by Nancy Adams
“I don’t know. I’m gonna go and take a look around, see if I can’t spot her about the neighborhood. Maybe she got lost.”
“Lost!? But how could she get lost?”
Shaking his head, Jules replied, “I’m not exactly sure. I hope that I’m wrong and she just got waylaid somehow.”
“You tried calling her?”
“Yeah. I found her phone on the couch just now.”
“Oh, my! Well, you call me when you find anything out, okay?”
“I will, Gwen. It’s probably nothing. Can you call me if she comes back while I’m out?”
“Of course, Jules.”
“Thanks.”
Jules left and went back to the trailer where David was standing in the kitchen.
“Did Gwen see her?” the boy asked with an anxious face.
“Yeah, she was with Gwen earlier. She went to pick you up two hours ago, so I’m gonna go searching for her along the streets and if I don’t find her, I’ll call the police.”
The mention of the police made David’s face further crease with worry as he contemplated the seriousness of the situation involving his missing momma. Jules himself was inwardly panicking. The thought of his love, confused and wandering the streets filled him with a terrible storm of angst which bit into him even harder with each passing second.
“Come on, Davey, let’s go find Momma,” Jules said, making the boy smile with the thought of discovering Juliette.
Only minutes later, they were cruising slowly along the streets looking for any sign of her, David gazing out one side and Jules the other. It was only a twenty-minute walk to David’s kindergarten and there were only six possible streets she could be down if she hadn’t turned off from her route. When they reached the kindergarten having seen no sign of her, however, it became obvious that she had turned off somewhere.
So Jules began searching down the adjacent streets, occasionally stopping so that he could show a pedestrian a picture of Juliette that he carried in his wallet and ask them if they’d seen her. But each time, the person simply shook their head and said that they hadn’t seen anyone matching that description. With each new disappointment, Jules slipped further and further into despair, trying his best not to show it outwardly to the boy, whose concern was also increasing with each passing minute. It was becoming increasingly obvious that Juliette was wandering around some strange neighborhood in an increasingly bewildered condition. It was now three hours since Gwen claimed she saw Juliette leave to collect David, and Jules realized that she could be anywhere in the city.
He decided the best thing to do would be to phone the police and hope that Juliette was found by someone. He was sure that the more she got lost, the more likely it was that someone would spot her and realize the situation, thus calling the police. It was also possible that Juliette had already been picked up, but in her confused condition had been unable to tell the cops where she lived.
On the way home, Jules called the LAPD and reported Juliette missing. He was told to bring a form of her ID to the nearest police station and fill out a report with the sergeant there. He then called up Jose and explained the situation. Jose offered him his commiserations and told Jules that he would pack the work stuff up himself and find his own way home. Jules thanked him and then put the phone down.
When they arrived back at the trailer, David waited in the pickup with the engine running while Jules ran inside and got Juliette’s passport. He then dashed back out, jumped in the Toyota and roared away to the nearest police department.
The female officer at the desk was very helpful and understanding when Jules came in to fill out the report. When he stated the last time that Juliette was seen, the officer was alarmed because it was only four hours ago. It was then that he glanced behind him at David, who was sitting in the waiting area reading a magazine. Turning back to the officer, he told her about his suspicions that Juliette may be suffering the early signs of serious dementia. Being a compassionate person, the officer wrote into the computer that Juliette was a registered sufferer of dementia. A white lie, but one which would allow them to bypass certain regulations that stated she had to be missing for twenty-four hours before they could act. Jules could have cried at the officer’s small mercy, so grateful for it did he feel.
While they were filling the details out, another officer checked to see if someone matching Juliette’s description had already been picked up by another station nearby. The call came back that there hadn’t, as well as the happier news that no one matching Juliette’s description had been admitted to the hospital in the last four hours. This last piece of information gave Jules a tiny respite in his otherwise melancholy thoughts.
Once they’d finished in the station, Jules thanked them and took David home.
When they got inside the trailer, David sat at the kitchen table while Jules made them dinner. Neither of them said much the whole time and Jules was surprised that the boy hadn’t gone off to watch television or play on his Joy-Box while the food was being cooked. Instead, the boy had spent the whole time not two meters from Jules.
Soon they were sitting opposite one another eating homemade burritos, Jules’s specialty. Usually this was seen as a special occasion and the boy would tuck into them heartily. But now he found that he hardly tasted them at all in his dry mouth, attempting to chew them while he considered his poor momma and where she might be. Jules too found the food hard to swallow and, even though he was hungry, he found eating a labor.
“Where do ya think she could be, Pa?” David asked suddenly.
His question surprised Jules, as the boy hadn’t said more than two words on the subject since they’d gotten back from the police.
“I don’t know, Davey,” was all he could muster in reply.
“I hope she’s with good people and not bad.”
“Me too. I’m sure she is. Soon someone’ll find her and bring her back.”
“She’s strong, Momma. She’ll be tough if they’re bad. She’ll be tough like she was against Charlie when she punched his nose and taught him a lesson.”
Jules smiled at the boy, reached across and roughed his hair.
“She sure is tough, Davey.”
“She’s like a superhero or something,” the boy said, beaming all over, his anxiety decreasing as he imagined his supermom.
They heard the sound of a car pulling into their drive. Jules got up from the table, went over to the window and pulled the curtain to one side. Outside, he saw a police car. Sitting in its backseat with a glum expression was Juliette. His heart fluttered the moment he saw her, and he raced to open the door.
“Momma,” David exclaimed as he jumped from his chair and ran outside with his father.
The police officer got out to meet them as Jules went to the backdoor and opened it. He immediately leapt inside and took his love in his arms, and she responded by holding him tightly and weeping into his breast.
“Oh Jules!” she sobbed into him.
Soon they had gotten her inside and she asked Jules to put her to bed. So he guided her delicately to her room where he got her ready. While he undressed her, she didn’t say a word and David stood in the doorway watching them as his momma gazed blankly into space.
Once she was in bed, Jules went into the kitchen and joined the officer who was seated at the table.
“Can I make you a coffee?” Jules offered when he came into the room.
“No, I’m good,” the man replied.
Jules came and sat with him, telling David to sit in the lounge and watch cartoons.
Once they were alone, Jules turned to the officer and asked him what had happened.
“She was found wandering along the Ventura freeway,” the officer began, “about six miles from here. Several cars stopped to offer her assistance, but none of them could get her to come inside their cars. In the end, someone called us and we found her.”
“How was she when you found her?”
“Pretty confused. She appeared t
o think she was in Colorado Springs. She was trying to get to her home, but she could only give us an address in Colorado. She didn’t have any ID on her, so we called in for a missing person and that’s when we got ahold of your report from earlier.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s all in a day’s work. She’s a pretty sweet lady, so she was a pleasure to look after. When I was driving her here, she was telling me about her traveling in Mexico with her friends Margot and Claude. They sound pretty sweet. My folks are from Mexico, so it was nice when she was telling me about how she’d been there last year and had an amazing time. She sounds like an adventurer.”
Jules shuddered at the mention of Mexico. Her claims of it being last year were off by a long shot. Juliette had last been to Mexico ten years ago.
“Well, anyway, I gotta be off,” the officer said, standing up and grabbing his hat from the table.
Jules stood up with him, shaking the man’s hand, thanking him and then seeing him to the door. Once he was alone, Jules stood in the kitchen and felt tears begin to fall from his eyes, realizing with absolute certainty that his love was suffering from dementia.
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About the Author
NANCY ADAMS is an Amazon bestselling author of contemporary romance. She's currently single and dreams of one day meeting her prince charming and starting a family. She loves people and loves life. A real "people-person" who sometimes can't stand the noise. During those times, she curls up, shuts the door, and drifts into beautiful fantasy and welcomes all along for the ride. She expresses how she feels and what she wants to feel through her writing, and she doesn't know what she'd do without it. The mere fact that she is able to share her gift with the rest of the world is simply a bonus, and one that brings her nothing but pure joy!
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