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remembered.
    “Ah, that was it.” They all looked relieved and Derek’s strumming continued.
    Goose pimples formed on my skin. I shivered.
    I looked around at the faces of the group, studied their eyes, their familiar features, and I allowed all I had learned as a little girl to come flooding back to me. I could see it now as clearly as I had then, when I came across the story in the computer archives while researching a project for school. I had immediately taken interest, had followed up on the story and was more than familiar with it. I saw the young teenage faces smiling up from the newspaper’s front page and I saw those same faces around me now.
    Derek Cummings, Joan Hatchard, Bernard Lynch, Marcus Flynn, and Helena Dickens. Five students from St. Kevin’s Boarding School. They disappeared during a school camping trip in the sixties and were never found. But here they were now, older, wiser, and their innocence lost.
    I had found them.
    10
    W hen I was fourteen, my parents talked me into seeing a counselor after school on Mondays. They didn’t have to do much convincing. As soon as they told me I’d be able to ask all the questions I wanted and that this person was qualified enough to answer, I practically drove myself to school.
    I knew they felt that they had failed me. I could tell that by their expressions when they sat me down at the kitchen table, with the milk and cookies in the center and the washing machine going in the background as the usual distraction. Mum held a rolled tissue tightly in her hands as though she had used it earlier to dab away tears. That was the thing with my parents: they would never let me see their weaknesses, yet they would forget to get rid of the proof of them. I didn’t see Mum’s tears but I saw the tissue. I didn’t hear Dad’s anger at having failed to help me but I saw it in his eyes.
    “Is everything OK?” I looked from one strong face to the other. The only time two people can look so confident and as though they can face anything is when something bad happens. “Did something happen?”
    Dad smiled. “No, honey, don’t worry, nothing bad happened.”
    Mum’s eyebrow lifted when he said that and I knew she didn’t agree. I knew Dad didn’t agree with his words either but he was saying them nonetheless. There was nothing wrong with sending me to a counselor, nothing wrong at all, but I knew that they had wanted to help me themselves. They had wanted their answers to my questions to be enough. I overheard their endless discussions about the correct method of dealing with my behavior. They had helped me in every way they could and now I could feel their disappointment in themselves and I hated myself for making them feel that way.
    “You know the way you have so many questions, honey?” Dad explained.
    I nodded.
    “Well, your mum and I”—he looked to her for support and her eyes softened immediately as she glanced at him—“well, your mum and I have found someone that you’ll be able to talk to about all of those questions.”
    “This person will be able to answer my questions?” I felt my eyes widen and my heart quicken as though all of life’s mysteries were about to be answered.
    “I hope so, honey,” Mum answered. “I hope that by talking to him, you won’t have any more questions that will bother you. He’ll know far more about all the things you worry about than we do.”
    Then it was time for my lightning round. Fingers on the buzzers.
    “Who is he?”
    “Mr. Burton.” Dad.
    “What’s his first name?”
    “Gregory.” Mum.
    “Where does he work?”
    “At the school.” Mum.
    “When will I see him?”
    “Mondays after school. For an hour.” Mum. She was better at this than Dad. She was used to these discussions while Dad was out working.
    “He’s a psychiatrist, isn’t he?” They never lied to me.
    “Yes, honey.” Dad.
    I think that’s the moment I began to hate seeing myself in their eyes, and unfortunately it was when I