Ten Years Later

Chapter Eight

Light pours through the curtains of my bedroom. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the light, I can’t remember the last time I’ve actually seen and felt sunlight. I warily push myself out of bed and pad across the room to the window. Pushing open the curtains, I squint through the glass and take in the beauty of the outside world.

Tall trees are scattered across the distance, stuffed between houses and roads. A little girl is riding her tricycle in front of her house, her parents are talking and laughing and drinking bottled waters. They’re a happy family, much like the one I lost when I was about her age.

I push open the window. Birds are chirping, the leaves of the trees are rustling in the wind, and I can hear the little girl’s laughter. It’s a beautiful day to be alive.

Turning from the window, I walk down the hallway and descend the staircase. The smell of bacon and eggs fill my nose and I quickly make my way to the kitchen. My mother is standing at the stove, cooking breakfast. At the table is two children who I recognize from the photographs around the house to be Irene and Mason. I sit in the chair across from them.

“Who are you?” Irene asks. She’s coloring in a Spongebob Squarepants coloring book drawing. She’s so innocent, and I envy her because of it.

“I’m Sawyer.”

She smiles brightly. “You’re my sister!”

I nod, laughing. My mother turns around and smiles at me. I return the smile and tell her, “good morning.” She returns the lovely saying before turning back to the stove. She’s shoveling eggs out of the frying pan and onto a plate, before taking the bacon off and setting the pieces onto a paper towel covered plate. She turns the stove off and takes the plates, setting them on the table. There are already plates set around the table, four of them.

“Where’s Daniel?” I ask her as she takes her seat beside me.

“He’s at work,” she tells me. She begins putting eggs on the kids’ plates, and then bacon before turning to me. There’s a stack of toast and she tells me to take two, so I do. She pours everyone a glass of orange juice before getting her own plate fixed. “How did you sleep?”

“Best sleep I’ve had in a long time,” I tell her. I began eating my breakfast and everyone was quiet for a while. The bacon was the perfect amount of crispy, the eggs cooked just right. I forgot how good a cook she was.

After everyone finished their breakfasts, Irene and Mason went off to play and I helped clean the dishes. My mother and I silently cleaned up the kitchen, but it was a comfortable silence. I didn’t mind it at all.

There was a knock at the door, and my mother went to answer it. I took the chance to go the bathroom. There was a small bag on the counter that had a yellow sticky note on it, with my name written in swirly letters. Inside were hygiene products that I was thankful to use.

When I was finished, I returned to the kitchen to see Drew and Hamilton standing beside my mother.

“Good morning, Sawyer,” Drew begins, “Did you sleep well?”

I nod. “What can I help you guys with?”

Hamilton sets a few sheets of paper with rows of pictures of men. “We want you to look at these and tell us if your abductor is on these.”

I sit in the seat before them and scanned the rows. He wasn’t on the first sheet, so I set it aside. I go over the second sheet, surprised to see his picture in the last row. “That’s Him,” I say, pointing to the picture in the middle of that row.

“You’re sure?” Drew asks.

I almost laugh, her question is so ridiculous. “Of course I’m sure. Who is He?”

Hamilton looked at Drew. “He’s the Deputy Bureau Chief. His name is Jason Vander.”