Reader Response to "The Disappeared"

(Outside he saw fireflies. No one had ever mentioned fireflies in Detroit. Night was coming on. He gazed up at the sky. Same stars, same moon.)
I thought the writing in this story was beautiful, I kind of just hated the storyline, or at least the outcome. Therefore I can't decide if I liked this story or not, because I appreciate the writing I just don't like the way the author chose to end it.
I don't really even get what is going on in the end. Is it trying to imply that he got Lauren pregnant and one day the baby that he's looking at in the end at the hospital will be his? And why did he just get randomly whacked in the head at the church? The ending seems so unfinished, like the author was just like "eh whatever I don't know what to do here so this is good enough" and moved on to another story hoping that the beginning of this one was good enough so we didn't care about the end. Nope, sorry Baxter, I just didn't like it.
I really do like Anders though. Even though basically his one and only mission for being in America is to sleep with an American girl (Standard rule of characters #1 explain what your character wants), he still seems like kind of a stand-up guy to me probably because of how innocent he is.
My favorite part is when Lauren asks Anders if he missed her and he tells her "It was hard to breathe." Something about that response is just undeniably real. Maybe it's got something to do with Baxter trying to write Anders as sounding foreign, but usually when someone asks if someone missed them they say "yes" and the response "It was hard to breathe" just sounds like a much more accurate description of how that actually feels. So Anders was the takeaway character for me in this, with his likability and unique voice.