1. Lost

It wasn’t until years later that I understood all children don’t go missing at some point in their lives. The story was one I had heard as far back as I could remember and, although I didn’t remember the event itself, I had absorbed enough detail to tell it as though I did.

It was a bright day, fresh after a recent rain had washed away the chalk dust on the sidewalks. Jocelyn Street was filled with houses built in the first decades of the 20th century: big, old houses with double-hung windows that opened to fall breezes, wrap-around porches, sidewalks wide and even enough to learn to ride a bike on, and tall oaks and maples punctuated by the occasional dogwood or cherry. There were plenty of children to play with, although that was true in our house alone. Our particular three-story, stucco house featured two parents, seven siblings, and a grandmother for good measure (or a failed attempt to even out the adult/child ratio). At any given moment there were plenty of resident animals, as well.

Details of the story’s beginning are less clear than the end. My mother probably thought my grandmother was watching me, and my gradmother, the opposite. At some point, they connected, neither with a two-year-old in tow. The house was searched from bottom to top, the women called my name out over and over, doors were opened and closed, siblings brought into the search. 

Our yard and all the yards nearby were searched, neighborhood children were enlisted, as well: Kenny and Jay Markanich, Tommy Gormley, Monk Topping. My oldest siblings — Dennis, Joe, Missy and Moe, were sent from door to door.

There was an old woman who lived a block over on Kanawha Street. Old Lady Lee, as she was known, had far too much time to complain about the children playing hide ’n’ seek in her yard, or riding bikes down the alley behind her house.

My brother Joe was making his way from house to house. When he got to Mrs. Lee’s house, he asked if she had seen a little girl with long, dark curly hair. A child who, otherwise, would not have strayed from home. She replied, “I ran off some teenage boys from my garage a little while ago. Maybe they have her.” This made my brother’s blood run cold, and he excused himself quickly to go home to see if I had returned. 

After about an hour of searching, the decision was made to get more help. My mother contacted the local police precinct and told them she had a missing two-year-old. Two policemen came by the house and got a full description of me before they, too, went door to door asking neighbors, handymen, children playing hopscotch and tag through the yards.

Their efforts also came to nothing. Eventually, they came back to the house. My mother sat in the overstuffed rocking chair in her bedroom where she often held her three youngest children — Kevin, Brian, and me — all of us rocking to the sound of her voice. My grandmother sat on the canopy bed. The two policemen stood nearby, one speaking gently about coming up empty handed.

My grandmother began to weep, and my mother took the ever-present handkerchief from her own apron pocket. She, too, began to cry as the policeman decribed what would happen next. Her eyes drifted to the dust ruffle at the bottom of the bed she shared with my father, and from the edge of the ruffle, she saw the leather sole of a white toddler’s shoe. I had chosen the warmth and quiet of the underside of my parents’ bed to nap. 

What mayhem had I been escaping? A tussle between my brothers? The intrusion of the milkman or the laundry man who came to pick up my father’s white shirts? Or just the excitement of ten people talking, laughing, eating, and playing in one old house?

Throughout my life the retelling of this story always ended with the shoe sticking out from under the dust ruffle. I don’t know who pulled me out from under the bed or if I was left there to finish my nap. I don’t know if my mother hugged the policemen or my grandmother first. I don’t know who put the word out throughout the neighborhood, although I imagine it was the Reilly volunteer force. All I know is that a story for which I was the central character would be woven into Reilly family lore for decades to come, and I had been asleep under my parents’ bed all the while.