The doorbell rang at one in the afternoon.

August wasn’t expecting any deliveries and none of his old friends came around anymore. Probably some political campaign volunteer or the Jehovah’s. He worked from home every Tuesday afternoon. He shared his office at the college with two other adjuncts, one of whom had a weekly meeting that took over the tiny room and made doing his own work impossible. August padded to the door in his socks and sweatpants. He opened the door just a crack, ready to send the unwanted visitor on his way.

August stared at the young man on the porch. The kid, a tall, awkward-looking teenager, with long shaggy hair, was a ringer for a younger version of August. The boy stared back at him. He looked very much like the age progression photos in the missing child fliers.

“Jeremy?” August flung the door open so hard that it banged into the side of the house. The boy trembled in his board shorts and his oversized t-shirt. It was late October, too cold for summer clothes.

“Dad.” Jeremy’s voice was deep. He wasn’t a child anymore, but a thin, long limbed, almost-man.

August stepped back into the foyer and ushered his son – his son! – into the house.

Jeremy hesitated, bent down to pick up a duffel bag and a backpack. He followed August inside. Jeremy set his bags down by the coat rack and looked around. August was glad he had fought to keep everything the same as it had been before Jeremy’s disappearance. The 2018 calendar hanging by the front door was the only concession to the passage of time.

“Jer.” August grabbed his son by the shoulders and pulled him into a tight embrace. Jeremy smelled of sweat and the cloying stickiness of Dr. Bronner’s castile soap. The boy’s hands were warm against August’s back. Jeremy leaned in hard against him. August didn’t want to let go.

For years well meaning friends and even some of his own family members had told him he should move on. That Jeremy was gone and that it did him no good to obsess and worry. It will destroy your marriage. Besides, he’s with his mother, people said. She won’t hurt him. The jury was still out on that, but he was alive and he was here.

What had Franny told Jeremy? Had she brainwashed their son against him? The ever-present pain in August’s chest flared up. Uncomfortable and overwhelming like acid reflux, tight and sharp as a panic attack. That familiar fissure inside. He’d long relied on Jeremy’s return to fill it, as his absence had created it. For the first time in two years, three months and eight days, August needed a drink.

He dug his fingernails into his palms.

Jeremy gestured towards the kitchen. “You got anything to eat?”

August nodded. “Your room is the same as it was when you were here last. If you want to put your stuff away. Or put on some warmer clothes?” as he said it, August realized none of the clothes still in Jeremy’s closet would fit him. He’d grown so much. “Jer?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve missed you so much.”

Jeremy didn’t say anything. He just nodded and let a slip a thin smile. He walked down the hallway to his old room. Like it was nothing. Like he did it all the time. As though he hadn’t been missing since he was eleven. The five longest years of August’s life.

August resisted the urge to follow him. Instead, he went in to the kitchen and took out the unopened boxes of cereal he kept in the pantry. Did Jeremy even like Cocoa Crispies or Apple Jacks anymore? He’d stocked the cereal for years, keeping each box until it was past its ‘best by’ date, replacing them just in case. He set out a large soup bowl (Jeremy could eat his weight in cereal, something at which August had marveled) and checked to see that he had enough milk in the fridge. There was half a quart. It would have to suffice.

Hearing Jeremy’s familiar, yet heavier, tread in the hallway, August felt a lump in his throat, and the warm almost stinging sensation of his eyes filling with tears. He had dreamed of Jeremy’s return for so long.

But not like this.

Not an anticlimactic reunion on a random Tuesday, August suddenly feeling ridiculous in his ratty, shapeless sweatpants and grungy tube socks. And feeling like an idiot for even thinking about what he was wearing. And the kitchen could use a cleaning. He still hadn’t washed last night’s supper dishes – his job since Daniel had done the cooking – and the room smelled like old roast beef and the overcooked onions that clogged the drain.

This was hardly the heroic and beautiful reunion August had wished for. No private investigator’s tips leading him to a ramshackle house in some backwoods nowhere, shouldering his way through the door to scoop up Jeremy and spirit him away. No airport waiting area balloons and hugs.

He swiped his eyes with his hands and busied himself with making a fresh pot of coffee. Did Jeremy drink coffee now? And where was Jeremy’s mother? There was a federal kidnapping charge for her to answer to.

Jeremy lingered in the kitchen doorway a moment. “Everything looks the same, like, the whole house.” He half-smiled. His teeth looked good. Despite everything Franny had done to destroy August, she had taken care of their son.

“We wanted you to be able to come home.” August leaned against the counter while the coffee pot steamed and sputtered. Jeremy sat down in his seat at the kitchen table and reached for the Cocoa Crispies.

Jeremy poured most of the milk over his cereal. They would need more. August didn’t want to leave Jeremy alone for a minute. He’d ask Daniel to grab some on the way home from work.

He watched his son shovel food into his mouth, barely chewing before spooning up some more. When had he last eaten? More importantly, how the hell had Jeremy even gotten here?

He must have sensed his father’s eyes on him. Jeremy looked up. “Daniel still lives here, right? You’re still married?”

August nodded. “Yes, he does. We are. He missed you, too.”

“Good,” Jeremy said. “I wondered.”

August wanted to sit down across from Jeremy and demand answers to all his questions. Not yet. He didn’t want to risk spooking Jeremy. But there was something he needed to know.

“Your mother isn’t here with you, is she?” Just thinking about Franny made his blood pressure shoot up. She had been so cold and calculating in her actions. Despite the problems between the two of them, August had always done right by Jeremy. He did not deserve what she’d done to him.

Jeremy didn’t say anything. Just sat there and ate more cereal. Topped it with another splash of milk. “No. She doesn’t know where I am. I told her I was going on a road trip with my friend’s family.”

“How did you get here? Does anyone else know where you are?”

“I’m not supposed to be back from the trip for another couple days. So no. I hitched.”

“You hitchhiked? Where from?”

“Can we talk about it later?” Jeremy lifted his cereal bowl to his mouth and slurped up the rest of the chocolaty milk.

“It can wait a bit longer.” He’d already waited five years. He could wait a few more minutes, another hour. He poured coffee for himself. Held the coffee pot up and asked if Jeremy wanted any.

“I’m okay, thanks.” Jeremy looked down at the dregs of milk and cereal in his bowl. “We don’t drink hot drinks at the farm.”

The farm? Franny had spirited Jeremy away to some religious, new age, freaky cult?

August realized he had a lot of calls to make, not least to Daniel, and then to his lawyer.

“No hot drinks. Got it. But if you change your mind, help yourself.” August couldn’t remember where he’d left his cell. He’d had it in the study before the doorbell rang. “Don’t go anywhere,” he told Jeremy. “I’ll be right back.”

In the study he found his phone beneath a stack of student papers he’d been grading thirty-five minutes earlier – but god, it felt like a lifetime ago. He called Daniel.

Daniel answered on the second ring. “This is a nice surprise, Aug. What’s up?”

“He’s here, Danny.”

Daniel paused. “Jeremy?”

“Yeah. Jeremy.” Saying his son’s name, knowing he was under the same roof, felt so good. “He just showed up a little while ago. Can you come home? Now? And pick up milk on the way?” August stood in the doorway of the study. He leaned his head against the doorjamb. The wood felt cool on his forehead.

“He’s okay, right? Jeremy?”

“He’s fine, he’s all grown up. I don’t know. Just get here.” August strained to hear if Jeremy was doing anything downstairs.

“Should I get 2%? Or is whole milk better?” Daniel sounded breathless. August pictured him rushing from his office, mouthing instructions to his assistant as he flew down the corridor.

“Just get what you always get. It doesn’t matter.” The phone cut out for a moment, and then August heard the car radio come on, Daniel’s preferred Sirius station.

“Aug, just switched you to Bluetooth. I’m in the car. Be there soon.”

In the kitchen Jeremy was still eating. He’d opened the box of Apple Jacks. He held up the empty milk carton. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” August sat down across from his son. He sipped his coffee. “Daniel’s on the way home, he’s going to get more.”

“Does he still have his big scratchy beard?”

Daniel had only been in Jeremy’s life for three years when Franny took him, but they had bonded quickly. Jeremy jokingly called Daniel ‘Santa’ when his beard was at its fullest. He still had the dollar store Santa hat Jeremy got him the Christmas before he went missing.

The more people in your life who love you, the better, August told Jeremy once, before bedtime, just after Daniel had moved in. It’s a strange quirk of the heart. The older you get and the more people you meet, it stretches to make room to love them all. Eight-year-old Jeremy nodded solemnly and soon fell asleep as August read him a bedtime story.

August laughed. “He did, for a long time, but now that he’s got more grey hair he shaved it off. He thinks he looks younger now without it.”

“You look about the same, just skinnier.”

If he’d been alone with Daniel, August would have made a tasteless joke along the lines of how he was just on the kidnapped child diet: Stress for breakfast, frayed nerves for lunch, and worrying for dinner, with a generous helping of middle of the night anxiety. Instead, he just nodded. “I run a lot. We eat better.” He didn’t mention he’d stopped drinking. That wasn’t a conversation he ever wanted to have with Jeremy.

Another cup of black coffee for August, more dry cereal for Jeremy.

The front door opened. August met Daniel in the hallway. Still clutching a plastic one-gallon container of milk, Daniel wrapped August in a sweaty hug. Gave him a quick kiss. “He’s really here?”

“Yes. Can you believe it?” August grabbed him by his free hand and pulled him into the kitchen.

Daniel squeezed August’s hand. He set the milk down on the table.

“Hey, kiddo.”

Jeremy stood up.

Daniel held out his hand. “You’re taller than your Dad now. It’s… Wow. I’m so glad you’re home.”

Jeremy took Daniel’s hand and they shook. They hadn’t shaken hands since their first meeting; eight-year-old Jeremy’s hand dwarfed by Daniel’s. August standing behind his son, his hands on Jeremy’s shoulders.

“You look funny without your beard.”

Daniel grinned. “Thanks.”

The three of them stood there. The kitchen. Always the heart of this house. Little Jeremy at the table, doing homework while August cooked pancakes. Daniel scattering sections of the Sunday Boston Globe across the table and the guest chair. Coffee by the pot, and Jeremy’s grainy Nesquik chocolate milk.

But now the kitchen felt too small for three men.

Daniel brought two more bowls and spoons to the table. “We should have something to eat, too, Aug,” he said. “I know you haven’t eaten anything yet today.”

They sat down. Daniel shook Apple Jacks into their bowls. He offered the box to Jeremy. “You going to have some more?”

“Sure.”

Daniel opened the milk and glugged it into their bowls.

The cereal was too sweet for August. He took a couple of spoonfuls before he gave up. “Jer, it’s time for us to talk.”

The boy had been sitting hunched over his bowl but now he pushed the bowl away and slumped down in his chair. “Do we have to?”

“Yeah, we have to.” August drew his chair in closer to the table. He leaned forward, elbows on the tablecloth.

Jeremy let out a long sigh. “Where do you want me to start.”

“Wherever you want.”

Daniel took his phone from his pocket. “Before we get started, I think we should give Erin a call, Aug.”

Erin Kennedy was their lawyer. August agreed she needed to know what was going on but he didn’t want her intrusion into this private family moment.

“No, don’t call her yet,” August said. She’d want to come over. August wasn’t ready.

“I’m just going to let her know what’s going on.” Daniel stood up and took the phone into the living room.

“Go ahead, Jer. Let’s talk.”

“You don’t want to wait for Daniel?”

“He’ll be back in a minute.”

Jeremy reached into his pocket and withdrew a small luggage tag in the shape of a fire truck. It was a faded, dirty red and the edges were frayed. Jeremy handed it to August. “I found this in our room at the farm a few weeks ago. We were getting a clothing donation together for Goodwill and I grabbed my old jacket from when I was a kid. Do you remember the zip up brown one with the little zipper pockets all over it?”

August nodded. He remembered that ridiculous corduroy jacket, a gift from Franny’s parents for Jeremy’s ninth birthday. It was three sizes too big and not warm enough for winter. With Jer’s childhood treasures zipped into each pocket, the jacket made Jeremy look like a lumpy potato. Franny made him wear it anyway, even though it hung on Jeremy for a couple of years until he hit a growth spurt.

“I checked all the pockets, not that I needed old gum or marbles or whatever.”

August turned the tag around in his hand. The plastic window on the front was grimy but the child’s scrawl in the address space was Jeremy’s handwriting and it clearly listed August and Daniel’s home address. Jeremy Smith, 1805 Cedar Street, Somerville, MA 02129.

Daniel came back in the room, his phone to his ear. “Hold on a sec, Erin.” He sat back down beside August. Set the phone down on the table and put it on speaker.

August reached over and muted the volume. “I said not yet, Daniel. We’ll call her later.”

“Erin needs to hear this stuff. This is a compromise, she wanted us all to go meet her at the office.” Daniel spoke in a measured, slightly patronizing tone – August hated when he did that. Daniel always said he had a blind spot when it came to talking about Jeremy and Franny. He probably did, but August didn’t care. He was the one who had been married to Franny. Jeremy was his son.

“We’re staying here and we’ll call Erin later.” August brought the phone up and unmuted it. “Erin, we’ll fill you in in a little while. No, no need to do that yet. We’ll call you.” He ended the call and slipped the phone into his left sweatpants pocket so Daniel couldn’t reach it to take it back.

“Sorry, Jer, keep going.”

Jeremy went on. “It must have fallen off my suitcase when we left, and I put it in my pocket. I don’t remember. And Mom never knew.” Jeremy picked up his spoon and fidgeted with it. “I looked at the tag, and read the address, and I just had this feeling. I can’t explain it but like… I remembered all this stuff. And I needed to find out if you still lived here.”

August felt that lump in his throat growing again. He sipped some coffee. Coughed. “Okay. So how did you do that? Did you have Internet at the farm?”

“Nope. No Internet, no phones. It’s a self-sufficient sustainable community, with like, chickens and a big garden.”

Sounded like culty doomsday nonsense to August. “So there were other kids there?”

“Yeah, I’m the oldest but there are a few other kids. Emily and Fee are around twelve, and Denis is ten. He’s got twin sisters but they’re only three so they can’t do much around the farm.” Jeremy’s voice betrayed nothing. At least he’d grown up with other kids around, even if they were much younger.

“So how did you find us?”

“Denis and I got bikes for Christmas last year, so we could go to school by ourselves. Not public school, a homeschool collective, at the farm and a couple of families houses in town. Anyway, there’s a library in town, I knew cause it’s on the way home. I told Denis I’d race him back to the farm one afternoon, and he took off. I remember when I was little and you’d take me to the library to pick out books and there were computers there, so I went in and the librarian showed me where the computers were and how to get online.”

August wondered what the librarian made of a sixteen-year old kid who needed a refresher on how to do a basic Google search on his own. She didn’t think there might be something weird about it?

“I put in your address, and all this stuff came up.” Jeremy looked up from his spoon that he was still playing with, and August caught his son’s eyes for a moment. Jeremy’s eyes were reddening.

“Did you see the website?” August asked. They had set up a site soon after the abduction, findjeremysmith.com, full of photos of Jeremy and Franny.

“It was the first thing on the list.” Jeremy scratched his head. “I was glad the librarian went back to her desk because it was so crazy. I’m sitting there just looking at these pictures of all of us, and in big red letters it says I was kidnapped.”

August didn’t know what to say. He just nodded.

“It was a totally different story than what mom told me.” Jeremy slumped forward. In just seconds he shrunk from a tall, lanky teenager to the little boy he’d been the last time August saw him.

Daniel patted August’s knee under the table. He said, “What did Franny tell you, Jeremy?”

Jeremy shook his head. “I can’t. Obviously none of it’s even true anyway so it doesn’t matter.”

“You don’t have to tell us everything all at once,” August said, reaching across the table. His fingers brushed Jeremy’s knuckles. “But you should tell us something today.” Something they could give to Erin to help with their case when they called her back. “Just one thing.”

Jeremy slid farther down in his seat. He looked… wilted.

“You know that I didn’t feel this way,” he said, looking everywhere except at August or Daniel. “And I still don’t. Mom said that it was against the law that you got married. She said that if I stayed at your house, she’d call the police. And then you’d both go to jail forever and you’d never forgive me. I had to stay with her or she’d make sure you were arrested.”

August’s jaw tightened and his teeth ground against each other. How fucking dare she. He took a slow, measured breath. “There’s nothing you could ever do that would make us feel that way,” he began. “I don’t know why she told you those things, but none of them are true. None of them.”

“I know,” Jeremy whispered.

“Seriously, Jer. You didn’t do anything wrong, and we’re not mad at you.”

Jeremy sniffled. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. “Sorry.”

August stood up. He was on the verge of losing all self-control, as he’d done after the kidnapping. He paced the length of the kitchen, his hands clenched tightly at his sides so he wouldn’t be tempted to put them through the wall again.

“You don’t have to apologize for anything. First of all, our marriage was and is completely legal, not that that matters. When she took you, she and I had joint custody, so there was nothing wrong with you staying with us. She’s the one who’s facing jail time now.” As soon as the words were out, August regretted it. He didn’t want to scare Jeremy or force him to pick sides. Daniel stared at August, his eyes wide. August knew he was trying to formulate a reply.

“Forget I said that.” August stopped pacing and slid into the chair beside Jeremy. “I take that back, that’s not something any of us can control.”

“That’s right,” Daniel said. “We’re just talking right now. Not making any decisions.”

Jeremy picked up the luggage tag again and started tugging at a loose thread.

“Then what happened?” August prompted. He shifted in the chair so that he could face Jeremy.

Jeremy took a breath. “I read the website and thought about calling you. But.” He looked down again. “I didn’t want Mom to get in trouble. I know she made a mistake but I couldn’t help it.”

August nodded. “Of course, Jer. She’s your mom. We get it.” He felt sick just saying it, but he wasn’t going to demonize Franny in front of Jeremy.

“I closed the website and went home. What else could I do? I didn’t say anything for a couple days, but then at dinner Denis was asking his father something and the way they were talking it reminded me of us.” Jeremy shrugged his shoulders. “It just came out. Everyone was at the table and I just said it. I miss my Dad. Mom didn’t say anything until we got back to our room. But then she went off, it was scary.”

“Did she hit you?” Daniel asked.

“She yelled a lot. But she didn’t touch me.” Jeremy half smiled. “She wouldn’t. I’m bigger than she is now, anyway. She told me you were dead, that she had known it for years but hadn’t wanted to tell me. I knew you weren’t – from seeing the website – but I didn’t say anything. But that was it. I decided that night I was coming to find you.”

Jeremy told them of his hastily constructed plans. He hid his stuffed backpack in the barn and told Franny that one of the homeschool families who lived in town had invited him to go away for the weekend. They’d known the family, the Melroses, for years and Franny didn’t even bother checking with them to confirm the plan. Jeremy biked into town and hitched the first of many rides east. Five days later, and here he was.

August had too many questions for his son. What was Jeremy’s plan? Did he want to stay? Or would he try to head back to – August realized he still didn’t know where Jeremy had come from – back to the farm? Did he have any idea that his life with Franny was effectively over once August and Daniel got in touch with the authorities?

Daniel was still talking to Jeremy across the table. The two of them leaning in towards each other just as they’d done years ago. They were discussing dinner options. Had that much time passed? Was it dinnertime already? August glanced at his watch. Barely four o’clock.

“You still like the meat eater’s combo?” Daniel asked Jeremy.

“The only place in our town to get pizza is at the grocers, but we never get it from there. If we have pizza at the farm its whole wheat crust and too many soggy vegetables.”

Daniel made a face. “That’s not right. You’re a kid, you should be able to eat greasy Domino’s if you want.”

“Jeremy,” August said. “Just a few more questions and then you guys can plot a pizza feast for later.” Jeremy and Daniel sat back in their chairs. “We need more details. Where is the farm? It must be pretty far away if it took you five days to get here.”

Jeremy shook his head. “No way. If I tell you you’ll get Mom arrested. I’m not stupid. I’m not going to do that.”

August breathed deeply. “We know you’re not stupid.”

“When she realizes you’re not on that road trip, Franny’s going to panic,” Daniel said. August glared at him. If anything was going to spook Jeremy, this was it.

“She’ll panic,” Daniel continued, ignoring August, “and she might run. And then we’ll never know where she’s gone.”

“Jesus, Daniel, enough.” August kicked Daniel’s leg under the table. Daniel winced. “Enough.”

He said to Jeremy, “Your mom is going to be worried about you, that’s true. At least if you tell us where she is, we can let her know that you’re okay. Surely that’s better than letting her worry.” It was more than Franny deserved.

Jeremy chewed his lip. A bad habit he’d had since childhood. August knew he was deep in thought. “What if I call her, just to say I’m okay.”

“You said there were no phones at the farm.”

“There aren’t. I could call the Melroses, and they’ll tell Mom.”

It didn’t sound right to August. “Why do you have their number?”

“I could look it up.”

“Or you could just tell us, Jer.”

Jeremy didn’t say anything more. They sat there, the three of them in the kitchen, not speaking, the clock on the wall tick, tick, ticking. After a while, Daniel got up and went in to the other room.

August heard Daniel speaking with someone in a low tone. Was he talking to Erin? August reached into his pocket. Daniel’s phone was still there. He must have found August’s phone in the other room.

“Are you going to stay with us?” August heard himself ask Jeremy.

“Are you going to force me to tell you where Mom is?” Jeremy balanced his spoon on his index finger and watched it seesaw up and down. “Cause that’s what you’d need to do.”

“We won’t force you. But I’m not going to lie. The police, and our lawyer, they’ll do whatever they can to find out.” August calculated the distance from the table to the back and front doors. He’d throw himself between Jeremy and the doors if he had to.

“I’ll stay for now.” Jeremy let the spoon slide from its perch on his finger.

August smiled.

He found a pair of sweats that would be long enough for Jeremy, and one of Daniel’s old pullovers and sent Jeremy to take a shower. Daniel was still on the phone so August busied himself with doing the dishes, including the cereal bowls. The light was growing dim outside. They’d be changing their clocks back soon. He switched on the light and found the rubber-banded stack of takeout menus. By the time Jeremy came back in, clean and relaxed after his shower, the pizza menus were fanned out on the kitchen table. Jeremy sat down and studied them. August watched his son. It was all still so sudden and so jarring, having Jeremy home. Daniel came in, August’s phone against his ear. He said, “One minute,” and then whispered to August, “We’ll go see Erin tomorrow.”

August nodded. They’d have tonight just for their family. In the morning Erin could have at them. He gestured for Daniel to give him the phone. Daniel hung up and handed it to August.

“I remember that sweater,” Daniel said, sliding into the seat beside Jeremy. “Now what are we doing? I’m thinking of Pizzeria Regina now.”

August listened to Daniel and Jeremy discuss the merits of various pizza specials. Later, they devoured two extra large meat supremes with a side order of steamed broccoli and a bag of greasy garlic knots. Jeremy hadn’t watched any television since arriving at the farm so they let him stay up late binge watching Stranger Things on Netflix.

While he sat on the couch mesmerized by the TV, August went in to Jeremy’s bedroom to change the sheets on the old twin bed. He’d kept Jeremy’s favorite sheets with colorful fire engines on them. After he’d remade the bed he sat down on the edge of it. Jeremy was home. It didn’t feel completely real yet.

Midnight came and went. “Bedtime,” August told Jeremy, as Daniel switched off the TV. He was too old for August to tuck him in to bed so August wished Jeremy a good night at the door. “We’re so glad you’re back,” August said. “I love you, kid.”

Before he shut the door, Jeremy said, “Love you too, Dad.”

August lingered in the hallway. He was tired but also too wired to sleep yet. Daniel’s snores emanated from their bedroom. Jeremy’s lights were out but August could hear him moving about the room. All those years August had insisted on keeping everything exactly as Jeremy had left it had finally paid off. He sat down on the hardwood floor, his back against Jeremy’s bedroom door. He’d stay there all night. For the first time in five years it was a different kind of vigil August was keeping.