Too Old for This

by Samantha Downing

You can’t live and not have regrets. Some call them life lessons and try to figure out what they’ve learned from each experience. That’s well and good, but you’ll always wish you hadn’t done it in the first place.

Back when I was living in Spokane, a girl in Archie’s kindergarten class went missing. Her cherubic little face was plastered all over the newspaper, on flyers, on local TV. Everybody was interviewed—her family, neighbors, teachers, classmates. The police spoke to anyone who had been in contact with that girl. The first lie came from the girl’s older brother. He was supposed to be keeping an eye on his sister. The internet didn’t exist yet, but video games did. While playing, he lost track of the time and of his sister. For seven days, he lied about when and where he’d last seen her, because he was afraid of getting in trouble. He wasn’t the only one who lied. A police officer found two cigarette butts outside the girl’s home, in the backyard. Important evidence, they said, because no one in the home smoked. But another cop did, and he had smoked outside that house. He didn’t come forward for a long time, because he didn’t want to get fired. Another child lied about loaning a toy to the girl, something that had become an important part of the search. And a neighbor told police she was at work all day and hadn’t seen anything. Except she

had called in sick but never told her husband, because she’d wanted some time to herself. The lies were exposed over time, a slow drip of news articles over a series of months. The girl remained missing. Yes, people put their interests ahead of others’, even in times of tragedy. Accident, illness, missing child—it doesn’t matter. Self-interest always takes precedence. The people who are supposed to help, who get paid to help, will still choose themselves.