Stevan Mena: Transience

“It’s okay, I’m here. Mommy’s here.” Laura cradled Rebecca’s tiny body in both arms.

“I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” Rebecca was coughing and shaking, her skin hot and slick to the touch.

Laura gently rocked her back and forth, embracing her tightly. “You’re safe. You’re in your own room, in your own bed, safe and sound.”

These were the phrases the doctor had instructed her to repeat when these attacks occurred. It was all part of the treatment. But this was every night now, and Laura had deep black circles under her eyes to prove it. It had gotten to the point where she would just lie awake in anticipation of the screams.

Rebecca sobbed as her nervousness was replaced by the comfort of her mother’s soothing “shhhh” repeated over and over as she rocked her back and forth like a metronome, the same way she did back when she was a colicky baby.

Laura stared up at her worn reflection in Rebecca’s dresser mirror. She had short, brittle blonde hair, with a smoker’s skin and teeth. She was 27, but you’d guess 37. Her eyes were set deep in their sockets from months without sleep.

“This isn’t working,” Laura whispered to herself. Nothing was working. None of the doctor’s advice panned out. No one had the answers when it came to helping her daughter. She dropped her head, exasperated.

Carl Rosa opened the door just before Jack’s knuckle could hit wood. “I saw you pull up,” Carl said. He took a step back, allowing Jack to enter.

Carl was of medium build, always clean shaven and wearing a collared shirt. Life as an immigrant from Ecuador was hard; Carl always wanted to make a good first impression. His apartment was small but tidy, the furniture modest, some of it personally handmade, uneven. The kitchen table had two chairs and a small cracked white vase in the middle with no flower. Decoration was sparse, which made the items tacked on the gray walls stand out: Angelina’s school photo and a free calendar from Castro’s Plumbing.

Jack noticed two stacks of fliers on the counter — one in English, the other in Spanish — next to some empty rolls of tape. Missing person fliers for Angelina, made using the same picture that hung on the wall. It had details of her age, weight, height, what she was wearing, and the date she went missing, July 21.

Jack stared at the word July. He looked over at the calendar, turned to October. It had a picture of a bright orange pumpkin sitting in a field of corn and straw. Angelina surely had turned into a pumpkin by now, and would soon likely be making an appearance in a field somewhere or along the side of a highway. It dovetailed into the unpleasant purpose for his visit.

Jack had assured Carl months ago he’d find his daughter. He realized the moment the words left his lips that he’d fucked up — promising something like that in an effort to console a crying man. Jack saw this visit not only as a professional failure, but worse — as a broken promise.

“Can I get you anything?” Carl asked.

“No, thank you.” Jack stepped towards the kitchen. Carl took a plate of crumbs left over from the sandwich he just ate and placed it in the sink. He rinsed it, then turned around as if trying to find something to do next. His anxiousness made it all the harder for Jack.

“So?” Carl asked. Jack wore a poker face that betrayed no emotion. He knew Carl sensed the disconnect. If there was any good news to report, Jack would have answered his call, or phoned back. Instead, Jack chose to come see him in person. Carl sat down.

“They’re not going to allocate any more manpower to her search. They’re shutting it down. I’m sorry, Carl.”

Carl lowered his head and nodded a few times. Jack relaxed his shoulders, it seemed Carl was taking it well. Jack turned away and looked out the window. He caught a glimpse of a young Hispanic woman sitting on a fire escape across the alley, a few floors below. She was nursing a baby at her breast. In this cold?

“I don’t understand.” Carl said hushed, “is she any less of a human being now than she was three months ago?”

Jack was still watching the woman, concerned. “I understand how you must feel.”

“You got any kids?”

Jack turned to him. He knew where this was going, but played along out of sympathy. “No.”

“You have no idea how I feel.”

Jack knew he was going to say that, he’d asked him several times before. Jack allowed Carl the free punch. Had Carl opted to cry on Jack’s shoulder, he probably would have let him do that too. But like Jack, Carl was a tough hombre and he wasn’t about to let the tears slip in front of another man. Those were reserved, for the ultimate bad news.

Jack did know how he felt. Not in a direct comparison, since it was true, Jack had no children. But he had suffered loss. Unbearable loss. The kind that wipes the smile from your face permanently.

Jack took a step forward and placed his hand on Carl’s shoulder. “Carl, given the amount of time that’s passed, the chances of—” Jack could feel Carl’s muscles tense into stone.

“She’s alive. I know it.” Carl turned with a jerk and placed his hand on Jack’s, gripping it. Carl was a small man, but his palm was like alligator skin, with a grip like a wrestler from years of carrying heavy machinery at his warehouse job for minimum wage. “Jack… you—”

Here it comes.

“You promised me.” The words were like a bucket of ice cold water on Jack’s head. Jack imagined Carl on his knees, holding his daughter’s mutilated corpse in his arms, looking up at Jack — as if how could he have let this happen.

Jack was about to say something when he felt that familiar pinch in his throat; it swiftly traveled down to his stomach and back up to his larynx. He coughed loud and wet, covering it just in time. For a moment, he lost his composure and had to brace himself on the back of Carl’s chair to keep from doubling over. It was a raw, painful cough, and his normally pale face turned ketchup red. Carl stood and offered his seat to Jack, who refused.

“I just gotta catch my breath,” Jack said, the phlegm and wheezing made him sound like some kind of alien. Carl gave him some space. After a few more stomach churning hacks that looked like he might crack a rib, he grew silent. The fit over, Jack stood up straight.

Carl poured some water into a glass. Jack nodded a thank you and drank a sip. He took a deep breath, apprehensive of triggering another attack, but his body was finished embarrassing him for now.

“I’ve searched for your daughter as if she was my own. If she’s alive, I’ll find her.” Jack paused — he wasn’t finished. This time he insisted on prefacing his words with a disclaimer: “But you need to prepare yourself for the worst.”

Jack took some time to sit with Carl and go over all of the things he’d done during the complex process of searching for Angelina. Interrogating witnesses, visiting all of the places she was last seen, questioning the locals, checking video tapes from any surveillance cameras in proximity to where she might have traveled that fateful day. How he used sophisticated FBI databases to search the surrounding cities and states to see if any unidentified bodies had been recovered and lay unclaimed.

Carl sat and listened, but Jack could tell he knew this was just by the book procedural bullshit. The only real hope for finding his daughter alive was a miracle. And there was no investigative police procedure for conjuring miracles. Carl had just as much hope praying, which is what he seemed to do as Jack spoke.

“I have to go now,” Jack said, courteously pausing for permission before he got up. Carl nodded and Jack pushed back on his chair.