One moment, she was slamming cabinets because her father, Paul, had forbidden her from seeing a boy named Andy, and the next, she was gone so completely it felt like the world had swallowed her.
The police searched. Neighbors helped. My daughter’s photo sat in the grocery store window, the gas station, and every church bulletin board in town.
Nothing came back. Not a single real lead. Not one answer.
Paul blamed me first in private, then like he wanted an audience.
“You should have known,” he told me the week after she disappeared.
“I didn’t know she was leaving, Paul.”
“Yeah, you never know anything until it’s too late, Jodi.”
He said worse after that—enough that I started believing him.
By the third year, he had moved in with a woman named Amber and left me in the same quiet house, with Jennifer’s room shut tight at the end of the hall.
We were still married on paper. I just never found the strength to finish what he started.
