Jagged with Love

To Jill Behrman, November 2000

TO JILL BeHrman, NovemBer 2000 "The search continuesforJill Behrman, a 19-year-old IUB sophomore, disappeared M'!Y 31 while riding her birycle. ... OnJune 2 her undamaged bike was recovered 10 miles aw'!Yfrom her route." -Indiana Daily Last weekend my husband and I tucked flashlights in our heavy jackets and called for you at Salimony Resevoir, where once a snake crossed in front of me and I screamed. This time myvoice was steady, braying in a pattern against the snow. Still, it was panic pushing out the sound, a solitaryvision ofyou, though we have never met. My aunt saysyou showed Lop-Eared Rabbits in 4-H, worked at McDonald's, rode your bike each morning. She said they found your helmet by the road in front oftheir peacock pen, your l~-speed a hundred or so yards from the east gate. Though we are three hours, exactly, from Bloomington, we had to look in the places you might be. The whole town and now the whole state wants you back: divers and driver checkpoints, off-road crews and dogs are on your trail. I hate to say it, but mostly we are scared for ourselves. Women carry pepper spray and mothers hold their children pinchingly tight. Today, I sawyou on the billboard, six months after you were plucked from your bike, and I thought you should know: from Madison to Mishawaka, we are searchingthe thickets and ditches. Last night I asked afteryou in my sleep, Haveyou seenJiII Behrman ?You might have been there. Sometimes though, and I'm sorry for this, I forget to pray, and most often I cry for myself, which is to say, I will go back to Salimony and if I think ofit I'll shout, This is Indiana! our borders the heartland, yes, here Jill, a certain hub, working hard, as we have learned to, land and wind clotting each season, the blocked sun all those winter months, Jill, we know what loss is, and so we look for you, even if the billboards peel. Somewhere inside us the shock does not wear down, not like the nub of hope: they have found the house where your blood whipped in small spots on the wall. It is hard to know which questions to ask, since I grew up like you, feeding rabbits, lobbing acorns at the barn. This must be what terrifies us, how nearyou are, how nearyou have to be, a state you can drive top to bottom in five hours, four across. But perhaps, too, it is how near we are to them, one way or another, those who have taken you. When I pray, this is how: they leave you clothed, they treat you better than I did my favorite corn-shuck doll, tossed across the room, mashed into corners, left on the floor for the more boring days. 79 ...