I set my fork down on top of my plate. “Stop flattering me.”

She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and pulled on her earlobe for a moment, oblivious to my attempt at humor. “I mean, I haven’t missed the person you became.”

“I understand. No one would.”

She rested her elbow on the table and set her chin in her hand. “But I have wondered what you’ve been doing all this time.”

I wadded up my napkin and laid it on the table, my appetite gone. “Just moving around. Helping people when I can.”

“How do people know about you?” she asked, her thin eyebrows coming together. “Do you know what I mean? How do they find you?”

I took a drink of water from the half empty glass. “Message boards, referrals, I don’t know. People whose kids are missing, they exhaust all avenues trying to find them. I had some good luck shortly after I left here finding a couple of kids. People who get their kids back, they wanna help others. They’re grateful and they know what it’s like. There’s lots of networking.” I shrugged. “My name comes up.”

“Do you like it?” she asked.

I thought for a moment. “It’s good to be able to bring kids back home, to see them with their parents, to have helped. But I’m not sure like is the right word.”

“Have you found any that weren’t…” Her voice trailed off.

“Alive?” I held up my index finger. “One. A girl. Two years ago. Last month, I heard that they finally found the guy who killed her.”

Lauren raised an eyebrow. “You don’t stick around for that part?”

I shifted in the chair. “No. I go to find the kid. That’s it.”

Lauren blinked several times and I knew there was a different question coming. She would’ve made a terrible poker player. I’d known her for half my life and any time those eyes fluttered, I knew a serious question wasn’t far behind.

“Do you think she’s alive, Joe?” she asked.

Our waitress appeared at the table, cleared our plates and asked if we wanted coffee. We both nodded silently. I didn’t say anything again until our cups were in front of us.

“No,” I said. “There’s a tiny thread somewhere inside that still hopes. But realistically?” I shook my head. “No. I don’t think Elizabeth’s alive.”

Lauren cupped the mug so tight, I expected it to shatter. Tears pooled in her eyes, tears I knew she didn't want me to see. “I didn’t expect you to say that. Last time I saw you, you couldn’t say that.”

“She’s been gone eight years.” I stared at the coffee. “I’m not so fucked up that I can’t be realistic about it.”

“Three years ago.”

I looked at her. “Three years ago what?”

She had regained her composure. “That was the last time I saw you. You were singing a different tune then.”

She was right. I'd still been convinced that Elizabeth was alive. I’d come back to San Diego, following a lead that came my way. I woke every morning, thinking that day would be the day she'd be found. She’d come home and we’d all go back to being a family. The lead, like all of them before and after, hadn’t panned out and I’d taken off again, leaving San Diego in my wake.

“What changed?” Lauren asked.

The coffee had turned lukewarm, almost cool. I set the mug down on the table. “I learned a little more, I guess. The more I do this, look for kids, the more I learn.” I swallowed hard, forced myself to say it. “Hope almost always loses to statistics.”

She stirred her coffee with a spoon. Physically, she hadn’t changed much in three years. Still had the runner’s physique. There were no lines on her tan forehead or around her green eyes. Her auburn hair was still long and shiny. I felt ten years older than my forty years, but she looked ten younger than hers.

Nothing had changed physically about her, but I wondered if anything else had.

“Do you still blame me?” I asked.

She picked up her mug, then set it down without drinking. She folded her arms around herself like some cold wind had gusted into the restaurant. She stared at me.

“I don’t want to,” she said. “And most days, I don’t. I really don’t, Joe. I know you weren’t responsible. And I know what people suggested about you afterward was horrible. I never believed any of that. I hope you know that.” She shifted in the chair. “But there are some days that I need someone to blame.”

Tears threatened again in her eyes. Her shoulders and neck stiffened, filling with tension. Her mouth drew tighter. She couldn’t look at me.

“And then all I can think about is you and Elizabeth out in the yard,” she said, her voice breaking.

Her words weren’t anything I hadn’t heard before but they stung like I was hearing them for the first time and my gut rolled.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “I know how unfair that is. But I…” Her voice trailed off.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I understand.”

I understood because most days I felt the same way.

All I could think about was standing out in the yard with Elizabeth.

TWENTY-THREE

It was two weeks before Christmas and Elizabeth and I were standing in the front yard, trying to figure out where to put Santa.

“By the bushes?” I suggested.

Elizabeth rolled her eight-year-old eyes in a gesture borrowed from her mother. She brushed her dark brown hair from her forehead and wrinkled her nose at me. “Daddy. The cars won’t be able to see him.”

She was already frustrated with me in that we were a week late in getting the decorations out. Lauren was an attorney and had been gone the previous two weekends on business. I had been too lazy to pull them out of the garage in her absence. When it’s December and seventy-five degrees out, it’s tough to find the motivation to string lights and find the best place for a light-up Santa Claus.

Elizabeth gathered the four-foot Santa in a bear hug and awkwardly walked him out to the middle of the lawn. She set him down, put her hand on her hip, then nodded.

“Right here, Daddy,” she said. “This is where he goes.”

I knew better than to argue with her. She was as stubborn as her mother and when she made up her mind, it was done. She’d been that way since she was a baby.

I held up an extension cord. “We’re gonna need another one of these.”

She shrugged and smiled, her newly minted braces glistening in the sun. “Okay.”

I dropped the cord in the grass. “You watch Santa. I’ll get another cord.”

She gave me a mocking salute. “Ay ay.”

I shook my head and walked into the house and called for Lauren.

“I’m in the kitchen,” she said.

She stood at the counter next to the sink, a wooden spoon in her hand. She was covered in flour and sprinkles and cookie dough.

“Are we opening a bakery?” I asked. The aroma of freshly baked cookies made my stomach growl.

“Might as well.”

“We have another extension cord?”

“Why?”

I planted a kiss on the back of her neck before reaching into the fridge for a bottle of water. “Because your daughter has found the perfect resting place for Santa and that place requires another six feet of cord.”

She smiled and shook her head. “ Kid likes Christmas.”

“Kid likes everything.” I twisted the top off the bottle and took a drink. “But, yes, she really likes Christmas.”

“Check upstairs in the closet.”

“Ay ay.”

“What?”

I trailed my fingers from her shoulder to the middle of her back and felt her shiver beneath my touch. “Nothing.”

I walked back to the front door. Elizabeth was sitting cross-legged next to Santa, adjusting him ever so slightly.

“Mom says there’s one upstairs. Be right there, doodle.”

She gave me a thumbs-up. “Gotcha.”

I jogged up the stairs to the closet at the end of the hallway, between Elizabeth’s room and the spare bedroom. Her room was a disaster. Stuffed animals piled high in several corners, clothes littering the floor, an unmade bed jumbled with sheets and twisted-up blankets. She’d promised to pick up her room before we went outside and I’d forgotten to check.