So you’re officially a missing person now, Liz. For what that’s worth.

We found a sympathetic night desk officer at the police station who agreed to register the case. He went through a checklist with us over the phone. Had we contacted our child’s friends and classmates? Had we informed relatives? Had we spoken to neighbors? Had we visited places we knew our child to frequent? Yes yes yes yes. Your father even thought to look for clues on your computer—correspondence, Web searches, whatever—but he couldn’t get past the log-in without your password. He’s gone to the police station now to sign the forms and leave a photograph.

Your photograph: we had kind of a fight over that. It’s because of the stress, I know. I found a lovely snapshot from your junior high school graduation. You remember that nice blue dress we bought with the white belt and matching collar? You looked so pretty in that. In the picture you’re holding your diploma with a bouquet of flowers, the sun full on your face, smiling. Your father, though, thought we should use a more recent photo and found one on the bulletin board in your room. I suppose it was taken by one of your friends. You’re wearing camouflage pants and a too-small black T-shirt, with your black eyeliner and black lipstick and brow ring, and holding what looks like a plastic beer cup in one hand. “But this is her. This is how she looks,” your father said. I’m the one who always insists on telling it like it is, he said, looking the truth square in the face and all that, but when it comes to my own daughter, it’s like I’m wearing blinders. He may be right, I don’t know. In the end, he took the ugly photo.

One thing at least your father and I agree on is that you’ve changed, Liz. That I can see plainly enough. You used to be so cheerful. Your girlfriends would come over and you all would laugh yourselves silly trying on clothes or making up cookie recipes in the kitchen. You dressed nicely then. You smiled for photographs, and talked to us over dinner, and looked forward to summer vacations. And then suddenly it seemed it was all over. You began locking your bedroom door, and skipping meals, and generally keeping so much to yourself that now you’re little more than a dark shadow flying through the den and out the door to jump into the cars of mysterious strangers we’ve never met. When we ask where you’re going, you say, “Out.” With whom? “Friends.” And you’ll be back … ? “Later.”

We’ve wondered, you know, your father and I, if it’s drugs. Ever since the infamous lake house incident with Missy and friends last summer when the whole gang of you were dragged to the Pointe Coupee Parish police station, it’s only natural that we would become suspicious. Your father, however, who claims some knowledge in this area, says you don’t exhibit any of the usual signs of drug abuse: you seem healthy enough, your eyes aren’t glazed, and your speech, when you speak, is coherent at least. Your father’s been wrong before, of course, but this time I sincerely hope he’s not.

Now the house is really quiet. There’s just the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen and the low buzz of crickets coming from the yard. Other than that, the rooms stand silent, like they’ve been abandoned. A home shouldn’t be this quiet, Liz. This much quiet is unsettling; it leaves too much room for memory and imagination, for fear and dread. Every time another car rounds the corner I jerk up, thinking it might be you.