THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SARAH HENRY

Bob threw my paper today and the headlines were:  Glendale Woman Missing.  I sat down on front porch to read.  The rest felt good after a day of doing yard work.  The missing woman was a Sarah Henry, an old woman who stayed with her Son and his wife at 3508 Las Palmas Ave.   That address was right behind 3509 Rosemary!!!  I went down to Bobby's house and knocked on the door.  Carl, his Father (my father) came to the door and welcomed me in.  I asked if I could visit with Bob and was told  he was in the shed behind the garage.  I walked back to she shed and he was punching his punching bag.  He was so glad to see me and went right into his new model airplane engine he had just bought with his paper route money. "I'm getting ready to put it on my test stand and break it in." His test stand was a block of wood cut into a U shape so he could bolt the side mounts to it.  There was a wood bench with a metal  top  screwed to it.   "Bobby, did you read about the old woman who is missing?   She lives right behind you." I said.    "Yeah, the cops came by earlier to talk to my parents and asked them stuff.   She was the one I saw light my lantern.   She never talked..I would see her once in while walking around their back yard.  The people she lived with were weird...they were nice looking but never said anything.  I love their back yard....I wished ours was like that...lots of bushes and succulants....very dark and magical....Mr. Key, were you kidding me about your airplane?"   I could go two ways on this....either simplify and say yes, or lie and say no.  I decided to lie.  He seemed disappointed in me.  I saw the lantern hanging off of the lathe house...right outside the door with the pane of glass.  I asked him if we could go look at the lantern together and he said yes.  He reached up and took the lantern down.  It was an old construction lantern and he said he stole it from a work site.  He had his favorite lanterns and when he got tired of one, he found a construction site and traded it for another one.  I asked him why he liked lanterns so much and he said that they spoke to him in a silent language.  "Lanterns are lonely...the flame is so silent,  no one notices them...I love the smell of kerosene fumes...they live and throw soft comforting light on a dark world.  I think little families live inside the globe..I can sense them peeking out at me through the glass.  I asked him again.  "Bob, don't be angry with me; did you really see the old woman lighting your lantern?"   Yes, it was her...the next morning I found a pink house slipper on the grass right outside the door.  I kept it."  he then reached up on top of a box and brought out an old, pink house slipper. His  Mother called for Bob as it was dinner time.  I bid him good by and told him I wanted to spend more time with him.  He was delighted.  I left and walked over to Las Palmas and by the house where the old woman lived.  A police man was talking to the Son out in front.  I stopped to visit and they immediately turned their attention to me.  I explained I was a neighbor to the Fishbacks and had heard about the disappearance.  The Son said it was very mysterious,  his Wife had been home taking care of Sarah and when she went to bring her her lunch, she  was gone,  "Just like she had been taken out through the roof."   (to be continued)