Sixteen Years I Didn’t Speak to My Mother. Then I Went Missing, and From Her Sickbed She Said “Go Find Her”

Again.

Again.

“Is somebody down there?!”

A man’s voice, close.

I dragged together every scrap of strength I had left in my body and forced it up through my throat.

“Here!”

A few minutes later a forestry worker pushed through the brush and looked down into the hollow and saw me, and I watched the color drop out of his face.

“Dear God,” he said.