12. July 23, 2021

On a sul­try after­noon in a neigh­bor­hood marked by tree­less streets named after trees, Jerome meets Vera Stein­man on Sycamore Street, where trees are notably absent. Vera lives in a hum­ble home, strug­gling with the heat as her air con­di­tion­ing fights its last bat­tle. Jerome, inves­ti­gat­ing a miss­ing woman named Bon­nie Dahl, hopes to shed light on an over­lap­ping mys­tery involv­ing Vera’s son, Peter, who dis­ap­peared before the pan­dem­ic began, under the shad­ow of the city’s polic­ing tur­moil.

Peter Stein­man’s dis­ap­pear­ance had been thor­ough­ly inves­ti­gat­ed, with sus­pi­cion cir­cling around the idea of him run­ning away due to dis­tress at home—his moth­er’s drink­ing and the fall­out from his par­ents’ divorce. This the­o­ry was part­ly spurred by con­ver­sa­tions with Katya Graves, a school coun­selor who revealed Peter’s trou­bles at school and his fan­ta­sy of flee­ing to Flori­da to live with his uncle near Dis­ney World. Despite Ver­a’s trans­for­ma­tion in the year lead­ing to Peter’s dis­ap­pear­ance, improv­ing her life and mend­ing her rela­tion­ship with her son, the boy van­ished, leav­ing behind a mys­tery and a moth­er cling­ing to fad­ing hope.

Vera firm­ly believes her son is dead, haunt­ed by the absence of clo­sure and the per­pet­u­al pos­si­bil­i­ty that hope offers. She describes her descent back into alco­holism, a cop­ing mech­a­nism for the unbear­able real­i­ty of Peter’s unre­solved case. Through­out their con­ver­sa­tion, it’s evi­dent that Vera oscil­lates between main­tain­ing a com­posed exte­ri­or and suc­cumb­ing to the despair and guilt that tor­ment her, evi­dent in her metic­u­lous appear­ance con­trast­ed with the real­i­ty of her suf­fer­ing. Jerome learns not only about Peter’s dis­ap­pear­ance but also wit­ness­es the pro­found impact it has had on Vera—transforming her into some­one caught between the roles of a griev­ing moth­er and a woman deeply ensnared by her vices.

The sit­u­a­tion brings Jerome face to face with the stark and painful real­i­ty of miss­ing chil­dren cases—the end­less wait­ing, the cling­ing to frag­ments of hope, and the dev­as­tat­ing toll it takes on those left behind. Peter’s skate­board, found in a park but not accom­pa­nied by any sign of him, stands as a silent tes­ta­ment to his abrupt depar­ture from his life and the lives of those who cared for him. The absence of con­clu­sive evi­dence leaves Vera and Jerome in a lim­bo, one filled with unan­swered ques­tions and the heavy bur­den of what-ifs, under­scor­ing the pro­found and lin­ger­ing tragedy of Peter Stein­man’s dis­ap­pear­ance.