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They couldn’t open the restaurant that first week.
As a matter of fact, Aran and On Boonchuy could only do so much after their daughter’s (and daughter’s friends’) disappearance. Every second they weren’t home was spent driving around the city – that now seemed bigger than ever – in search for three missing kids. Every second they were home was spent on overworked phones, scouring the internet and hoping for a call that would bring them any peace of mind.
Unfortunately, that call never came.
Other calls did, however. Calls of consolation from friends and strangers, calls from distant relatives – some concerned, some curious. Calls from authorities and volunteers that became less and less frequent as time wore on, and an unspoken possibility grew more and more likely.
Sometimes, they were the ones calling out. On had lost count on how many times they tried the girls’ numbers. They’d been hopeful the first few times. But that hope had quickly turned into desperation, one where the ringing tones of the phone felt like a mockery, a shrill reminder of the helplessness of it all.
***
For On, the worst part was the silence.
It wasn’t that Anne was a loud person. But having a teenage daughter inevitably meant a constant stream of specific sounds – the muffled noises of a video she was watching, the flickering pages of the magazines she loved so much, the trickle of laughter over a joke Aran had made that she would pretend she hated.
Those sounds would be joined by others, sometimes. Like Marcy’s constant taps against whatever surface her hand rested on. Or the music that would play on Sasha’s phone. Three excited voices overlapping each other. Laughter that would keep the Boonchuys up past midnight.
It wasn’t laughter that kept the Boonchuys up anymore, though. No, it was the complete lack of it.
***
For Aran, the worst part was the world moving on.
His daughter was gone. His friends’ daughters – who might as well have been his own – were gone with her. His life had been brought to a halt and turned upside down. And yet.
And yet everything else continued as it always did. The sun continued rising. The school year proceeded to finish. Customers waited on Thai Go to open again.
How could they be expected to do that? To spend their days working in the same place that was Anne’s second home? That had seen her grow up? Wasn’t living in the same house painful enough? How could they?
So he put it off. He pretended that he could get away with never stepping back there again.
Until the day he’d returned home after another futile search around the city. Dawn was breaking, and although the house was dark, there’d been just enough light for him to see On sitting in the living room, papers scattered on the table in front of her. He could hear Domino meowing incessantly – she was out of sight, but he knew she was standing in front of Anne’s bedroom door.
On turned to him as he closed the front door. There were new lines of worry etched in her face that mirrored his.
She got up and walked towards him. He silently wrapped his arms around her when she got close, holding her. He could feel her shoulder blades press against his palms as she rested her chin on his shoulders.
“We need to open Thai Go again soon,” she whispered. “We need the money.”
He took a shuddering breath, letting the truth settle over him, preparing himself to relive a new set of memories. “Okay. Okay. We will.”
Upstairs, Domino continued meowing.
***
Anne’s absence – as painful and awful as it was – brought Aran and On closer than ever before. They’ve always had each other's backs in joy and in sorrow, and they pushed through this tragedy together, shoulder to shoulder.
The same, however, could not be said about their friends.
The Waybrights had been divorced before any of this had even happened – Amelia had long since moved out of state and cut contacts with everyone. Nonetheless, it hadn’t been hard to track her down and give her the news of Sasha’s disappearance. She’d returned, staying in a hotel and avoiding William at all costs. He hadn’t been too hung up about this – he was too busy blaming himself over the loss of his daughter.
Jin and Meiying Wu, on the other hand, had stayed together. But it hadn’t been pretty – Mei often complaining to On about the abundance of arguments she’d have with her husband, while Aran noticed Jin grow more and more aggravated every time they’d meet.
The six of them kept in touch, kept each other updated. But a rift grew between them, tensions rising steadily. There was always an unspoken undercurrent of blame
( why didn’t you go after her? how often did you let your daughter spend her nights outside? marcy running off was inevitable with the way you treated her. i told anne to stop hanging out with sasha. she should’ve known better. i wonder who’s idea it was. your daughter was the one that stole the box. )
that grew stronger and stronger as time passed.
***
It wasn’t always hanging up missing posters and looking in woods and retracing their daughter’s steps.
Sometimes, it was On sitting in a crumbled heap on the kitchen’s floor and sobbing because she’d come across a tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Sometimes, it was Aran leaving the restaurant in the middle of a shift because some students from school had come by, and once he’d heard them talking about the girls’ disappearance like it was another crime story – fictional and harmless.
Sometimes, it was neither of them going into Anne’s room for the first five months, keeping the door closed at all times, as if it could shut out the pain. Sometimes, it was Aran finally giving in and opening it, going in, barely lasting a few minutes before turning around and leaving. Sometimes, it was late night conversations in bed about taking down Anne’s pictures, because maybe it’ll hurt less – but never doing so.
Sometimes, it was looking at each other and thinking What if? What if it’s true? Sometimes, it was trying to push down those thoughts and doubling down their efforts. Sometimes, it was taking out old photo albums and laughing with tears of sorrow in their eyes over them. Sometimes it was talking about what they’d do if when they found Anne, or Marcy, or Sasha.
Sometimes, it was all they could do.
***
Six months.
It had been six months.
The thought lay heavy on On’s mind as she mixed a bowl of batter – not really focusing on the task at hand. Everything she’d been doing for the last six months felt automatic, programmed. Disconnected.
Six months.
That was how long Anne and Sasha and Marcy had been gone by now. It simultaneously felt too long, and yet not nearly long enough for all that had happened. School had finished, the Wus had moved away, the trail had gone cold – not that it had been warm to start with.
A dull thudding noise snapped On out of her thoughts. It took her a moment to realize that it was someone knocking – hesitant at first, but now more insistent.
Bowl in hand, On went to answer the door. She had no idea who it could be, but whoever they were, they clearly seemed to need something urgently, if their knocking was anything to go by.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” she called out, reaching for the doorknob, twisting it and opening the door –
And stared.
Anne. Anne was standing there, in one piece, alive and healthy and there, like she hadn’t been missing for six months, like she’d always been around the corner –
“Hi, mom,” Anne waved, sheepish and smiling and alive and –
On gasped, her eyes burning with tears as the reality of what was happening sunk in. The bowl fell from her grasp, but she didn’t even notice as she reached out and held her daughter – and oh, she was real, she was here, in On’s arms, laughing softly and hugging her back.
Somewhere from inside the house, Aran’s voice. “What was that noise? Everything okay?”
On couldn’t speak, couldn’t let go of Anne - who gasped and yelled “Dad!” with so much joy, so much relief it broke On’s heart all over again.
“Anne?” Aran said, On hearing the same disbelief that she felt in his voice. “Anne, you’re back!”
He ran into them, wrapping his arms around them both. “You’re safe.”
On clutched her daughter as close as she possibly could – and it felt so familiar and alien. It was Anne, the same long limbs and bushy hair – but it was also Anne, taller than she was before, scuffed and bruised, wearing...was that a bulletproof vest?
She stepped back as Anne scooped up Domino, but didn’t let go of her daughter. On took a closer look, questions pouring out of her as she pulled out leaves from Anne’s hair and held her face – the injuries on it spiking up her anxiety, as well as the fact that Anne was alone, no sign of either Marcy or Sasha around.
Her worries were momentarily quietened by the overwhelming relief she felt as Anne took a deep breath and smiled.
“It’s a really, really long story.”
Whatever it was, whatever had happened, On knew they could deal with it. Because nothing could compare to what Aran and her had to live through for the last six months. And nothing – absolutely nothing on this earth – was going to take her daughter away again.
And now that they had each other, now that they were together, On knew, it would all turn out alright.