Forty Thousand Dollars Demanded to Bring Our Lost Daughter Home
I looked at the faces of the neighbors I had known my entire life, their eyes shifting away from mine to avoid the embarrassment. The hum of the window air conditioner seemed to grow louder in the quiet room.
I did not say another word to him. I turned toward the door, my face hot with a shame that felt heavier than any physical weight.
The glass door clicked shut behind me, cutting off the low murmur of the voices starting up again inside. I stepped out into the bright glare of the parking lot, the sun reflecting off the hoods of the parked trucks.
By four o’clock, the air in the farmhouse attic smelled of dry cedar and decades of trapped dust.
My father reached behind a stack of old storm windows, his shoulder pressing against a dusty cardboard box labeled Christmas ornaments. He did not ask about the scene at the diner, and I did not offer to explain the looks I had just received from our neighbors.
