Daddy's Gone a Hunting

3

Mark Sloane knew that his farewell dinner with his mother might be difficult and tearful. It was close to the twenty-eighth anniversary of his sister’s disappearance, and he was moving to New York for a new job. Since his graduation from law school thirteen years earlier he had been practicing corporate real estate law in Chicago. It was ninety miles from Kewanee, the small Illinois town where he had been raised.

In the years he had been living in Chicago, he had made the two-hour drive at least once every few weeks to have dinner with his mother. He had been eight years old when his twenty-year-old sister, Tracey, quit the local college and moved to New York to try to break into musical comedy. After all these years he still remembered her as if she were standing in front of him. She had auburn hair that cascaded around her shoulders, and blue eyes that were usually filled with fun but could turn stormy when she was angry. His mother and Tracey had always clashed over her grades at college and the way she dressed. Then one day when he went down for breakfast, he found his mother sitting at the kitchen table and crying. “She’s gone, Mark, she’s gone. She left a note. She’s going to New York to become a famous singer. Mark, she’s so young. She’s so headstrong. She’ll get in trouble. I know it.”

Mark remembered putting his arms around his mother and trying to hold back his own tears. He had adored Tracey. She would pitch balls to him when he was beginning in Little League. She would take him to the movies. She would help him with his homework and tell stories of famous actors and actresses. “Do you know how many of them came from little towns like this one?” she would ask.

That morning he had warned his mother. “In her letter Tracey said she would send you her address. Mama, don’t try to make her come back, because she won’t. Write and tell her it’s okay and how happy you’ll be when she’s a big star.”

It had been the right move. Tracey had written regularly and called every few weeks. She had gotten a job in a restaurant. “I’m a good waitress and the tips are great. I’m taking singing lessons. I was in an off-Broadway musical. It only ran for four performances, but it was so wonderful to be onstage.” She had flown back home three times for a long weekend.

Then, after Tracey had lived in New York for two years, his mother received a call one day from the police. Tracey had disappeared.

When she did not show up for work for two days and did not answer her phone, her concerned boss, Tom King, who owned the restaurant, had gone to her apartment. Everything was in order there. Her date book showed that she had an audition scheduled for the day after she had disappeared, and had another scheduled at the end of the week. “She didn’t show up for the first one,” King told the police. “If she doesn’t show up for the other one, then something’s happened to her.”

The New York police listed Tracey as a missing person all those years ago. As in “just another missing person,” Mark thought as he drove up to the Cape Cod-style house where he had been raised. With its charcoal shingles, white trim, and bright red door, it was a cheery and welcoming sight. He pulled into the driveway and parked. The overhead lamp at the door shed light on the front steps. He knew his mother would leave it on all night as she had for nearly twenty-eight years, just in case Tracey came home.

Roast beef, mashed potatoes, and asparagus had been his response to his mother’s request for what to prepare for his farewell dinner. The minute he opened the door, the heartwarming scent of the roasting beef told him that as usual she had made exactly what he wanted.

Martha Sloane came hurrying out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. Seventy-four years old, her once-slender figure now a solid size fourteen, her white hair with its natural wave framing her even features, she threw her arms around her son and hugged him.

“You’ve grown another inch,” she accused him.

“God forbid,” Mark said fervently. “It’s hard enough for me to get in and out of cabs as it is.” He was six feet six. He glanced over her head to the dining room table and saw that it was set with the sterling silver and good china. “Hey, this really is a send-off.”

“Well, that stuff never does get used enough,” his mother said. “Make yourself a drink. On second thought, make one for me, too.”

His mother seldom had a cocktail. With a stab of pain, Mark realized that she was determined not to let the upcoming anniversary of Tracey’s disappearance cloud the last dinner they would have for at least a few months. Martha Sloane had been a court stenographer and understood the long hours he would probably face in his challenging new corporate job.

It was only over coffee that she talked about Tracey. “We both know what date is coming up,” she said quietly. “Mark, I watch that Cold Case File program on television all the time,” she said quietly. “When you’re in New York, do you think you could get the police to reopen the investigation into Tracey’s disappearance? They have so many more ways to trace what happened to missing people these days, even people who disappeared years ago. But it’s much more likely they’ll do that if someone like you starts asking questions.”

She hesitated, then went on. “Mark, I know I have had to give up hoping that Tracey lost her memory or was in trouble and had to hide. I believe in my heart that she is dead. But if I could just bring her body back and bury her next to Dad, it would give me so much peace. Let’s face it. I probably have another eight or ten years if I’m lucky. I’d like to know that when my time comes, Tracey will be there with Dad.” She blinked to try to keep her eyes from tearing. “You know how it is. I always was a sucker for ‘Danny Boy.’ I want to be able to kneel and say a prayer over Tracey’s grave.”

When they rose from the table, she said briskly, “I’d love a game of Scrabble. I just found some nice twisty new words in the dictionary. But your plane is tomorrow afternoon and knowing you, you haven’t started to pack yet.”

“You know me too well, Mom,” Mark said smiling. “And don’t be talking about having eight or ten years. Willard Scott will be sending you one of those hundredth-birthday cards.” At the door, he hugged her fiercely, then took a chance and asked, “When you lock up are you going to turn off the porch light?”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Just in case, Mark, just in case…”

She did not finish the sentence. It hung unsaid in the air. But Mark knew what it was. “Just in case Tracey comes home tonight.”