The Friend Who Came Back
Bo came home on the 4th of September.
The police had — based on the older boy's identification, the train station footage, and several other small leads — found the flat in the other city. They had gone in on a Wednesday morning. Bo had been there. He had been thin and shaken but unharmed in the ways that mattered most. He had been crying when the police came in, although he had not been able, in the moment, to explain why.
The older boy had been arrested. The older boy was — it turned out — known to the police already. There had been other boys, before Bo. Bo had been, it appeared, the one who had — by going completely silent, and by therefore being noticed by his family — given the police the case they had been wanting for two years.
Bo's mother brought Bo home.
The reunion at the house was small. Mrs Vogel had asked for it to be small. There was no party. There were no balloons. There was, just, Mrs Vogel and Bo's father and Bo, sitting on the kitchen sofa, and Marek had been allowed to come round on the second day for fifteen minutes.
Bo had not, in the first week, been able to say much. He sat with Marek on the back step. They drank lemonade. Marek did not ask any questions. He sat. He had learned, that summer, that not asking questions was often the best gift you could give a person.
Eventually, on the back step, Bo said:
"Marek. I'm going to take some time. With a