The carrot cake is done and sitting in the center of the table, waiting for you.

I finally spoke to Missy DeSalle about an hour ago. It turns out she and her friends haven’t left for Florida yet; they’re going tomorrow morning. And yes, she says, you talked about joining them, but she hasn’t heard from you since yesterday. “Don’t worry, Laura, I’m sure Liz’ll be just fine,” Missy said before we hung up. “She probably just wants some time to herself. Be patient.”

“When I want your advice, I’ll ask for it, you dumb little tramp,” I wanted to say, but held my tongue. I don’t trust that girl. I bet she knows more than she’s letting on. She sounds like an expert in making up stories for parents, thoughtlessly babbling lies as she fluffs her hair before going out for the night in that extravagant little Mercedes of hers. No wonder she’s so popular.

I couldn’t sit still anymore, so I took a break from writing and went for a walk around the neighborhood. The local kids, delirious with the start of a whole week of spring vacation, were out playing tag in the street before dinnertime, running across yards and sidewalks, shouting and laughing, heedless of everything. I resented their joy. It seemed like an affront to all my worry. How could they run and shout like that when you’re missing? I bit my lip and walked on, shutting out the thought of an end too painful to allow.

I turned my attention down to the ground. I began studying the crabgrass overtaking the edge of the sidewalk, and peered into the weeds and black water sloughing in a ditch beside the road, imagining that, like some TV detective, I might find a clue that would tell me where you’ve gone—a scarf, maybe, or a scrap of paper, a plastic hair barrette. I tried to tally up all the evidence that could explain your disappearance. The hushed phone conversations on the back porch, for instance, or that boy’s jeep parked in front of the house, or the tears I thought I saw as you came running in one night over the Christmas holiday …

I spotted something glinting in the weeds. Stepping down into the ditch, I sifted through the overgrown grass until I found a Coke can. But then standing there on the slope of the ditch, one foot up, the other foot down, staring at the dirty can in my hand, I stopped myself. A Coke can. What was I doing? This was crazy. I dropped the can back into the ditch, brushed off my hands, and resumed walking.

Rounding the corner up on Hyacinth, I fell to reminiscing. You probably don’t remember when we first moved here thirteen years ago. You were only two then, just beginning to talk. It suddenly struck me that this neighborhood will be the place you’ll remember forever as home. When people ask you thirty years from now “Where are you from?” this is what you’ll think of. Right here, this is your world. It was on this very street where you learned to ride your first bike. I remember you liked this stretch of pavement because it was flat and easy with grass on either side. And the house up there on the left: that was where the Fields’ pet terrier got out one Halloween night and chased you screaming back to your daddy’s arms. And here, nearer our home, was the very place on the sidewalk where you slipped on a patch of ice one freezing winter day and had to get three stitches in the back of your head. You were more upset about bleeding all over your new Christmas coat than you were about the cut. How old were you then? Five? Six? Not that long ago, really.

I stopped off at the Banards’ next door to let them know what’s happened. They haven’t seen anything, of course, but they promised to keep an eye out. And just now, after I got in, your father went out with the car again, “Just to have a look.” We agreed that one of us should stay at home in case you call. I’ve got the TV back on, listening to the early evening news.

We’re grabbing at straws here, Elizabeth. Your dad driving around in the Buick, me writing this interminably long letter. But what else can we do? There’s nothing we can do. I keep going back to a line from that poem by your namesake, about “my old griefs” and “my childhood’s faith.” Waiting for you, writing this letter, I feel like I’m teetering between those two sentiments, a pessimism born of experience and a desperate hope born of helplessness. In dredging up all these old griefs from my past, I cling to the thought that this act itself will somehow create a better future for both of us, that with these words I’ll weave a charm that will spell our reconciliation and draw you home.

For times of doubt and trouble, the nuns at Sacred Heart prescribed prayer. We even had special rosary services before important exam dates. God, we were told, would always hear and answer our prayers, no matter how big or small they were. There was a caveat, however, a kind of special exemption that the nuns told us about, one that always infuriated me, and that never failed to put my childhood’s faith to the test. And this was that, yes, God would always answer our prayers, but maybe not in the ways we expected or even wanted.

Well. I want to finish this letter before you get home. And then we’ll have dinner and cake, and things will begin to get better for us, you’ll see. I promise.