David tried to smile. “Not too hungry.”
“You gotta eat something.”
“I do. I will. You don’t have to—”
“When was the last time you ate?”
That wasn’t— “I had my oatmeal this morning,” he said, trying to keep the irritation from his voice. “Even put some fruit on it. A little brown sugar.”
“And before that?”
“Why?” he asked.
Phillip shrugged. His own steak hadn’t really been touched. Half the potatoes were gone. Some of the broccoli. “I worry about you, buddy.”
David snorted. “Don’t.”
“Don’t?”
“You don’t have to.”
“That doesn’t mean I won’t. Someone has to. It might as well be me.”
“I’m fine,” David said, as if he hadn’t just been on his knees, face in the toilet.
Phillip sipped his wine. The candlelight flashed off the glass. “I’m not.”
David didn’t know what to say to that. So he said, “Oh?”
“Yes,” Phillip said. “Oh. Oh, David.”
“I’m sorry.”
Phillip laughed at that. It wasn’t the nicest of sounds. “For?”
“I don’t underst—”
“What are you sorry for? That I’m not okay? Or something else.”
He’d been gone for four minutes. Maybe five. He didn’t know what had happened. Things hadn’t been… comfortable, per se, but they’d been doing okay, hadn’t they? It’d been less stilted than he expected it to be. Granted, there were decades of history here between them, and he loved Phillip. God, he always had. Even after everything, he loved him. The same with Alice. She was six years gone and no one knew where she was, but he loved her as much as he had the day she’d called to say she was going to be late because of a fire farther down the line.
And yeah, he was sorry. Jesus Christ, he was sorry. He’d fucked up so many times since that Thursday. He’d taken it out on Phillip, even though he hadn’t deserved it. Then Phillip had had to put up with his shit as he spiraled out of control. As he became obsessed. As he spent so much money trying to find her.
At first, the police had been hesitant. She was an adult, they said. Are you sure she wasn’t at a friend’s house? Are you sure she wasn’t getting her hair done? Yes, sir, I heard you when you said her purse had been found on the ground, there’s no need to raise your voice at me, sir, but that could have been anything. She’s a woman in the United States who can legally go anywhere she wants to. Are you sure she didn’t just want to leave?
He’d called Phillip after that, enraged.
Hospitals didn’t have her.
She wasn’t in jail.
It took two days before the police had opened a missing person’s case, though he’d found out later that in DC, police were supposed to file a report no matter what when called, one of the few places in the country that did so.
By then, they’d gotten the purse back from Digger.
He was a nice kid, but David hadn’t had any qualms thinking that if Digger had been the one to do this, if he’d hurt Alice in any way, there wouldn’t be enough left of this boy to bury.
They’d interviewed him. Digger told the police the same thing he’d said to David. He’d been in class beforehand. He was heading to work. He’d found the purse, and that was that.