Excerpt

CHAPTER SEVEN

November, 1992

Allen

For almost three months I had hoped, prayed, and waited for some news of Doe. In my heart, Im an optimist who believes that man is basically good. As a Christian, I also believed in God, and that He is both good and omnipotent. But if that was the case, why had Doe been taken from me?

The FBI agents had become constant companions. One morning JoAnn Overall called on me. She really had nothing new to add, just that she was checking on me to see how I was doing.

I said, Im getting along as best I can under the circumstances. In truth I was lonelier than ever. Wilhelmina had gone back to Florida and I was alone. At home, everywhere I turned, I could see Does image. Never had I missed her more.

JoAnn had attempted on past visits to lift my spirits with whatever encouragement she could muster. This morning, however, her mood was solemn. Her face grew somber. I probably shouldnt say this, Mr. Roberts, but . . . . Her voice trembled.

Say what? I asked. What shouldnt you say?

With a look of compassionate concern, she told me, Theres probably only about a one percent chance at this time that Doe is still alive.

After she left, those words haunted me. In my heart and mind, Id faced each day with the understanding that, as time passed, the odds grew greater and greater that Doe wouldnt be coming back. But to hear that assessment coming from someone else, especially someone in the profession of criminal investigation and law enforcement, drove the point home.

Ive always tried to be realistic. The reality I had to face was that Doe wasnt coming back. Without her, what did I have?

Even though it was early November, the weather was sunny and pleasant, nothing like the feelings storming inside me. I put on my jacket and walked, in a daze, down to the orchard behind our home. Each step I took echoed the refrain, Doe isnt coming back.

The dry leaves were beginning to turn. Soon they would fall to the ground and winter would be here for me to face alone. Could I? For forty-four years there had been one person with me through everything, good and bad, helping me build and hold our world together. She had been a part of me and I had been a part of her. I realized I had no identity apart from Doe. How could I go on?

I reached the far end of the orchard and turned to walk back to the house. Again, with each footstep, I thought, Doe isnt coming back. Doe isnt coming back! I saw her face in front of me, her dark eyes shining with love for me. I thought of how much I loved her, how much I missed her, how painfully aware I was of her absence. How painfully aware I was of being alone.

When I reached the gate leading from the orchard, I looked toward the sky, where God was supposed to be. Do I really want to go on living? I asked. For that one moment I considered ending it all. What did I have to live for without Doe? I might as well kill myself right then.

Every night of my adult life I have prayed. I never made it a practice to ask God for specific things, except after Doe disappeared, when I asked Him if she might reveal something to me in my dreams. But my sleep had been deep and dreamless. It had seemed God hadnt or didnt want to listen to my prayers.

At the orchard gate, however, it came to me in a blinding flash. I wasnt ready to leave this life. Dead or alive, Doe had to be found, that was my first purpose. And even if Doe wasnt coming back, she would never have wanted me to give up. As much as she loved me, she would want me to find other important reasons to go on living, and to have purpose and meaning in my life. Where would I find those things?

Again the answer came. Where had Doe and I found the most happiness together?

Square dancing.

Maybe my church had failed me, with most of its members turning their hearts, if not their faces from me. But that wasnt so with the Top Spinners. They were waiting for me to return to them. Suddenly I was ready to go.