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We passed it, headed down the hall, maybe for Unc’s room, the one I’d had as a kid. He kept it as clean as the rest of the house, his bed always perfectly made, the clothes in his drawers neatly stacked. On his dresser sat photos of Aunt Sarah and him, and of me, and of Mom, and one of Dad, too. He had that antler I found for him on it, and that jay’s nest, the eagle feather.

But we passed that room as well, the only room left the bathroom at the end of the hall, the door partway open, the light on.

“Mom?” I called out, hoped one last time she might simply be in there, or maybe, I thought, outside, and I stopped, said, “I’m checking outside.”

Unc kept walking, his hand out in front of him, and then he pushed open the door. He paused in the doorway, stepped in.

I held my breath. I bit down on that tear in my cheek, just for the pain of it.

“Huger,” Unc said, my name low and solid. “Come in here.”

I didn’t move, pressed my back against the cheap wood paneling, closed my eyes, and felt that gun I had on me, bigger now.

“Huger,” he said. “I need you.”

I moved in, saw Unc at the sink, his hand up to the mirror on the medicine cabinet above it.

“What does it say?” he said, fingers to the glass.

There, in the mirror, was written in red lipstick:

BE HERE

AT 9:00

OR YOUR

FUCKED

Beneath it was taped a photograph. It was a Polaroid, and it was of my mother, just her face, behind her cheap wood paneling, the makeup from her eyes running in streaks down her cheeks, her mouth covered in silver duct tape.

I only looked at it, then reached past him, took the photo off.

Unc moved his fingers, smearing the message a little, the letters bleeding now.

“What does it say?” he said, and turned to me.

I sat on the toilet, the photo in both hands, looking at it. My mother. And I could see she was looking at me, that it was me she was thinking on when they’d taken it, whoever’d taken it.

Here were the tears, the hot feel of blood to my face, and I looked up, saw Unc, the stick leaned against the wall behind him, and he touched my shoulder.

He whispered, “What does it say?”

“ ‘Be here at nine o’clock or you’re fucked,’ ” I whispered back, the words choked down, tough in my throat, sharp as knives. I whispered, “They took a picture of her.”

He stood up straight, took his hand from my shoulder. He said, “Is she all right?” His lips barely moved, his teeth tight together.

I looked back at the picture. “She’s alive.”

He exploded then, screamed out louder than I’d ever heard before, just shouted, his head back, mouth open wide, and he turned, took the stick in his hands, held it like a club, and smashed the mirror with it.

I sat there, watched, the photo in my hands.

Then he headed into the hallway, ducked into his room, where he started banging away at everything, and in the sounds of glass—he’d hit the windows in there, busted them out—I heard mixed in the sounds of everything on his dresser cleared off, the stick smashing everything. Then he was in the hallway, and I heard him slam along the walls and on into the kitchen, screaming the whole way.

There were no words, only his screams, up from his gut and heart, while I only sat there, in my hands some ugly proof: my mom gone, kidnapped.

He smashed at the cabinets in there, the sound of the stick a hollow thud against the wood, and then I heard plates, heard glasses breaking and things falling. Then came more glass, the heavy shatter of the window above the sink in there, and I stood from the toilet, looked out into the hallway, saw him stagger into the front room, saw him swing at the TV, saw the thing explode with a clap of sound something like thunder.

And then he started in on the bay window, swung and swung and swung, glass exploding out, and now I ran for him down that hall and into the front room, him still swinging, breaking, screaming, and I tackled him into the sofa.

I knocked the wind from him, Unc down, the stick still tight in his hands, the two of us there on the sofa, above us cold air