MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10

30. the awakening

I regained consciousness in a hospital room at Midland Memorial the day after the first surgery to save my leg was completed. The operation had lasted five hours. I had been sleeping for more than twenty-four hours.

When I woke up Jayne was standing over me. Her face was swollen.

My first thought: I am alive.

The relief was short-lived when I saw the two police officers in the room.

My second thought: Robby.

I realized that they had been waiting for me to wake up.

I was asked, “Bret . . . do you know where Robby is?”

The room was cold and empty and I felt something humming beneath the fake calm. There was a horrible insistence to the question that was barely restrained.

I whispered something that caused a disturbance. What I whispered was not what they were hoping for.

Jayne’s exhausted face died. I became blinded by it.

When we were told that Robby Dennis was now officially missing I could not describe the sounds Jayne began making, and neither could the writer.