Chapter 7: The Search Goes On

Rebecca

I received a bittersweet Christmas gift when the agency that father contracted to find Jason called and revealed that they had just turned up Jason's car in a junkyard in Salt Lake City. Because it was sold as non-functional the registration change had not been processed promptly in Arizona so the car had effectively disappeared for several months. The investigators were still trying to find the employee who had taken the car to ask about the owner. The only thing they had so far was that the car's engine was seized up, making it likely that the car broke down in Utah sometime shortly before it was sold. Unfortunately, six months in a junkyard leaves little evidence, and they needed to talk to someone to see if anyone remembered Jason passing through.

Monique and I found ourselves holding one another and crying more often as the year wound down. Both of us were struggling a bit more in our classes and meals were no longer the joyful occasions they were when Jason kept trying to prepare new and exotic dishes every evening. Monique and I did help Thuy occasionally, but it was not the same, and she eventually banished us from the kitchen saying our tears were spoiling the food.

The therapist had just about run out of problems they could solve. I had heard her tell father than finding Jason and bringing him home was the most important thing. She had convinced me that most of what happened was not my fault, as who would have expected the Fosters to be such an evil couple, but I knew that if I had not kept secrets from Jason, he would have prevented it from going as far as it had.