Girl Missing, #1

by Kate Gable

Mom brings it up sometimes and I know that Violet has been there a lot. A few times, we got takeout and I had to excuse myself and cry.

  On the way to the shop, I drive down a winding road and sit in traffic behind a bunch of BMWs and Mercedes, clearly from down the hill.

  A few of them are even driving with the chains still over their tires, even though it’s in the fifties outside.

  Some people honk to tell them to pull over but they just get flipped off, so I just laugh. Few people from down the hill know when you need to put them on or take them off. Generally, you only need them when it’s snowing but you’ve got to remove them as soon as it warms up.

  The closer I get to Fresco's, the harder it is for me to focus.

  I don't want to go there. My whole body is resisting, and I try to think of something else.

  I haven't seen my mom yet.

  I've been here for almost the entire day. I have to go back to her place and help her with the press conference, which has been arranged for five o’clock.

  I know that she should know about the videos on Violet’s laptop, but how I can tell her that?

  Violet is my little sister. There's a loyalty that sisters have when it comes to really personal stuff like that and not sharing those things with parents. If those videos have nothing to do with her disappearance, I’d be betraying her trust.

  I know Mom wouldn’t approve. Violet is so young and there’s so much we still don’t know.

  Why was she there?

  Why did she make them?

  Nothing makes sense and I have no idea what it all means. If I tell my mom now, before I know the answers, and Violet comes back, and the videos had nothing to do with her disappearance, my mom will never look at her the same way.

  I had boyfriends when I was a teenager, guys I snuck around with, made out with, kissed.

  I did more than that with a few of them in the back seat of their cars.

  That was before everyone needed to record absolutely every part of their life.

  Today, nothing seems private and the kids growing up now record everything.

  Is that all it is?

  Was Violet just commemorating this event?

  I don't know the answers to these questions and about a hundred others.

  All I know is that I'm not ready to tell my mom anything until I know more.

  I make my way past small hills of black snow pushed against the sides of the parking lot. There are no tourists here. All the vehicles are at least a decade old and they haven't been washed in months.

  Fresco's is a local establishment, a place that anyone who's really from here knows about and enjoys their food. Few tourists know how good it is because it’s located at the back of a strip mall and doesn't have much in terms of décor or ambience.

  A little bit to the side of the parking lot, next to the big oak tree, I glare at the spot where my dad and I used to park. I'm tempted to take it, but I can't make myself pull in.

  I'm not ready for that.

  I park clear across the lot. Getting out, I briefly glance at the decaying sign outside with the missing apostrophe and chuckle to myself.

  It has been this way ever since I was a teenager and I guess they just never bothered to fix it. The front door is made of glass and covered in different promotional materials, solicitations, directions, and instructions to not ring the doorbell and to use the other door.

  When I open it, it makes a loud "ding-ding" sound. There's a line of about ten people inside and no one looks up from their phones.

  "I'll be right with you," a peppy teen girl with her hair in a French twist says, punching something into the cash register.

  She takes everybody's orders while I wait.

  I take a seat on one of the plastic chairs by the front door and look at the menu: Hawaiian pizza, Minnesota pizza, Mississippi pizza.

  Hawaiian has the expected pineapple slices. I squint to read what Minnesota and Mississippi have. Cheese curds and pork belly, respectively.

  Hmm. Sounds odd.

  The menu's a little bit different from what I remember.

  I search for my favorite item, Margherita pizza. Simple, yet fresh, and something that I always used to order.

  Luckily, a few minutes later, all of the people ahead of me head toward the door and I realize that they were just one big group paying individually for their slices.

  "May I help you?" the girl asks.

  I wonder if it'd be rude to ask for information without ordering something and so I go with a Caesar salad. I'm not quite ready to have a slice of pizza yet.

  "My name's Detective Carr and I was just wondering whether you have cameras set up inside here or in the parking lot or both."

  "Yes, we do," she says. "Why?"

  "How far back do they go?"

  "I don't know exactly." She shakes her head.

  "The eighteenth?"

  "Probably, I have them all on my phone here."

  "Oh? You do?"

  This catches me off guard.

  "I'm Casey. My father is the owner here."

  She smiles.

  "Nice to meet you, Casey." I shake her hand. She pulls out her phone and scrolls through.

  “What time on the eighteenth?”

  "Ten at night. Can you let me know if... Actually, this might be easier." I pull out my phone and show her a picture of Natalie. "Do you remember this girl and whether she was here on that night?"

  "Yeah, I’ve seen her. I don't know if she was here. Let me see. I guess I'll start around five o'clock." She pauses the video and then starts to scroll using her finger.

  "Yeah, right there. Same shiny hair, right?" She plays the video and I see Natalie and her two brothers turning around, smiling, and laughing together.

  "What time was this?"

  "10:05 p.m.. We were about to close, but they ordered three big pizzas, so, you know, every little bit counts."

  "Okay. They didn't come in any earlier that day either?"

  "No, if she came in twice, I'd remember. I was here working the whole time."

  "Okay. Um, hold onto that video, please. Actually, if you could, can you send it to me?” I ask.

  "Sure."

  I give her my email address and she forwards the video. I wait for it to arrive before paying for my food and sitting down in one of the booths.

  As I take a bite and pop a crouton into my mouth, I go over what I have so far. Natalie was not lying when she said that she came here that night with her brothers, but Neil was.

  What does it mean that Neil has no alibi for when Violet had gone missing? That doesn't necessarily mean that she was with Neil.

  He could be lying. It could mean anything though. It could be the reason why she's missing.

  I finish my salad, wash it down with an iced tea, and get up to leave. Being in this place was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

  I had avoided it for so long and yet the memories of my father and being here with him have not flooded back.

  I let out a deep sigh and try not to think about it. Now it's time for me to drive back to my mom's house to fill her in on everything that has happened.

  20

  I arrive a little bit after four in the afternoon. She's frantic and out of control. I see the posters that she has had made up. Some of them are regular 8x10 size and two are huge.

  "Why didn't you come to see me earlier? Why did you leave me to deal with all of this by myself?” she asks, annoyed.

  "I was doing some investigation, Mom. Interviews."

  "What are you even talking about?”

  There are lines of tension on her face. Her eyes are unfocused, and her hands are out of control.

  Dressed in a pair of slacks and a woodsy-colored blouse, she’s done her makeup extra dark with a thick amount of foundation that is slightly the wrong color.

  She looks at least a decade older than she normally does and barely resembles her old self.

  "Mom, why don’t you..." I don't know how exactly to
put it.

  I want to ask her why she looks like this but having experienced what it's like for her to ask me that on numerous occasions, I know that's not conducive to creating an open dialogue.

  "Mom, you look... nice, but are you okay?" I say carefully, parsing my words.

  "You look like you haven't showered in days,” she snaps. “Go put some makeup on. The news people are going to be here very soon. Five o'clock, remember?"

  "Mom, did you organize this with the police department?"

  "No. I did this on my own. They are coming here and I'm going to talk about my daughter."

  "I know, but usually you do it with the police," I say.

  She glares at me, her eyebrows furrow, and she puts her hands on her hips.

  "I don't care what is usually done. This is my daughter and your sister who is missing."

  "You don't understand. I'm not talking about procedure," I try to explain.

  I sit down at the dining room table and hope that she follows me. Sometimes, when she's this out of control, just the mere act of sitting still calms her down, but in this case, it doesn’t work.

  Mom stares at me and I feel like a fool for making myself comfortable in such a chaotic space.

  I stand up again, take a deep breath, and count to three silently to myself.

  The frantic energy that's filling the living room has to go somewhere. Our house isn't very big, and suddenly, the walls start to feel like they're closing in on top of me.

  "Mom," I start again, clearing my throat. "Family members of missing people usually do these sorts of announcements and conversations with the press so that you can give your personal story and get that out there. The police and the detectives who are in charge can give all of the relevant information as well. Some details they disclose, others they don't, but it's not done this way. You can't just-"

  "Don't tell me what I can't do. I'm doing this. I called Big Bear News and I'm doing this interview."

  "So, this isn't an official press conference?"

  "What are you talking about?" Mom says. "The reporter, Angela Bickerson, is the one who's coming here and I'm doing a press conference."

  I nod.

  I realize just how out of her element she is. I know that I should have organized this myself, but she said that she could handle it and she was so confident. I was stupid enough to believe her.

  "Mom, it's not a press conference if you only do a story with one reporter. A press conference is inviting the news stations to cover it. Local news. I thought that there'd be media vans coming up here."

  "I thought a press conference was when I talk to the press,” she says, looking lost.

  "Yes, technically, but it's more than that."

  "Okay. Well, let's just talk to Angela and she can start getting the word out.”

  Mom walks around and grabs a paper towel to clean the already over-cleaned dining room table. I'm about to say something, but I can tell that she's in no mood to hear it.

  I guess she can clean if she wants to, I say to myself and pour a glass of water.

  Half an hour later, just as the sun sets over the horizon and it becomes almost pitch black inside the house, I turn on the lights, and there's a knock at the door.

  A petite woman in her fifties comes in with a small bag, a recorder, and a Starbucks cup. Her thick glasses give her eyes a pretty almond shape like a cat's and Mom shows her to the dining room table.

  "Can I get you something to drink or eat?" she offers.

  "No, I'm good. Thank you.” Angela plops her bag on the chair next to her and turns on the recorder. "I'm really sorry to hear about your daughter. Your sister. I hope that the story can bring some attention to her. Can you tell me everything that has happened? Where you were, how you discovered that she was missing, any other details?"

  I let my mom lead.

  Even though her voice is nervous at first, she quickly gains momentum and starts to exude confidence. Angela asks us what Violet is like and what kind of things she likes to do. Mom tells her about her art and her photography. I can't help but think back to the videos that I saw earlier today.

  Suddenly, my mom breaks down. Tears, big ones, start to roll down her cheeks. I've seen her distraught before, but this is different. There's a tightness to her sadness.

  She's here and present, but she's also somewhere else.

  I wonder if maybe my mom is also keeping a secret from me just like I'm keeping one from her. It wouldn't be the first time.

  Our family has kept a lot of secrets over the years. If there was any stability in our relationship, that was probably it.

  I put my arm around her and hand her a napkin. She blows her nose and wipes her tears.

  Angela tilts her head to one side, nodding sympathetically and keeps asking questions.

  "Oh, one more thing," Mom says after telling Angela about the phone number for the tip line. "I'm putting out a reward. Fifty-thousand dollars for any information leading to finding her…dead or alive."

  She hesitates when she says that word, dead, and it sends a cold shiver through my body.

  Fifty-thousand dollars! Where is my mom going to get that much money?

  As soon as the door closes and we watch Angela make her way down the icy steps toward her car, I turn to my mom and ask, "Where are you going to get the fifty grand?"

  "I don't know."

  I sigh deeply and warn, "Mom, you can't say that you're putting up reward money that you don't have."

  "Why not?"

  "People expect to be paid."

  "I don't have to pay it right away and I'm sure that I'll come up with the money if someone finds her."

  "This is not how it works. You have to put that money into an account."

  "Well, I will, just as soon as I have it."

  I don't know what to say or how to get through to her. I know that she's desperate.

  So am I, but there are things that you do and there are things that you don't do.

  "I'm going to help you come up with the money. I think I can probably scrounge together $15,000 from my credit cards, but that's it. How much do you have?" I ask.

  "I don't know," she says, shaking her head. "Maybe ten, if I max everything out."

  "Okay. So, we'll work with the police and we'll put the money in the account. We'll make the reward $25,000. That will be enough to get people interested if anyone knows anything."

  She nods and sits down on the couch, melting into it. I go to the kitchen to pour myself some tea. When I come back out, I still see her sitting there. She hasn't moved a muscle.

  “At first, I was so hopeful, nervous, and out of control, but now, there’s just this dread. She’s gone, Kaitlyn.”

  "No, don't say that." I rush over, putting my mug on the coffee table, almost dropping it off the edge. A bunch of it spills over the side, but neither of us could care less.

  "I just know it,” Mom says.

  I hate the composure in her voice. I hate the doom in her tone.

  "I felt the same way when your father-"

  "Don't say it."

  I grab her hands and sit on the edge of the couch, staring straight into her eyes. I want to shake her out of this feeling. I want to bring back the frantic, out-of-control Mom who is doing a million things a minute just to not think about the eventuality of what might be, but I feel it, too.

  It's hard to explain, but it's like after all of that energy is spent, there's this feeling that settles over you.

  Maybe something that you knew all along, like it has been in the back of your mind and now, finally, it hits you.

  Still, I rage.

  I fight against it.

  I don't want to have even that thought in me out of fear of making it come true.

  "She's gone," Mom says, staring into the distance somewhere behind me.

  I shake her.

  I pull on her hand, but it doesn't go away.

  She doesn't even focus her eyes on mine.

  "She's not gone, Mom.
Look at me. She's not gone. We have to believe that we can find her."

  Mom slowly moves her eyes toward mine. It takes her a bit to focus and I watch the way that her pupils expand and then contract.

  "I may be wrong," she says in the same absent-minded way. "I've been wrong before, but this is how I felt when we found your dad. When I walked into this house."

  Tears start to stream down my face and I find myself in the past.

  My hair is in two braids, a style that I haven't worn since that night. I run over the threshold, excited about the A that I’d gotten on my Mesopotamia report and suddenly, something is different.

  The TV's on, along with the radio, and Mom is just standing in the kitchen, staring while the eggs burn on the stove.

  Why is she making eggs for dinner anyway?

  She never does that.

  I walk over to her. She doesn't respond. I turn off the radio and the television. She just stands there. I turn off the stove and take the spatula out of her hand.

  "What's wrong?" I ask her, but she just stares and doesn't move.

  I don't know what to do. I watch her blink once, twice, and then I head to my room.

  On the way there, I have to walk past the master bedroom and she grabs me right before I get to the door.

  She pulls me away and she tries to close the door, but she can't do it in time.

  I look over and I see him, blood all over the bedspread. He's lying on the floor, bent in half.

  I start to scream, but I can't move.

  She tries to move me, but I break free and run toward my father. I grab him and I try to wake him, but he's gone.

  He's cold. He has been shot in the stomach twice and there's so much blood that everything is covered in it, dark and black.

  Not red at all.

  Oxygenated, used, but useless, on the outside of his body.

  I hold him, I grab him, and I pray for him to come back. I pray for myself to come into the house a little bit earlier, but no matter what I do, I can't turn back time.

  I don't know how much time passes after that, when the paramedics or the cops or somebody in uniform pulls me away. My mom is sitting on the couch, the same couch that’s here today, as these people in uniform wrap a blanket around me and tell me that everything's going to be okay.