wouldn't last long.

"My mom told me you got in trouble a while ago,"

Danny said. "She looked you up in the newspapers when she found out you were coming. Was she telling the truth?

Were you in trouble?"

I felt the air rush from my lungs. I nodded. "Yeah, she's telling the truth."

"What did you do?"

I took a breath. "Some people thought I hurt someone," I said.

Danny looked at me, riveted.

"Did you?"

"Not on purpose," I said.

"What did it feel like?"

I thought for a moment, then said, "Probably a little like what you're going through. I felt like a stranger everywhere I went. Like nobody knew who I really was, they just saw what they read about or watched on TV."

"That's what'll happen to me, right? People will think I'm some freak weirdo when they don't even know who I am."

"They'll think that for a little while. Then it's up to you to prove them wrong."

"I don't see why they need me to prove anything," he said quietly. "It's not like I'm a different person or something."

I couldn't say this to Danny, but no matter what he or

Shelly wanted to believe, he was a different person.

Scandals resonated for a long time. Perceptions died hard.

Danny took a celery stalk, munched on it, leafy threads stuck between misaligned teeth. Shelly watched approv-60

Jason Pinter ingly. Danny would need braces, that was for sure. No escaping that part of adolescence.

"I don't remember the house being so clean," Danny said. "And the color on the walls outside used to be gross."

"I had it repainted a few years ago," Shelly said. She turned to me. "I wanted things to be clean in case…in case my boy ever came back. I wanted him to know things would be different."

"You never lost hope, did you?" I asked.

"Never."

"Do you think things will be different?" I asked Shelly.

"For Danny and your family?"

She gave me a smile, weaker than she likely thought it came off.

"Yes, they will. For the first time I truly know my babies will be safe."

Danny and I both looked at her, wondering just how she could be so certain.