Confession of an Au Pair: The Day I Lost Two Preschoolers in a Forest
How do you stay calm when happiness turns into horror?
I felt Ellie’s fingers loosely holding my hand. Her excited chatter echoed in the woods when a hunch made me look behind me. There was nothing, only trees rustling in the summer breeze.
I grabbed her hand tighter than was comfortable for a two-year-old. I looked left and right and searched behind the giant chestnut trees.
My skin felt clammy. An iron hand squeezed my stomach, and rivulets of cold sweat chilled my spine. Ellie’s babbling drifted in the wind, but my leg felt her squeeze.
Where were they? I thought to myself. Why didn’t Laura and Frederick call back when I shouted their names?
Semi-convinced they must have been hiding, reluctant to reveal their vantage point, I thought finding them was still in my grasp — if I’d check behind every tree and shrub. They had only gone for a minute.
Hadn’t they?
A figure hurrying past stopped; a concerned middle-aged woman clocked my ashen face and warned me a flasher had bothered some teens only two days ago. Close to where we stood. “What happened?” I whispered, my voice barely audible. She didn’t, or perhaps wouldn’t tell me.
