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03.2014 BACKPACKER 77 mouth in the clouds. T e eyes reminded her of Aubrey, but the mouth was frown- ing. “I knew that I wasn’t looking at Au- brey, because Aubrey is always smiling,” she says. “T en I realized that the face in the cloud was mine. In Aubrey’s journal she wrote that in order to move on, you need a clean slate in this life. Sometimes I wonder if my clean slate is letting go.” Acceptance? T e Saccos’ refusal to even entertain the idea has powered the longest, most expensive search for a miss- ing trekker in Nepal’s history. But is there a price? Recently, I talked to Amanda, Aubrey’s best friend and now sister-in-law, and asked what part of Aubrey she misses the most. Her answer surprised me. “Obviously, I miss having her around,” she said. “She was the best person I could talk to when I needed encouragement. But at this point, I miss her being there for her family. Her parents come over all the time. I have pictures of her in high school, of her last night before she lef for Sri Lanka. Paul will kiss the pictures. Our son [Luca, 4] is at the point that he’s noticing things. My husband is more on the angry side, while Morgan, the younger brother, is very quiet. He doesn’t talk about it. It’s hard ... I just miss having her here. She was the middle child but she was also the equilibrium. She would liven the mood and her parents need that more than ever.” Paul admits as much during a phone call with both him and Connie last fall. “Frankly, it’s kind of depressing. Connie and I just look at each other and shrug. We’re in a lull,” he says. T e latest hope: U.S. of cials delivered polygraph equip- ment to Nepal last November, and are training Nepali police to use it. Most likely, the “boasters” in Aubrey’s case will be the f rst subjects. “But we’ve learned that even if [the police] know something, until they’re ready, they won’t tell us,” says Connie. I wonder if the Saccos really want to know. Because when you know nothing, anything is possible. In September, Paul tells me about a man he met while moving his mother into a nursing home in Chicago. “This is the manager,” he says. “A high-powered businessman, and very savvy. Halfway through the tour, he notices the wristband I wear for Aubrey. He points to it, says ‘What’s that?’ I struggle with this. I don’t want to get into it. But I re- spect Aubrey.” Reluctantly, Paul tells the abbreviated version of how his daughter evaporated in a beautiful valley beneath the tallest mountains on earth. And the guy starts shaking, like he’ll go into a trance. Paul asks if he’s all right. He says, “Yes, but I’m an intuitive.” He says every feeling he’s ever had he’s been right about. And then he says, “Your daughter, Aubrey, is alive.” T e man is a Freemason with contacts in India. He says he has “brothers” all over the world and that he will search for Aubrey. Paul exhales, then says to Connie, “T at’s an example of the kind of thing that keeps us going, right?” “Well, he’s asked us a lot of questions,” says Connie. “T at’s exhausting. Revisiting things is exhausting.” But Paul doesn’t hesitate. “We have to keep going, right?”  Tracy Ross won a 2009 National Magazine Award for her BACKPACKER essay T e Source of All T ings.