Still Missing

by Chevy Stevens

  I needed to know that he was more than this man I had watched take down my mother.

  “Tell me something no one knows about you.”

  “What?”

  “Just tell me something—anything.” We held eyes.

  “Okay,” he said finally. “Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I get up and eat peanut butter straight out of the jar with a spoon.”

  “Peanut butter, huh? I’ll have to try that someday.”

  “You should—it helps.”

  We looked at each other a moment longer, then I got in my car and drove away. In my rearview mirror I saw him watching me until a couple of cops came up to him, clapped him on the back, and shook his hand. Guess there was some celebrating at the cop shop that day. When I glanced over I saw the pack of cards on the passenger seat and realized I was still wearing Gary’s coat.

  The papers got wind of things faster than my mom can pour a drink, and my phone’s been ringing off the hook. I busted a reporter sneaking up to my window yesterday—Emma chased him away. I’m not just that girl who went missing, now I’m the girl whose mother had her abducted. I don’t know if I can handle all this shit again.

  Yesterday I called Luke because I wanted to tell him what was up before he read about it. He was at home and for a second I thought I heard a girl’s voice in the background, but it may have just been the TV.

  I told him what Mom had done and that she’d been arrested.

  At first he was horrified, kept asking if I was sure, but when I repeated her side of the story he just said, “Wow, she must be feeling pretty bad—sounds like it got totally out of control on her.”

  He felt sorry for her? What about some righteous indignation on my behalf? I wanted to tell him off. But it just didn’t matter anymore.

  After I hung up the phone I stared at a picture of us on my mantel. We looked so happy.

  The next day I called Christina and told her. She inhaled sharply, then said, “Oh my God, Annie. Are you okay? No, how could you be? I’m coming right over. I’ll bring a bottle of wine, is that enough? No, we need a case. Your mom? Your own mother did this?”

  “Yeah, I’m still trying to wrap my head around it myself. Can we hold off on the wine? I just need…I just need a little time.”

  She paused, then said, “For sure, yes, of course, you call if you need me, though, okay? I’ll drop everything and come right over.”

  “I will, and thanks.”

  I didn’t tell Christina or Luke that I didn’t really leave town, nor am I going to, and I’m sure not going to tell Christina my mom tried to incriminate her. For the last couple of days all I can hear is this constant keening sound in my mind. And I can’t seem to stop crying.

  SESSION TWENTY-SIX

  Sorry I missed our last session, but I saw my mother and I needed some time to pick myself back up off the floor. You know, it’s funny, but the night after I saw her I really wanted to sleep in the closet. I stood outside it for the longest time with my pillow in hand, but I knew opening that door would be going backward, so I lay back down on my bed and conjured up your office in my mind. I told myself I was resting on your couch and you were watching over me. That’s how I fell asleep.

  They brought Mom back into the same interrogation room and her eyes met mine briefly, then slid away as she sat down across from me. The sleeves and cuffs on the gray baggy coveralls she was wearing were rolled up and the color turned her skin to ash—it’s been years since I’ve seen my mom with a bare face. Both corners of her mouth were drawn down, and without her bubble-gum-pink lip balm her lips were so pale they blended in with her skin.

  My heart tap-danced in my chest while my mind wrestled with what to say—Umm, gee, Mom, what’s with having me abducted?—and whether I wanted to hear her answer. But before I could ask anything she said, “What’s Val been saying?”

  Caught off guard I said, “She left a message but I haven’t—”

  “You can’t tell her anything.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Not until we figure out what we’re going to do.”

  “We? You’re on your own with this one, Mom. I’m just here so you can explain why you did this to me.”

  “Gary said you were told everything. You have to help, Annie, you’re my only chance to—”

  “Why the hell would I help you? You paid someone to abduct me, to hurt me, and then you—”

  “NO! I didn’t want you hurt—it just…everything, it went wrong, it’s all wrong, and now…” She put her head in her hands.

  “And now my life’s fucked and you’re in jail. Way to go, Mom.”

  She brought her head up and looked around the room with frantic eyes. “This isn’t right, Annie. I can’t be in here, I’ll die.” She leaned across the table and gripped my hand. “But if you talk to the police, you can tell them you won’t press charges, or explain that you understand why I had to—”

  “I don’t understand, Mom.” I pulled my hand away.

  “I didn’t have any other choice—you were always coming in second.”

  “It was my fault?”

  “You saw how Val treated me. How she looked down at us.”

  “And I saw how you treated her, but she didn’t have her daughter abducted, did she?”

  Eyes filling with tears, she said, “You have no idea, Annie. No idea what I’ve been through—” She broke off.

  “It has something to do with Dwight, doesn’t it?”

  Silence.

  “If you don’t tell me, I’m just going to ask Aunt Val.”

  Mom leaned on the table. “You CAN’T DO THAT TO ME, she’ll just use it to—”

  The door opened and a cop stuck his head in. “Everything okay in here?”

  I said, “We’re good.” Mom nodded and the cop closed the door.

  “You do realize the media is probably already talking to Aunt Val.”

  Mom’s shoulders tensed.

  “Reporters will want every detail about you, what you were like as a kid, what happened in your childhood to make you such a crappy mother.”

  “I’m a great mother, nothing like mine. And Val will never talk about our childhood. She doesn’t want anyone in her perfect world finding out what she did.” Her voice turned thoughtful. “She’d hate that….” One fingernail started to tap.

  My stomach filled with dread. “Mom, don’t make this any worse than—”

  She leaned across the table. “She was our father’s favorite, you know, but she was our stepfather’s most favorite.” She gave a bitter smile. “When my mother realized her husband was sleeping with one of her daughters, Val told her it was me. Next thing you know, my stuff is on the front lawn and our stepfather left town. If it hadn’t been for Dwight I’d have been living in a box.”

  “Dwight?”

  “When I got kicked out, I moved in with him. I was waitressing and he was laying brick when we came up with the idea for that bank.” Her eyes glistened. “After he got caught I was barely getting by working two shifts a day. Then Val came over with a guy she’d met, talking about how great his parents’ house was, how successful their jewelry store was….”

  “Dad.”

  We were both quiet for a moment.

  “When Dwight was released, we were going to be together, we just needed money. But he got caught again, so I told him I had to move on and I did, I married Wayne.” She shook her head. “It wasn’t until you were going to get the project that I thought things might get better for me. But then I heard Christina was who you had to go up against. She was a much better Realtor.” Her breath hissed out between her teeth. “If you lost, Val was going to lord it over me for the rest of my life.”

  “So you decided to ruin mine instead?”

  “My plan would’ve helped you—you would’ve been set for life. But nothing worked out right. Wayne was useless but Dwight at least tried to do something.”

  “Did he rob that store for you?”

  She nodded. “I gave that movie prod
ucer your number, but you were wasting time and I needed a payment for the loan shark. I don’t know where Dwight is now.”

  “Don’t you care at all about what you put me through?”

  “I hate what that man did to you, but you were only supposed to be gone for a week, Annie. What happened after was an accident.”

  “How the hell can you say this was an accident? You hired a man who raped me, who caused the death of my child!”

  “It was like when you wanted ice cream, you asked your dad to go to the store.”

  It took a moment for her words to register, even longer for me to find my voice.

  “You’re talking about the accident.”

  She nodded. “You didn’t mean for them to die.”

  All the breath left my body as my chest constricted. The pain was so intense I wondered for a moment if I was having a heart attack, then I broke out in a cold sweat and started shaking. I searched her face, hoping I’d misunderstood, but she looked satisfied—vindicated.

  My eyes filled with tears as I choked out, “You—you do blame me for their deaths. That’s what this was all really about, you—”

  “Of course not.”

  “You do. You always have.” I was crying now. “That’s why you thought it was okay to—”

  “You’re not listening, Annie. I know you just wanted ice cream—you didn’t plan for getting it to kill them. And I never meant for anything bad to happen to you, I just wanted Val to stop lording it over me.”

  I was still reeling from that when she said, “But she won’t be for long. A lawyer is coming to talk to me tomorrow.” She stood up and started pacing in front of the table. I noticed the color was back in her cheeks. “I’ll tell him what it was like to grow up with Val as a sister, what she did with our stepfather, what my life was like after I got kicked out, how she’s always put me down—that’s verbal abuse.” She stopped abruptly and turned to face me. “I wonder if she’ll come to court. Then she’d have to sit there and watch while my lawyer—”

  “Mom, if you take this to trial it’s going to wreck my whole life again. I’m going to have to talk about what happened. I’m going to have to describe how he raped me.”

  She kept pacing. “That’s it! We have to get her on the stand so she has to describe what she did.”

  “MOM.” She stopped and looked at me.

  I said, “Don’t do this to me.”

  “This isn’t about you, Annie.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, then froze as her words hit home. She was right. In the end it didn’t matter whether she’d done it for the money, to get attention, or to beat her sister once and for all. None of it was about me. It had never been about me. Not with her or with The Freak. I didn’t even know which one was more dangerous.

  As I stood up and walked toward the door she said, “Where are you going?”

  “Home.” I kept walking.

  “Annie, stop.”

  I spun around, braced for the tears, the I’m-so-sorry’s, the don’t-leave-me-here’s.

  She said, “Don’t say anything to anybody before I get a chance. It has to be handled just right or—”

  “Holy shit, you really don’t get it, do you?”

  She stared at me blankly.

  I shook my head. “And you’re never fucking going to.”

  “When you come back, bring me a newspaper so I can—”

  “I’m not coming back, Mom.”

  Her eyes were huge. “But I need you, Annie Bear.”

  I rapped on the door and said, “Oh, I think you’ll be just fine,” as the waiting cop opened it. While he locked Mom back in, I stumbled to a bench against the opposite wall. After he was done, he asked me if I was okay and did I want him to get Gary. I said I just needed a couple of minutes, and he left me alone.

  I counted blocks on the wall until my pulse settled down, then walked out of the station.

  The papers found out about my visit to the jail, and the next day’s headlines screamed speculations. Christina left a message for me to call her day or night if I needed to talk. She tried to hide it, but I could tell from her tone she was hurt I hadn’t told her myself I’d gone to see Mom. Aunt Val also left a hesitant-sounding message, making me wonder how much she knew. But I didn’t call either of them back, I didn’t call any of the people who left if-you-need-to-talk messages back. What was there to talk about? It was over. Mom did it—the end.

  A couple of days later I put the brochure for the art school on my night table. When I saw it the next morning I thought, Fuck it, if I’m going to follow my dream I need money, so I caved and called that movie chick. We had a good talk. I was right, she did seem to have some sensitivity and it sounded like she would respect my wishes. Even though she’s Hollywood, she talks like a normal person.

  There’s a part of me that still doesn’t want a movie, but I know one will get made, and if anyone is going to benefit from a movie about my life, it might as well be me. Plus, it’s not really about me, just the Hollywood version of me—by the time it hits the screen it’ll just be a movie. Not my life.

  I agreed to meet with the movie chick and her boss in a week. They’re talking some big numbers, big enough that I should be able to live comfortably for the rest of my life.

  As soon as I got off the phone, I called Christina. I knew she’d think I was calling to talk about Mom, so when I told her I was finally going away to art school, I took her silence for surprise. But when the silence continued, I said, “Remember? The one in the Rockies I was always talking about in high school?”

  “I remember. I just don’t know why you’re going now.”

  Her tone was casual but I felt the undercurrent of disapproval. Even back then she never really encouraged my going away to school, but I thought it was just because she’d miss me. I didn’t know what the reason was this time, but I knew I didn’t want to hear it.

  “Because I want to,” I said. “And I’d really like it if you listed my house for me.”

  “Your house? You’re selling your house already? Are you sure you don’t want to just rent it for—”

  “I’m sure. And I want to spend the next couple of weeks fixing it up, but I’d like to get the paperwork out of the way soon, so when can you come over?”

  She was silent for a bit, then said, “I could probably swing by on the weekend.”

  The next Saturday morning she came over. While we filled out the forms, I told her about the school, how I couldn’t wait to go, how I was going to drive there the next day to check it out, how nice it was going to be to leave all this shit behind. She didn’t say anything negative, but her responses were subdued.

  Business out of the way, we sat side by side on my front porch steps in the morning sun. There was something else I wanted to talk about.

  I said, “I think I know what you were really trying to tell me that night you came over to make me paint.” Her eyes widened and a flush rose in her cheeks. “You can just let go of it. I’m not mad at you—or Luke. Shit happens.”

  “It was just once, I swear,” she said in a flustered voice. “We’d been drinking, it didn’t mean anything. We were both so upset about you, and nobody else understood what we were feeling….”

  “It’s okay. Honest. We all did stuff through this that we regret, but I don’t even want you to regret this one. Maybe it needed to happen or something. But it doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Are you sure, because I feel so—”

  “I’m over it, really. Now will you get over it, please?” I bumped her shoulder with mine and made a silly face. She made one back, then we lapsed into silence as we watched a young couple with a stroller pass the end of my driveway.

  “I heard your mom has been telling people I was trying to beat you out of the project before you were abducted,” she said after a while.

  “Yeah, she said your assistant told a friend of hers or something that you were my competition all along, but I know it was probably just another of her lies.
”

  “Actually, she got part of it right. They did ask me to put together a proposal for them and we met a couple of times. I knew they were talking to someone from another company, but I didn’t know you were also going out for it until you mentioned it one day. I pulled out of the running right away and they didn’t contact me again until after you were missing.”

  “You pulled out? Why?”

  “There’s business, and then there’s good business. Your friendship was more important to me.”

  “I wish you’d told me, I’d have dropped out myself and let you go for it. You had way more experience and you’d waited longer for a deal like that.”

  Christina said, “That’s why I didn’t tell you—I knew we’d end up fighting over who was going to give it up!”

  We broke out laughing, but then Christina grew quiet again as she surveyed my yard.

  “This is such a great place.” Shit, I knew where this was going.

  “Yes, it is, and I’m sure someone’s really going to love it.”

  “But you love it, Annie, and it just seems such a shame—”

  “Christina, drop it.”

  She was quiet for a moment, her body stiff beside me. Then she shook her head.

  “No. Not this time. I’ve respected your wishes these last couple of months, sat by in silence while you struggled with all of this on your own, but I’m not going to let you run away, Annie.”

  “Run away? Who the fuck said anything about running away? I’m finally getting my shit together, Christina. I thought you’d be happy.”

  “Selling the house you love? Going to an art school in the Rockies when one of the top schools is an hour from here? That’s not getting your shit together. You said it yourself, you’re just leaving it all behind.”

  “I’ve wanted to go to this school since I was a kid, and this house is a reminder of everything in my life, including my mom.”

  “Exactly, Annie. You’ve wanted to run away from your mom since you were a kid. Do you think that’s going to make the pain go away? You can’t just erase everything that’s happened to you like that.”