Chevy Stevens - Still Missing

“Damn, I just had an early dinner. Wish I’d known.” I hadn’t eaten, but I’d rather rake my body over hot coals—hell, I’d rather eat hot coals—than go over there and hear what I was fucking up on now. Only Mom could manage to make me feel like shit about feeling like shit. I was already in a bad mood because of this one asshole movie producer who keeps taping proposals to my front door—he actually stands there and tries to talk to me through the wood, raising the amount every few minutes like he’s bidding at a goddamn auction. He’s wasting his breath.

Years ago, I remember watching the movie Titanic. People stuffed with popcorn were commenting on their way out about the great special effects and how realistic it was, particularly the bodies bobbing in the sea. And me? I went to the bathroom to throw up, because people actually died like that—hundreds and hundreds of people—and it seemed wrong to sit there and eat candies and lick salty butter off your fingers and admire how authentic their deaths in the freezing water looked.

I sure as hell don’t want people stuffing their faces while they rate my life for its entertainment value.

“I tried to call you earlier, but you didn’t answer.” Mom never says, “You weren’t home,” it’s always, “You didn’t answer,” in an accusing tone as though I let the phone ring just to piss her off.

“Emma and I went for a walk.”

“What’s the point of having voice mail if you don’t check it?”

“You’re right—sorry. But I’m glad you called back, I wanted to ask you something. I went through my things last night looking for my pictures of Daisy and Dad but I couldn’t find them.”

Not that I’d ever had a lot of photos anyway. Most of them had been given to me by relatives, and the rest were held hostage by Mom in her scrapbooks and albums with vague promises of their coming to me “one day.” I was especially pissed that Mom was holding on to one with just Dad, Daisy, and me—it was unusual to find a picture Mom wasn’t in.

“I’m sure I dropped those off after you moved back to your place.”

“Not that I remember, and I looked everywhere for them the other night….” I waited for a couple of seconds, but she offered up no explanation for the missing pictures, and I knew she wouldn’t unless I pressed harder. But there was something else I wanted to ask her, and I’d learned to choose my battles with Mom. Russian roulette was probably less risky.

“Mom, do you ever think about Dad and Daisy?”

An exasperated sigh hissed through the phone. “Of course I do. What a silly question. So how much did you eat? Those canned soups you live on aren’t a meal. You’re getting too thin.”

“I’m trying to talk to you about something, Mom.”

“We’ve already talked—”

“Actually, no, we haven’t. I’ve always wanted to because I think about them all the time, especially when I was up there, but whenever I brought the subject up, you either changed it or you just talked about Daisy’s skating and all her—”

“Why are you doing this? Are you trying to hurt me?”

“No! I just wanted… well, I thought… because I lost a daughter and you lost a daughter, I thought we could talk and maybe you’d have some insight on how to deal with it.” Insight? What the hell was I thinking? The woman had never shown any insight deeper than an ounce of vodka.

“I don’t think I can help, Annie. The child you had… It’s just not the same thing.”

My voice turned to steel as my pulse sped up. “And why’s that?”

“You won’t understand.”

“No? Well, how about you explain to me why my daughter’s death doesn’t compare to your daughter’s so I understand.” Rage made my voice tremble, and my hand gripped the phone so tight it hurt.

“You’re twisting my words. Of course what happened to your child was a tragedy, Annie, but you can’t compare it with what happened to me.”

“Don’t you mean what happened to Daisy ?”

“This is just like you, Annie—I call with an invitation to dinner and somehow you turn it into another of your attacks. Honestly, sometimes I think you just look for ways to make yourself miserable.”

“If that was the case, I’d spend more time with you, Mom. ”

Her shocked gasp was followed by the loud click of her hanging up. Anger propelled me out the door with Emma, but after a half hour of hard running, my brief high from the exercise and saying no to Mom was snuffed out when I imagined the next phone call. The one where Wayne would tell me how much I’d hurt my mother, how she was just beside herself, how I really should apologize and try to understand her better—she’s the only mother I’m going to have in this life and the poor woman’s already been through so much. Meanwhile, I sit there thinking, Why the hell doesn’t she try to understand me? What about what I’ve been through?

After my baby died on the mountain, I woke up staring at her folded blanket, and my breasts began to leak milk through the front of my dress as though they were weeping for her. Even my body hadn’t accepted her death. When The Freak noticed me awake he came over, sat behind me on the bed, and rubbed my back.

“I have some ice for your face.” He set an ice pack down near my head.

I ignored it and rolled over to face him, in a sitting position. “Where’s my baby?”

He stared down at the floor.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you, but I didn’t want her blanket, I want her. ” I slid over the side of the bed and knelt in front of him. “Please, I’m begging you. I’ll do anything.” He still hadn’t looked at me, so I moved my face directly into his line of sight. “ Anything you want, just tell me where you put her…” My mouth couldn’t form the word body .

“You caaan’t always get what you want—” He broke off and hummed the last few bars of the Rolling Stones song.

“If you have an ounce of compassion, you’ll tell me—”

“If I have an ounce of compassion?” He leapt off the bed and, with his hands on his hips, paced back and forth. “Have I not proven to you over and over how compassionate I am? Have I not always been there for you? Am I not still here for you, even after you said those terrible things to me? I bring you her blanket so you can find some comfort and all you want is her ? She left you, Annie. Don’t you get it? She left you, but I stayed.” My hands pressed frantically against my ears to shut out his terrible words, but he pulled them off and said, “She’s gone, gone, gone, and knowing where she is won’t help you one bit.”

“But she was gone so fast, I just want to… I need…” To say good-bye.

“You don’t need to know where she is, now or ever.” He leaned closer. “You still have me and that’s all that should matter. And right now it’s time for you to make my dinner.”

How was I going to do this? How was I going to get through the next—

“It’s time, Annie.”

I stared at him dumbfounded.

He snapped his finger and pointed to the kitchen. I’d only made it a few steps when he said, “You can have an extra piece of chocolate for dessert tonight.”

The Freak never did tell me where my baby’s body was, Doc, and I still don’t know—the cops even brought in cadaver dogs, but they couldn’t find her. I like to think he put her body in the river and she floated downstream peacefully. That’s what I try to hold on to when I lie awake at night in the closet, thinking about her alone up on the mountain, or when I wake up screaming and covered in sweat after another nightmare about wild animals tearing into her with their teeth.