#9 Missing Child

My name is Miles Fitzpatrick, and I’ve always felt slightly out of place. I live in a small town in Illinois. I don’t look like either of my parents - my mom is short with jet black hair, and my dad is slightly taller, a little stocky, and has dark brown hair. I, on the other hand, am tall and lanky with blue eyes and hair so light you’d think I bleached it. They always told me that I took after my grandfather, Harold J. Fitzpatrick, although I never got to meet him. My parents say that he was a decorated war hero and very widely known.

Some days it bothers me more than others, and today is one of those days. I inform my parents that I am going to go to the library and do some research on my grandfather. As I google my Grandfather’s name, my heart starts pounding. I am desperate to see a picture of him, I feel as though it will give me a sense of belonging. Oddly enough, I can’t seem to find any articles, let alone any pictures pertaining to him. I shrug it off and head home, thinking that maybe I can find some photos in our family albums. My mom likes to scrapbook in her spare time, so I’m sure I can find at least something.

When I get home, I find a note on the table saying that my parents went out for dinner and will return later tonight. I crumple up the paper, toss it in the recycling bin, and head for my parent’s room to look through some scrapbooks.

I look through all of the scrapbooks on my mom’s shelf but come up almost empty handed except for something that I gradually came to notice. There is not a single picture of me at any age earlier than six. Although that seems very bizarre, I just tell myself that maybe my parents couldn’t afford a camera until then.

After striking out on the shelves, I decide to look under the bed to see if there’s any that maybe couldn’t fit on the shelf. To my disappointment, there isn’t another album, but there is a big, dusty box with a newspaper clipping hanging out of it. I open the box and there are about twenty newspaper clippings with “Missing Child: Bring Ethan Home” printed at the top. It takes me just a moment to realise that they are all the same pictures and all for the same child - and that child is six-year-old me. I hear a thump and I turn around to see my parents standing in the doorway, blocking the only way out.

“Hello, Ethan,” they say.