Free Left for Garbage by Sarah Mathews

am. But it’s not advancing our mission much. I’m totally frustrated, weary and losing hope. Just like I told them in my police interview, this is a devastating situation for a father and a grandfather, and I’m both.
    You think of your daughter when she was little, when she would jump into your lap and put her arms around your neck and make you feel like her hero, but how do you save her fro m something this enormous? Then you’re thinking about how and why and where you lost your daughter along the way, and you’re wishing she hadn’t gotten pregnant so young, but then there’s this new little girl around the house, putting her hands around your neck again and hugging you, and saying she loves you, and, God, can I make it through all this? I honestly don’t know.
    Seems like I’m not only fighting to have my granddaughter returned , I’m fighting the entire world, including my own family members. I drive around every day with a sign that pleads for people to help us find Deeley. Margaret tells me to stop wasting time with the sign, that it isn’t the way.
    I say, “Then tell me the way,” but she has no answers , only more recriminations, but then that’s always been her only answer to me. Some miseries are new but there are many that predate this tragedy as well.
    When I visited Denise in jail, she surprised me by t elling me I was a good father. Hearing her say that meant so much to me that I wanted to tear down the walls separating us with my bare hands so I could hug her and comfort her. Now I have her home, thanks to Rick, and I want to punch through the walls every time I talk to her because she’s driving me insane.
    The other night I’m in my backyard, my own backyard that just had dogs sniffing around in it to find my granddaughter’s body, the one they are sure my daughter, her mother, buried somewhere here. They tore most of it up, all Margaret’s bedding plants, the area around my shed. They even overturned the little playhouse we’d built for her second birthday a month before her disappearance. That was hard to watch, I can tell you.
    Most people can’t imagine what that feels like, and I hope they never have to. You want people on the trail of this Manny character - that’s where you want the detectives focused - but instead you have cadaver dogs working around your property. All this is going on while I’m encouraging crowds of people to ask around, to keep their eyes and ears open for news or sightings of our beautiful little Deeley. I have posted pictures of her everywhere so that people will recognize her when they see her.
    After a while , though, you start to wonder about how much the police actually know and how much and what you don’t know. You start thinking maybe there isn’t anyone named Manny. You think about how you’ve already found out there was no job at Universal and that the last known residence of anyone with a name even close to this Manny has been vacant for six months. You’ve learned your daughter waited over a month to confess Deeley’s disappearance, and so you start to question the existence of any nanny, too. And yes, our old car is long gone, confiscated as evidence, but every time you think of it, you can still smell it. You don’t forget a smell like that. You begin to wonder about a lot of things, but then you get a call from a woman who claims to have seen Deeley at the Orlando Airport and your hopes rise again. It’s the not knowing part that works on you, and if Denise would cooperate with us, well, we might make progress.
    So , that’s what I’m thinking about while I’m standing in the yard after midnight, like I do lately, to be alone - I’m thinking about how hot it is outside and how airless it is inside our house, and I’m trying to catch not only my breath but my better senses, too. My gut instincts start me gasping for air in the heat and then I start to sweat, and then I decided it was past time to confront Denise because Margaret