Oct 28, 20178 min read

15 The Woods – Henry and June (1985) by LV Gaudet

The Bennett house is teaming with activity. Henry sits at the kitchen table with two police officers, recounting once more what little he knows about the disappearance of his two sons while he was at work. June sits in the armchair in the living room, a ghastly thing of orange and yellow fancy scroll that was meant to be fashionable at its birth and failed utterly. After her own hours spent at that wretched kitchen table being grilled by these same police officers, while another kept her husband busy in another room, she appears to be in a state of complete breakdown and near catatonia.

The officers keep them separate by design, to get their stories without either being affected by the other. They want to see how their stories match, if either falters and slips, if they can catch either in a lie. They have one objective, a single focus, to find those boys and bring them home safe and alive. And, if that fails, to bring to justice anyone who may have been involved in their disappearance and their fate, no matter who that person proves to be. For that, they need to get to the truth, the absolute truth, no matter who it hurts.

They feel pity for Henry and June, but they cannot dismiss them as potential suspects either.

Sometimes it is the very people you trust and love you the most who commit the most unimaginable harm.

“Did you search the woods?” one officer asks while the other stands over Henry, intimidating, jotting down notes with every word spoken.

“No,” Henry shakes his head, “they wouldn’t have gone into the woods. June called around, their friends, our friends, the neighbours. When I got home, I searched for the boys and then called them all again.”

“So, you didn’t check the woods.”

“No, the boys wouldn’t go into the woods.”

The officer levels his gaze at him. The look says, “Really? Who are we kidding here?” The look says it all. These are kids, and the woods would be an exploratory paradise to them.

“Oh God, I should have checked the woods.” Henry’s face pales. “I never thought-. They aren’t allowed-. Did-did you find them?”

“No, we haven’t found them.”

Henry’s head droops.

“No, you are right. I should have checked the woods. They are boys, and boys would go into the woods.”

He looks up, looks around the room, there is no one else in the kitchen to look at, and focuses finally on the officer questioning him.

“Is anyone searching the woods?” He is pale and washed out. His hand shakes as he runs it through his hair. His look is pleading and filled with loss and sorrow.

“He doesn’t think his boys are coming back.” The thought comes unbidden to the officer. He exchanges a look with his partner and knows immediately that he is thinking the same thing.

“We have people searching the woods,” the officer says.

He returns to asking Henry the same questions he has been asking for hours.

“We are wasting our time here when we should be out looking for them,” Henry blurts out amid answering the officer’s questions once again.

Almost everyone in the living room pauses and glances towards the kitchen at Henry’s anguished words. Only June seems oblivious to her husband’s plea. The questioning in the kitchen continues at its low volume, a wordless droning of voices to those in the living room.

While the police hold conference in the kitchen, the living room has been turned into a command center for the search for the missing boys. The room is too busy. People mill around awkwardly. A man is giving orders and people run from the house to pass along those orders to the searchers.

“Who is this man?” June thinks. “Do I even know him? Who are all these people? I recognize some, neighbours and friends, but who the hell are the rest of them? What if one of them knows where they are? What if one of them took my babies?” The thought sends a trembling horror through her.

June doesn’t know what to do or not do. She is lost and drifting. “Is this even my house? Where am I and why are all these people here? I need them out. Out now.”

She struggles to rise and immediately two women are on her, urging her to sit down, while a third hovers nearby looking at her like a frightened rabbit stares at the coyote.

“June, sit down, just sit down. You don’t need to do anything.

“June waves them off, determined to get up. On her feet at last, she looks around the room.

“No, no, no,” she murmurs under her breath.

June looks around the room. Frantic. This is wrong, all wrong.

“They keep moving stuff. It has to be just like it was, just like when the boys-.”

She starts moving around the room with jerky movements, straightening and tying.

The comic book on the coffee table screams at her. “This is not where I belong.”

The women can only watch with pity and shock.

June moves to the coffee table, picking up the comic book and setting it down on the floor, spread open with the cover up. She stands and looks at it. It isn’t quite right. She shifts it, and then again, ever so slightly. It has to be just right. Just as it was left before.

“June, please sit down,” the bravest of the women hovering over her tries. “Come, we can do that for you.”

June looks at her as if she doesn’t quite see her, looks away, and back. Her gaze moves past her.

June moves around the room, her motions uncertain, straitening and putting things right, putting them the way they were before all these people came into her house.

“Please June,” the woman tries again. She puts her hands on June, trying to gently redirect June back to the chair.

June pulls away. “They keep moving things. They have to be the way they were.”

She catches sight of the kitchen table with Henry and the police officer sitting there. She changes direction, heading for the kitchen.

The officer standing and taking notes looks up and sees her coming. He moves to block her from entering the kitchen. The women who had been hovering over June flock to her.

June stops, looking up at the officer suddenly blocking her way. She looks past him anxiously, and then tries to move around him. He moves to keep himself between her and the kitchen.

“The table, the plates, I have to set the table,” June mutters distractedly.

“We’re almost finished Mrs. Bennett.” He takes a step forward, forcing her to step back, putting an arm out to direct her back to the living room. He moves another step forward, moving her back again. “Let’s talk in the other room.”

June looks past him to the table. “The boys… I have to fix the table.”

She tries to move around the officer and he gently redirects her back to the living room. The flock of women are fluttering around her, unsure what to do and trying to comfort and reassure her.

“You can worry about the table when the boys are home.”

“Come June, just sit and rest.”

“We will do that for you June, sit and relax.”

June needs to do anything but relax. The forced stillness when doing something to find her boys is more important than anything else, is making her feel more anxious. She feels like she’s going to snap. She needs to feel useful, like she is somehow helping her boys come home, even though she knows it’s all a lie and nothing she can do here will be of any use to anyone. It won’t help find Kevin and Jesse. Right now, she needs to get to the table where they had moved the dinner settings aside. “I need to fix those,” she thinks. “They need to be like they were. The boys will be expecting the table set for supper, like we waited for them.”

She is overwhelmed with the people surrounding her, too many talking at once.

It’s all noise to June. She hears them, but feels removed from the constant babble around her. She stops and takes it all in; the officer keeping her away from the table; the hovering gaggle of women, men on her couch with their glasses sweating on her coffee table, and a dribble where someone spilled their drink. That will leave rings. The men are talking too loud. Someone is on the phone, talking, talking, talking. Some of them didn’t even take their shoes off. You’re supposed to take your shoes off in someone’s home. More people keep coming and going, bringing platters and pans of food as if someone has died, going out again to search for her boys.

“It’s like we are having a party, but that’s insane. We can’t have a party. We have to find my boys.”

June feels disjointed, ill, the room going out of focus and the roar of background noise becomes further away, muffled.

Then it all rushes back in at her with a body-numbing jolt. She is dazed. Then it comes all too clear.

“Get out!” she stomps her foot, hands clenched into fists at her sides. She whirls on them, one after another. “Get out! Get out! Get out! Get OUT!”

Henry and the officer questioning him are at the kitchen doorway, watching her with pity and shock.

His partner looks at him and the questioning officer nods. “I think we’re done here. It’s late and the Bennetts are exhausted. They need to rest and have some quiet to come to terms with all of this.”

His partner nods understanding and the two officers start ushering everyone out the door, telling them they will take up the search again in the morning.

“We will keep our people looking through the night, but all of you need to go home and get some rest. It’s late. The organized search will start again at eight tomorrow morning.”

He turns back to Henry, who followed them to the door, as he ushers the last of the civilian searchers out. “You should keep the door unlocked tonight. Just in case they come home.”

Henry nods. He looks beyond weary, the stress wearing him down and making him look years older.

Henry closes the door after they leave, turning and sagging against it in exhaustion.

June is already on her way into the kitchen, stressing and muttering over the table settings being moved.

With a deep sigh, Henry pushes himself off the door and goes to the kitchen. June is already almost finished resetting the table. He watches her fuss over the settings, making them just right, looking and shifting something that is off, although he can’t see anything wrong with it.

“She’s never acted like this before,” he thinks. “Can’t say that June ever worried and fussed over anything being just right. She’s just not the nitpicking type. Must be the stress and worry over the boys.”

He can’t watch any more. She needs to rest.

“June, come on. Let’s go to bed. It’s very late and we are both very tired.”

She turns and looks at him in alarm.

“But, the boys. They aren’t home yet.”

“I know. I’m worried too. We can’t help them if we’re too exhausted to function. You go to bed and get some sleep. I’ll sit up.”

She nods wearily and goes to the bedroom. He watches her go.

In the bedroom, June picks up her nightgown and looks at it.

“I can’t. I just can’t.” Putting on that nightgown feels like giving up. She can’t give up on her boys coming home tonight. She drops the nightgown on the foot of the bed and lies on her side of the bed. She grabs one of the extra pillows, hugging it tight and curling up in a foetal position.

“I hope the boys are someplace warm. They can’t last the night outside in the snow. Jesse, Kevin, where are you? Please be somewhere safe. Please be okay.”

June lays there staring at nothing, waiting for sleep to come.

Henry moves around the house, sorting out the impossibly vast number of trays, tins, bowls, and pans of food. Anything that does not have to be refrigerated, he piles on the kitchen counter. He crams as much as he can in the big chest freezer in the basement, the fridge, and the fridge freezer. He shakes his head at the waste of the remaining pans that will go to waste, left out to spoil.

“It’s like someone died,” he mutters. “They always bring food when someone dies. I’ll never understand why. Who wants to eat when they are grieving? Nobody grieving ever has an appetite.”

The significance is not lost on him. It was a mild day, the snow melting, but with the overnight temperature, it does not bode well for the boys if they are outside.

He sits on the couch with a weary groan, lies back, and listens for June, hoping she is sleeping. Before long, he is huffing air in and out of his slack mouth in exhausted slumber.