They would get away. Mountain air, cool lake, movies on VHS, the worst Chinese takeout you can imagine, shiny sticky globes of orange chicken that would make you pay later. Walking to the General Store, arms linked, for coffee and Red Vines and toilet paper. Renting dented kayaks from the guy with the pick-up truck and a bunch of dented kayaks. Hiking with Dad, reading in the sun with Mom. They would get away.

A police station shouldn’t be this quiet. A police station shouldn’t have a 4-foot-tall wooden black bear holding a welcome sign out front. A police station shouldn’t have me in it. Leah stares at the hand-carved back of the bear. Its way-too-human butt. Its little round tail. Her little sister paces behind her, her footsteps the only sound. Trees outside, layers of samey pines dotted with oaks lush with leaves, sharp speckles of sun poking through those leaves. They are moving, the leaves, but she doesn’t hear them. She only hears Alana’s futile footsteps, another thing a police station shouldn’t have.

The cabin was older than they’d anticipated, all stained rugs and wonky doors and dusty corners. But anywhere Mom was turned into home. The house was across the road from the lake with its own private entrance to the water. Precarious, rotting wood steps down to a shady, sandy spot. Deep green slime snuggled the shore, giving way to lapping shards of white and black. Off to the side, a fuzzy-looking Adirondack chair that upon closer inspection was peeling. Tiny red chips of paint all over its body stood on end, spooked. In the cabin, Leah and Alana claimed bunk beds because why not? It had been years since they lived in the same house, let alone room. Alana took top, as always. Mom and Dad’s muffled voices hummed from their room beyond the wall, the timbre of his rocky rumble splashed by Mom’s loopy waves. A tiny musty library in the living room by the fireplace. Three shelves of waterlogged miscellanea. Rustic. Leah inspected the collection — 30-year-old Adirondack hiking guides, Dean Koontz paperbacks, the odd Dr. Suess — and picked her summer vacation reads: a foxed, creased copy of The Exorcist and a forgotten library version of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Perfect light beach reads.

A police station shouldn’t have a woman named Debra who brings you and your sister Sleepytime tea in thick mugs that say “#1 Boss” and “Life is good.” A police station shouldn’t have, “Oh, that’s Missy out there in the bush. She’s a whitetail that lives on the property. She visits us almost every day.”

In the morning, the girls woke to the sounds of Dad sizzling slabs of smoked pork they’d picked up at that famous meat shop on the ride up. Leah sat up in bed, face to Alana’s pink, dangling feet. Tickled the bottom of one, then brushed them out of the way. Breakfast on the patio. Spear of sunlight cut across the lake and her family. They gnawed on greasy pork and slurped scrambled eggs off strange plates with strange forks in strange air. Birds chirped like they were desperate to tell you something but realized you couldn’t understand. Lake day. Leah and Alana kayaked to the crannies, swam in the nooks. All day in a bathing suit, alternating wet and dry, their bodies absorbing tiny bits of the Earth and sun and storing them in the corners of their souls, like squirrels with nuts for the winter.

A police station shouldn’t have walls like Lincoln Logs. A police station shouldn’t be playing the radio on which a woman is excited because she just won $100 for guessing who sang that song. A police station shouldn’t have a police chief who tells you to call him Gus. Gus shouldn’t take off his hat and rub his swollen hand on his reddened forehead and say he has nothing else to tell you. No progress has been made.

The family went whitewater rafting on a man-made river with a guide named Dave who had dark, curly hair, blue spacy eyes, the rambling, carefree voice of someone who’d abandoned school to alternate skating on water and snow forever, and toned, tan skin Leah would try to touch if she wasn’t with her parents. A two-minute lesson in commands and what to do if you fall out. Don’t panic. Feet first with the current. Drift and love it, baby. We’ll pick you up at the end. Then the raft was airborne and she thought, “This is it, goodbye world!” But she dug her toes in for dear life and Mom grabbed her wrist, and on the bumpy bus ride back to the car Dave ate an apple in two bites, the juice flying wild, and told about the time a grandma’s teeth fell in the river and two weeks later he saw a groundhog with an insane set of chompers. He had a great gulping laugh that punctuated every story. Like Goofy.

A police station shouldn’t have an illustrated map of this quaint town with a cartoon city hall and a giant baseball with a face hitting a home run out of the minor league ballpark. A police station shouldn’t have a screen door that squeaks. A police station shouldn’t have that Debra woman with wet eyes, touching your cold hand with her warm, rough one, saying she’s praying for you and your sister every day. That she can’t imagine the pain. That she can’t believe a tragedy like this could happen right in their backyard. Tragedy.

A vacation argument in the room of the cabin with the painting of the bears, a mama and a cub, framed by bark and twigs. Vacation arguments are real arguments with wings; they reveal a bird’s-eye-view of yourself, a perspective you’d never seen before and swore didn’t exist. Dad, through gritted teeth, wondered sarcastically why they came all this way if they were just going to sit around all week. “We could do that at home.” But it was different just to be there, and he knew it. Mom, tired from the sun and the same fight, told him to go, go. Go for the hike. She was happier there reading, sunbathing, and napping next to the lake that doesn’t exist at home. The daughters pretended to read or play on their phones. But eventually, Alana, forever the champ, and the one who brought sneakers, sacrificed herself to dad and the hike. “Leah will stay here with mom. It’ll be nice.” No need to fight, but who needs a need?

A police station shouldn’t smell like wood chips and a cinnamon apple Yankee candle. A police station shouldn’t have a bloated red-faced man who told you to call him Gus, sighing again, saying that your parents are nowhere to be found, and no progress has been made. A police station shouldn’t have a wastebasket full of Alana’s tears and snot.

Famous soda stand. Fried oysters. Fried clam strips. Tartar sauce. Chocolate milkshakes, root beer floats. In town, the sisters slipped into the trading post, got lost in a sea of turquoise and sterling silver, every piece just different enough that you convinced yourself you’d eventually find your favorite. Next, skeeball and flashing lights at the arcade. Dirty, temporarily feral children, sticky with soft serve, giggle-ran all over downtown. Parents were being cute. Afternoon fight burned off in the heat. His arm around her shoulder. Hers around his lower back, hand in his back pocket, like a couple of teenagers. They whisper-reminisced into each other’s ears, remembered when their cares were limited to what they’d order for dinner and what sort of house they’d buy someday. “A giant yard.” “A screened-in porch.” Yes. Both. The places they’d visit. Paris. Greece. Yes. Both. Chatter downtown of a black bear sighting in the woods. Murmurs of rumored danger seeped through the street. Secretly, everyone believed that if it happened to them, they’d know just what to do. If they encountered the bear in the forest, the beast would see they came in peace, and they’d share a sandwich before it waved its massive paw in gentle slow motion and plodded off.

A police station shouldn’t have a gravel parking lot and a police station shouldn’t have a file folder with photos of their parents and information about the car they got into “that night,” the evening of July 29, 6:15 p.m., and the missing car’s license plate, JG8645, which Leah now has memorized, and the first and last name of the missing driver, Jason Ripard, and the name of the rideshare company he worked for, and little else because there’d been no developments. No progress had been made. A police station shouldn’t be this quiet.

“JG8645. His name is Jason. Champagne Toyota Camry.” He was a white guy, short dirty-blond hair, reddish scruff. He was going to arrive in six minutes to take their parents to their surprise anniversary dinner. Leah and Alana were pleasantly surprised to discover rideshare apps had made it to the boonies. After downing shandies all day while baking in the sun, floating in tubes, and making friends with dragonflies, the girls hadn’t realized how ill-equipped they’d be to play chauffeur for their parents until they flung themselves upright on the sand in the afternoon. They’d made their parents a reservation for a charmingly old-school, three-course meal in a red leather booth at the Rooster Inn. Daughters’ treat, yes, even the alcohol. Too late, Leah already called them a car, and she’d call one to pick them up, too whenever they were ready, wink wink. She and Alana would heat up a frozen pizza and make popcorn and watch that VHS of The Parent Trap they found in the activities closet. Don’t worry. Go. Have fun. This night’s for you.

A police station shouldn’t have two girls who, even though they live in different places and graduated college, are still girls, girls suddenly forced to contemplate lives without parents, not just that but lives where their parents-protectors-friends were snatched from them, erased from existence with no explanation. Their world has become an endless empty, wooded trail. One big open case file. A file that contains the word “remains.” There are no remains. A police station shouldn’t have two girl-women racing to grab onto the remains of their lives, desperately searching around them for anything to use to fill up the suddenly gaping, bleeding hole in their existence.

They fell asleep to Sharknado and woke up as the guy chainsawed a shark to bits. What time is it? They must be having fun. Yelping the restaurant. It closes at 10. No nightlife in the lake town. No messages. They would have texted to let us know where they were going. Dark. So much darker than home. Quiet the same way. No answer when we text. Ringing into nothing. Panicking. Rationalizing. They must be on their way home, on a strip of road without phone service. Call the restaurant even though you know it’s closed. Ringing into nothing. No second ride on the app. No second charge. Bubbles of panic, fewer and fewer popped by logic as minutes then hours pass. When do you call the police? We’ll all laugh about it in the morning. It is the morning. They would have called. They’ll walk through the door any minute now. Faltering “Leah, they don’t do this” from Alana. They must have gotten so drunk! No, they are gone forever. Or they got a hotel for the night. Passed out. Phones died. They’ll be home before breakfast. Or they’re dead, stuffed in the trunk of JG8645. Jesus, no, stop thinking that. If I promise never to skip a family dinner or send them to voicemail when they call, they’ll walk through that door, and I’ll hug them so tight. They’ll laugh and Mom will say, “Sorry we worried you, oh my babies,” and Dad will make coffee and say, “Look, we brought pastries from this really good bakery,” and we’ll all sit on the deck in the warm sunlight and peel morsels of sweet flaky dough, sugar crystallizing on our lips and butter melting on our tongues and we’ll feed until we’re full of sweetness and the feeling will never end.

A police station shouldn’t have a car pulling out with Leah and Alana in it, heading downstate, back home, to the house, the empty house. Bigger than they ever remembered it was, frozen in life, rotting food in the fridge, Finn the ancient yellow lab melting into the cold basement floor, waiting for his family, dozing and drooling, incongruently fresh, vibrant sympathy flowers from the dog sitter on the counter. Phone messages blinking on the answering machine, which is a thing parents still have, if you still have parents. Lights off, kitchen island populated with mail. Do I have to call the post office and say stop the mail? When do you do that? Maybe they’ll be there when I open the door. Like nothing ever happened. And I’ll say, “Hi! You’re back! We missed you!” And they’ll hug Alana, and they’ll get lunch ready, and I’ll have so many questions but I won’t ask them, I swear, I won’t ask them, I won’t. I won’t. And I’ll go back to my apartment, and Alana to hers, and we’ll resume our lives, coming home for family dinner once a month and calling when there’s a problem at work or to get dad’s lemon chicken recipe, and they’ll just be there. Always. In case we need them. In case we want them. Which we do. We need them now. We want them so bad.