Read Online Close Encounters by Jen Michalski - Free Book Online

Northeast Market, and the surrounding Upper Fells Point community. Tara was even on the milk cartons for awhile. And Baltimore Magazine wanted to do a story, but my parents refused. Hundreds of children went missing every year, they explained to the reporters. Don’t focus on our family because of Tara’s special circumstances.
    My parents were both psychiatrists, and very good ones, I’d heard people say, but it’s a little different when the tragedy is your own. Mostly they sat at the dining room table discussing “the situation,” the telephone ringing constantly in the background. I was not allowed to discuss the situation with them, although they usually sat with me in my bedroom at night.
    â€œIn many cases, when something this stressful happens, parents often get divorced,” my father began one night, stroking his neatly clipped beard. He sat at my desk while my mom sat at the foot of my bed. “Their grief is so terrible, that they’re not available for their spouses—or even their children. We just want to let you know, Paul, that this is not going to happen to us. Or to you. We are here for you, and each other. And we’re going to find Tara. We just have to be patient and let the police do their job and stick to our plan.”
    The plan consisted of canvasing the neighborhoods surrounding Kennedy Krieger after dinner and knocking on doors with more flyers. My parents hoped that by connecting a human family to the face of the missing girl that someone with information would come forward. We visited so many Northeast Baltimore rowhouses in two months that people thought my parents were running for election. Or that we were religious fanatics. Because of my mother’s canary yellow Volvo and posters, we were affectionately referred to as “the Looney Birds.” Entire rows of homes would descend into darkness the moment we hit their street, apparently having been warned that we were badgering people about a little white girl.
    â€œThey’re just…horrible, horrible people.” My mom leaned against the Volvo in her best Annie Hall attire, smoking a cigarette. It was a habit she recently picked up again, not having smoked since before I was born. My father’s habit was to just look like hell. Speckles of grey began appearing in his beard, and his shirttails began to hang out, looser, underneath his sweaters and sport jackets. “No help at all. No compassion. And they’re supposed to be such church-goers.”
    â€œWe can’t condemn a whole race of people just for the actions of a few,” my father answered, wiping an egg from our windshield with a fast food napkin. “Look at how nice that family was on Collington.”
    â€œOne family out of how many? We’re not accusing anybody of anything. We’d just like a little help!” She shouted to no one in particular. “And stop making it into some racial discussion, Peter. I really don’t need to have a sociological discussion right now.”
    â€œI’m not making it a sociological discussion, Marta,” my father answered, tossing the napkin on the sidewalk. As a symbolic gesture or absentmindedness, I wasn’t sure. “I’m making it about setting a good example for Paul.”
    â€œWhat do you think, Paul?” My mom asked, her eyes reddened, her hair falling out of its clip. “Do you think this neighborhood has set a good example for us tonight?”
    I stopped participating in the plan after awhile, citing impossible homework demands. Not because I didn’t want to find Tara, but because I knew the plan was futile and I was tired of seeing my parents become increasingly hostile toward each other.
    I had my own plans. They involved some dope that my friend Joshua had stolen from his brother, Mike. That day in the playground at Kennedy Krieger, among all those strange faces, had really unnerved me, had brought the surreal nature of