by O. J. Lovaz
Love you always,
Mom
Diane was again on the verge of tears. She wasn’t filled with spiteful rage like the first time she read the letter. What she felt now was entirely different—a muddle of pain and resentment, yes; but also sorrow, pity, and remorse; and a nagging feeling that she had taken her vendetta too far, becoming the villain in her own story.
Diane started as her phone rang loudly—it was her friend Stacey. Clasping the phone between her cheek and shoulder, she hastened to put the letter back inside the envelope and into the bottom drawer of the dresser. She grabbed her small purse as she listened to Stacey’s directions. In another moment, she was requesting her ride from an application on her phone.
A few minutes later, she arrived at Sevilla’s Lounge & Tapas. The place was remarkably busy, so it was a good thing that her friends had arrived early and gotten a table. As Diane walked in, she thoroughly enjoyed the assault on her senses from the intoxicating smell of spices filling the air and the loud, lively chatter from the crowd mingling with passionate flamenco music playing in the background.
Following Stacey’s instructions, she walked all the way to the back, then turned right, took a few more steps, and glanced over, scanning people’s faces, looking for her friends. Then she saw Camila and Stacey beckoning to her from a dimly lit corner table.
They ordered cocktails and a variety of tapas to share. Seafood dominated the table—shrimp, calamari, mussels, and codfish croquettes.
Camila seemed to notice something rather amusing at another table.
“Stacey, that man over there with the blue shirt is eating you up with his eyes,” she said in a hushed voice, as if the man might be able to hear her from afar in spite of all the noise.
The man had a fairly athletic build and was handsome enough, with a strong jawline and a masculine appearance, though probably too old for any of them. He seemed to be alone.
With an impish look on her face, Stacey crossed her legs, letting her skirt come up just high enough to reveal a teasing sliver of silky caramel-mocha skin from her thigh. The man straightened up in his chair, squinted his eyes slightly, and tightened his lips, for a brief moment contorting his face into a distinctly lascivious stare.
Right then, a tall, slender, blond woman who gave every indication of being the man’s wife, came and sat down in front of him. Who knows what words they exchanged, or if the woman even noticed, or acknowledged, the embarrassing moment? But the man certainly seemed very uneasy all of a sudden, looking down at the menu, barely opening his mouth.
“I feel sorry for that poor woman,” Diane said while stirring her drink. “Is that what we have to look forward to, marrying a guy who after only a few years will be salivating after any hot, young chicks he crosses paths with?”
“All I heard is that I’m a hot, young chick. Thanks, Diane,” said Stacey before bursting into laughter.
“I love your optimism, Diane,” Camila remarked with a hint of mockery, her lips twitching from trying to hold in a laugh.
“Do I sense sarcasm?” asked Diane.
“No, never. You really are optimistic.” Camila slurped the last of her strawberry daiquiri, making a loud, exasperating sound. “You think that your future husband—a charming, witty, super sexy dude, of course—will spend a few years married to you before he starts looking at other women. Girlfriend, I hate to break it to you, but he’ll notice every hot chick at your wedding!”
That punchline got the full-on laughter it deserved. Diane herself almost cracked a rib laughing. “Oh, that’s terrible. Hopefully, not every man out there is a pig.”
“Honestly,” said Camila, “I can live with the idea that most men are probably pretty disgusting on the inside, but hopefully, I can find a man with enough class to keep the lid on all that stuff.”
“To well-behaved pigs!” Diane said, raising her glass. They clinked their cocktail glasses, already giggling before Diane snorted like a pig; and then they were laughing hysterically to the point of tears.
The three friends spent the rest of the evening immersed in sprightly conversation. For a moment, Diane felt joyful and untroubled by any woes. She would’ve wanted to slow down time and stay in that moment, but quite to the contrary, four hours flew by like they were nothing.
Thoughts of her dad and her mother returned to her on the ride back home. She went up to her apartment, took off her shoes, placed her purse on top of the kitchen counter, opened the fridge, and got herself some water. Having quenched her thirst, she wondered if her dad might have replied to her email.
She sat on the couch with her computer and opened her email inbox, scanning for her dad’s name, but there wasn’t a new email from him. Instead, she saw in there something entirely unexpected, and unnerving, like a phone ringing at 3:00 a.m.—it was an email from her cousin, Anna Goddard.
CHAPTER VI
Saturday morning had come for Anna in what felt like the blink of an eye. An unwelcome ray of light slipped through the curtains and, with great precision, found her unsuspecting eyelids. It was early, too early. She rose from bed annoyed and with a throbbing headache. The time was 6:35 a.m., and she had barely slept five hours. She could have sworn that she’d been singing with Frank one hour ago.
Nonetheless, after taking pills for the headache and brewing her compulsory morning espresso, she was ready to put on her Sherlock Holmes hat and search for Diane in the vast expanse of the internet with unwavering resolve—and that she did for hours on end, knocking on every virtual door, running into walls and dead ends, exhausting all options she could think of. She searched for her under her actual name and every variation she could conceive, in every social media site, in online forums and chat rooms.
At one point, she thought she might have found her in a forum where several people had been discussing the resurgence of right-wing extremism. One of the participants identified herself as Diana Jennings and related a story of a black student who was given a beating by three white supremacists in the Baltimore area. It was the most promising lead Anna had bumped into in over four hours.
She went back to the beginning of the discussion and read every entry Diana Jennings had posted, only to find out from one of her earlier comments that she’d graduated from high school in 2002, so she’d be about thirty-four years old now—she had hit another wall.
That last setback took some air out of Anna, and she decided to take a nice long lunch break. She warmed up a chicken noodle soup in the microwave, brought it back to the living room, and turned on the TV. She streamed an episode of a show she liked, in which a charming middle-aged gentleman traveled to different countries to explore the culture and the food.
For this episode, they went to Croatia. Anna watched in awe the splendid images of the stunning old city of Dubrovnik, the capital city, Zagreb, Hvar Island, coastal and mountain landscapes, surreal lakes, and waterfalls. The local seafood looked amazing: baked octopus, grilled squid, prawns, sardines, and seafood pizza.
Anna was spellbound. What an amazing job to have. What a dream it would be to see the world, experience other cultures, meet new people, listen to their music, learn their language, eat their food, live like them.
She’d been saving money hoping to take a trip to Europe. The sounds from the TV seemed to fade as Anna envisioned her future travels, her mind taking her on a high-speed train from Paris to Barcelona, then Florence, Rome, Venice, Budapest, Vienna, Prague, Munich; and she would have made it to Amsterdam and back to Paris had she not heard a phone call coming through—it was Michael.
“Hey, Michael.”
“Hi, Anna, how are you?” His voice seemed a bit huskier than she remembered.
“Not bad at all. A little guilty about eating all that food yesterday.”
“I know. I’m feeling it too. But it was so good, wasn’t it?”
“Everything was great.”
“Everything?” he asked with a peculiar intonation.
“I wouldn’t have changed a thing.
” The words glided off her tongue like silk sliding off a bare shoulder.
There was a pause on his side. She pictured him running his hands through his hair, a big grin on his face. The thought made her smile.
“I really enjoyed your company.” Anna pictured him with eyes closed, hoping for…
“And I yours.”
She awaited his next move, which came after another little pause.
“So, I was wondering,” he said, “how do you feel about the music from the nineties?”
“Oh, I love it. I grew up listening to rock bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam—my brother Frank was a big influence there; and then stuff like the Cranberries, No Doubt…”
“Then I have a treat for you. There’s a nineties-rock tribute band playing at the Fox’s Den next Thursday night.”
“I know the place. Frank took me there once. About a half hour east on the freeway.”
“That’s the one,” he said.
“Did I mention that my brother plays the guitar and the piano?”
“No, you hadn’t. Sounds like a cool dude.”
“Yes, you’d like him.”
“I bet I would…um, will like him.” She liked Michael’s little leap of faith.
“So, how about it? Do you want to go?” he asked.
“Yes, I do. Sounds like a lot fun.”
“All right then. Pick you up around eight?”
“Sure. I’ll text you my address,” she said.
“I’m looking forward to Thursday,” he said.
“Yes, me too.” Anna paused, then added, “Oh, hey, I just remembered, you know those pictures of my dad we found? Any way you could send them to me when you get back to work on Monday?”
“Yeah, sure. Do you want all of them?”
“Yes, the ones you showed me. I figured they are worth keeping, those pictures of their younger selves.”
“Sure, I’ll send them to you.”
“I really appreciate it.” That was easy. Like a gambler who’d just won a hand, she got greedy. Before she could restrain the thought that had taken hold in her mind, words were coming out of her mouth, as if she were a mere spectator. “Hey, one last thing. This may sound strange, but do you have any idea how to find someone who’s gone off the grid?”
“Huh, that’s an intriguing question. Who are you looking for?” Michael asked, sounding both curious and amused.
Anna was already regretting her indiscretion, but she was growing desperate. Because of his training, she reckoned Michael would likely be adept at researching just about anything, digging into buried documentary evidence to uncover clues, much like a detective.
She’d cracked open her Pandora’s box, and all she could do now was try to keep the lid from being flung wide open.
“It’s my cousin. Her name’s Diane Jennings. I’ve been trying to reconnect with her for some time now. She disappeared about two years ago without telling anyone where she went. She had been angry at her mother.”
“And do you know that she’s all right?” Michael asked with a note of genuine concern.
“Well, I don’t really know, but the one indication we have that she vanished on purpose is that all her email and social media accounts were canceled, and her phone number was disconnected. Clearly, she must have done that herself.”
“That makes sense. And how soon do you need to find her?” he asked.
“Well, I’ve been searching for her on the internet all morning because her mom’s birthday is tomorrow,” she lied, “and I was hoping to convince her to at least send her a message, anything, as a first step toward reconciliation.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you. I might be able to help you. A few ideas come to mind, but I’ll need you to tell me quite a few things about her. For starters, I need her parents’ names, her age, where she went to school, if she has had jobs that you know of, where and what did she do. Also, if she ever told you about cities or states she wanted to visit, professional interests, or even hobbies and sports; any of those things could lead to something. Oh, and also her best friends and any recent boyfriends you might know about.”
“That’s great. I’m getting an education here,” she said. “It’s quite something to see your mind at work. You came up with all those research avenues in a minute.”
“You’re making me blush. Don’t be too impressed. I’ve just had some practice digging up the past, often things that not many people are interested in unearthing.”
Anna spent the next ten minutes telling Michael everything she could remember about Diane, without telling him too much. He didn’t seem interested in scrutinizing her, but rather, appeared bent on impressing her with his ingenuity. And she was impressed.
Knowing that she now had a capable researcher on Diane’s trail, and feeling exhausted from her previous efforts, Anna put her computer aside and laid down on the couch to rest her eyes for a little while. She felt quite comfortable, resting her head on a nice, downy pillow she had bought a few months back.
The sounds around her started fading, becoming more and more distant as she dozed off, then everything was calm, and she sank into nothingness. Time, matter, space, all her senses and thoughts vanished, as if death held her prisoner. Whether she had slept for hours, or only a few minutes, she couldn’t tell afterward.
She was awakened by three loud knocks on the front door. She sat up on the couch, disoriented and alarmed, wondering who could be there. She noticed that the TV was turned off, yet she was almost certain that she had left it on—it gave her an eerie feeling. She looked about her and felt around the couch for her phone and couldn’t find it. Another three, louder knocks, made her start for the door in haste.
“Who is it?” she asked, but no one answered. Anna got to the door and silently looked through the peephole, which, oddly, seemed higher than she remembered. She was downright dumbfounded to see her father’s annoyed face on the other side. He stood so close to the door that she could only see his penetrating blue eyes, his wide, bulbous nose and his small mouth, with those remarkably thin lips that nearly disappeared when he tightened them in anger or stretched them to form a grin.
Her father had never come to her house, which made this a rather strange and upsetting visit. She took a deep breath and opened the door. There stood her father, though not his current self, but rather the younger man she remembered from the time when she was an eight- or nine-year-old girl. A young, radiant, stunning Aunt Marlene was beside him. In her father’s strong arms, sound asleep, was her little cousin, Diane. Anna stood there, bewildered, paralyzed, in utter disbelief. She opened her mouth but was unable to speak.
Her father spoke first, “Anna, what are you doing here?”
She was going to say, “What do you mean? This is my house.” But suddenly, she felt unsure about everything, as if the fabric of reality was being ripped apart before her very eyes; unfathomable and frightening revelations slipped through the cracks of her shattered certainties.
She looked behind her, and her home was no more. Instead, she was standing in the foyer at her parents’ house. Dolls were sitting on a white upholstered chair, but they were not hers; they were Diane’s. Horrified, she turned around and faced her visitors again. Behind them, the street was no longer there, nor were the neighbors’ homes; but instead, there was the front porch of her parents’ house and nothing but greenery in the background.
Anna looked at her own feet, and they were small, and she was wearing a kid’s sandals, her sandals—she recognized them. She looked at her hands and, perplexed, saw that they also were a little girl’s hands; then she looked at her father again, and he seemed much taller now—in fact, he was enormous.
He brushed her aside sullenly, and he and Marlene walked into the house. As her aunt walked by her, she gave her a pitying glance. Her father kept on walking briskly, and a moment later, she heard his heavy steps as he took Diane upstairs.
A moment earlier, Anna had been convinced that she was dreaming, but the little gir
l she’d turned into wasn’t so sure. It all seemed so dreadfully real that she was almost ready to believe that her adult life had been the dream and she had now awakened, still a child.
She shut the front door and ran to the kitchen, where she’d heard the metallic clattering sound of pots and pans being hurriedly taken out of cabinets. When Anna got there, she stood facing Aunt Marlene, who appeared to be getting ready to prepare dinner; they looked into each other’s eyes intently, but before either of them said a word, her father had come back downstairs and walked into the kitchen.
He grabbed Marlene by the waist, pulled her toward him, and kissed her decadently, shamelessly, while his hands slid down to her thighs.
“Where is my mother?” Anna asked him, but she was disconcerted to hear her own shrill, childish, powerless voice. Still holding Marlene, who looked positively ashamed, her father looked down at her with a chilling, malicious smirk on his face.
“Oh, Anna, why would I know your mother’s whereabouts? She’s not my problem anymore, and quite frankly, neither are you. Why are you here? She must have dropped you off while we were out, didn’t she? Is she trying to abandon you already, that weak, pathetic excuse for a woman?”
“I…don’t know,” Anna whimpered, feeling scared, confused, angry, and hopelessly heartbroken.
“Look, maybe I should get you a cab to your mother’s. I want to be alone with my new woman, Marlene. You shouldn’t really call her aunt, you know, because that’s weird.” His little mouth contorted into a revolting grin. He looked at Marlene, but she’d turned her back to them and was grabbing and moving things around, with exaggerated movements, clearly pretending to be busy cooking.
He added, “See, your mother was a mistake—I simply chose the wrong Wilde sister. Marlene was always right for me; I see that clearly now.”
“What’s happening? I don’t…what am I supposed to do now?” Anna was overcome with sorrow and could hardly breathe; she felt tears streaming down her face.
