My ten-year-old daughter disappeared in the mountains, leaving me with fifteen years of guilt and unanswered questions. When one of those answers finally surfaced, it pointed much closer to home.
My husband, Steven, and I loved hiking. Once our daughter, Carrie, turned ten, we started taking her with us.
That day, I stopped to tie my boot. Steven went ahead with Carrie.
When I rounded the bend, he was alone.
“Where’s Carrie?”
I stopped to tie my boot.
“I thought she went back to you!”
We searched everywhere.
“The rescuers will find her. Please, you have to calm down,” Steven pleaded.
Search teams combed those mountains for days.
They never found a single trace of her.
I thought she went back to you!
I kept thinking about that loose shoelace. If I had just kept walking, would my child have come home?
Steven seemed to move past his grief quickly and tried to support me.
“This is terrible, and I miss Carrie. But we have to keep going,” he would say.
He gave away her belongings, closed the door to her room, and hardly ever mentioned her.
They never found a single trace of her.
***
Early this morning, I was lying awake again when a strange Facebook message popped up on my phone.
The account had no profile picture and no posts.
Stranger: Hi, Mom. It’s really me.”
My heart pounded so hard I could hear it. I sat up on the couch and typed with both thumbs.
Me: Whoever you are, this is a cruel joke. Please leave me alone.
We have to keep going.
The reply came before I could even put the phone down.
Stranger: No, Mom. It’s me, Carrie. I couldn’t write before. Ask Dad what really happened.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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