“Hi Mike. I’m okay. Jessie here is looking for her mom.”
Once again…What the hell? I didn’t have time to worry about it right now though so I tucked it away for later. “My mom came to the NA meeting last night. She’s about forty, looks a lot like me. Her name is Lynn…” Mike was still looking at me with a neutral expression. “Listen, I’m not trying to make you break any kind of confidentiality. I’m just really worried about her. I dropped her off last night and she never made it home.”
“I remember Lynn,” he said. “She was here, for the entire meeting. She even participated a little. She left when it was over though, Jessie. I haven’t seen her since.”
“Shit! Damn! I’m sorry. I forgot this was a church.”
“It’s okay. Do you have any other ideas where to look for her? Did you call her friends?” I felt tears stinging the corners of my eyes. She doesn’t have any friends, at least none that I knew. If I could find them, I doubt they would be in the condition to tell me anything.
“I’ll call around,” I told him. “Thank you.” I heard my voice crack and I got out of there. I didn’t want to cry in front of a stranger. I didn’t want to cry in front of Paul for that matter.
“Maybe she went to stay with a friend?” Paul said as we walked out to the car.
“You don’t understand. If that’s the case, she’s still not in a good place. I made her feel bad about herself yesterday and then I abandoned her here. I should have stayed and taken her home. What if something happened to her? What if she’s not in a safe place? It’s going to be my fault.” Paul didn’t say anything else as we got back into the car. I took out my phone and started looking up and calling homeless shelters. There were only three in the city that were staffed during the day. They all told me that they didn’t take names on the people that stayed there, but when I described her they said her description didn’t sound familiar.
I started calling all the crappy motels close by next. Paul just sat there watching me. His eyes looked sad and concerned.
He waited for me to exhaust myself with phone calls that led nowhere before starting the car and saying, “I’m going to drop you at home.”
I just looked at him. That was fine. He couldn’t be bothered to stick by me when it was my family in trouble then that was just fine.
When we got to my apartment he said, “I want you to stay here where you’re safe. Make some more phone calls. Maybe she’ll come home while you’re here. I know some places in the city where the druggies hang out. I’m going to check them out and I’ll be back.”
The only part of that sentence I actually heard was “druggie.” Did he actually just call my mother a “druggie?” What the fuck? I didn’t say a word. I just got out of the car and slammed the door. This was too much for me right now. I needed to find my mother.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I unlocked the door, slammed into my apartment and threw my purse and keys across the room as I did. How dare Paul call my mother a druggie? He didn’t know her. Hell…he barely knew me. We barely knew each other. I had told him just a little bit about Mom the night he had dinner here, but I never used that word… “Druggie.” To me it would have been comparable to him calling her a bitch. It’s a derogatory term and not one I want to be banded about when someone’s talking about my mother. You just don’t go around calling people’s mothers names. Why doesn’t he know that? Besides, he heard me say she went to an NA meeting, so obviously he was trying. Was he one of those kinds of guys who couldn’t give a person a break? No second chances for anyone unless they were in his family and then the second chances ran amok. How dare he come from where he does and judge my mother! He was so obviously not perfect…so obviously not raised in a perfect home to begin with. Damn him!
I walked over to pick up my keys and caught sight of the wall out of the corner of my eye. I sat down on the couch and looked at it. It was a forest. The leaves were both light and dark green like shadows were being cast across them and the little stream that ran through them looked real enough to take a drink out of. The rocks were tan and gray and the water formed bubbles around them. The path through the trees looked like it led into a place where there was light. The sky wasn’t visible because the umbrella of trees blocked it out. It looked peaceful and I’d be willing to bet that my mother had painted it because it was a place she wanted to be…at peace for a change. I know she doesn’t want to live like this…she just doesn’t know how to live any other way. When we find her I’m going to make sure she knows I will be here to help her, always. She doesn’t have to live like this. I can help her get better.
I couldn’t sit still. I got up and paced and then I decided to make some more phone calls. I looked up the number for the guy “Tyler” that she’d been living with before she came to live with me and I called him.
When he answered I said, “Hi Tyler. This is Jessie, I’m Lynn’s daughter.”
For a second, I thought he’d hung up. Finally, he said, “Yeah, um…Lynn’s not here…”
“I know. She was here, staying with me…I think she’s using again and she’s gone off missing and I’m worried. Would you have any idea where I might look for her?”
“Not really. The bar I used to play music at was one of her favorite places. It’s called “Sequoia Club.” You might want to call there and see if anyone has seen her.”
“Okay, I’ll try that. Hey Tyler…”
“Yeah?”
“Was she using drugs, when she was with you?”
“No. She went to that rehab over in Whittier. She was clean after that as far as I knew…at least six months,” he said.
That was what she had told me. She had been clean for over half a year. This was just a slip-up, not even enough to be classified as a relapse. We could get her back on the right track again.
“Thank you, Tyler.”
“Sure.” He hung up. Whatever my mother had done to him, she’d burnt her bridge. It was obvious in his voice. I couldn’t hold that against him though, I’m her daughter and look at the things she’d done to me. Rationally I know I should walk away. Emotionally, I can’t.
I looked up the number for that bar he told me about and I called it. A woman named Wanda answered. I told her who I was and said, “I’m looking for my mother Lynn. She used to come in with Tyler Grant…a red-haired lady, green eyes…”
“I know Lynn. She ain’t been here in about a week though, honey.”
“Okay, thanks. Wouldn’t you have any idea where else I might look?”
“I really don’t, sweetie. But I have your number on caller ID here. If I see her or hear anything I’ll call you. Is she okay?”
“I’m sure she is,” I lied. In my head I was thinking of all kinds of horrifying scenarios. “Thank you,” I said. I called a couple more motels. They all claimed to not see her. But they were cheap, creepy motels and the type of clientele that frequented it liked to keep a low profile. I was even more frustrated when I hung up. I didn’t want to, but I finally decided I was going to bite the big bullet and call Justin. If someone was selling her drugs, I was pretty sure it was him. I’d rather pull out my own molars with a pair of rusty pliers than talk to him, but I had to find her. I was pacing the floor as I made my phone calls and as I was about to punch in Justin’s number I walked past the window. There was a police car out in front. Shit! I put the phone down and trying not to stand right in the window where he could see me I took another look. There was a man in it…a big man. It was Mitch, I was sure of it. Fuck! What does he want from me now?
While I was pondering that, Mitch was apparently getting out of the car and coming up to my door. I heard him knocking. I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t. I was too pissed at the world. Mom for disappearing and making me worry…Paul for…a lot of things…and Mitch for just basically being an asshole.
I pulled the door open and said, “What?” Then, without giving him a chance to answer I said, “I don’t have time for your shit today. I don’t know when
the hell you ever have time for real police work. You’re always so busy stalking people you big freak! Leave me alone. I have my own problems.”
Mitch just stood there and looked at me while I ranted and when I finally took a breath he said, “Can I come in?”
“No! Jeez! You’re a lunatic! Go away!”
“Jessie, it’s about your mother. Do you want me to discuss it out here where just anyone can hear?”
Oh shit! Son of a bitch! I stepped back from the door and let him in. I didn’t really have a choice, as was becoming the norm lately. Once he was in I closed the door and said, “What do you know about my mother?” Mitch was looking at the artwork on my walls with an amused expression on his face. I really wasn’t in the mood. “Hey! What do you know about my mother?” I repeated it, this time annunciating each syllable.
“She’s down at the station,” he said, still in that calm voice with that dead-eyed expression. What Marie ever saw in him was completely beyond me. “Nice art on the walls by the way.”
“She’s where? Why is she at the station? The police station?”
Mitch chuckled and said, “No, I just came by to let you know she was at the gas station.”
“Cut the crap Mitch! What have you done to my mother?”
“I didn’t do anything to her. Your mother was picked up for buying drugs from an undercover cop. I’m here as a concerned friend….”
“Friend? Are you freaking kidding me? We are so far from friends that we may as well be on separate continents. You are not now and will never be my friend. Get that straight.” I grabbed my purse and keys and now wearing an amused expression as if my tirade was funny he said, “Are you leaving?”
“I’m going to get my mother. Excuse me.” He was standing between me and the door. I was an idiot for ever letting him back in here.
“You can’t just “go get her,” Jessie. That’s not how this works.” I was afraid I already knew how this was going to work, but again, I had to ask.
Dropping my purse and slumping down in a chair because my legs were shaking so badly they would hardly hold me up, I said, “Tell me, Mitch. How does this work?”
He sat down on my couch and seemed to be making himself comfortable as he said, “I can bring mom home…without a single blemish on her pristine record….”
“Like you did for Marie way back when? Then you can have her arrested for a “failure to appear” and use all of this to blackmail us again someday?”
“You are misinformed. I did what I could to help Marie way back then because I knew she came from a bad place. I didn’t mean to fall in love with her, but I did. I didn’t mean to make a baby, but I did. I would have never used any of that against her if she had given me any other choice. She stole my son, Jessie. Tell me you don’t think I have a right to be just a little bit pissed off.”
“But why fuck with me, and my mother? This is between you and Marie and Paul. Why do you want to keep dragging me into it?”
“Because as long as I’ve known that little shit Paul he has hated me. He’s done everything he can to keep me first from Marie and now from Victor. He thinks he’s such a tough guy and I know that he’s just arrogant enough to have confided in the girl he’s tapping.”
“You’re disgusting,” I said.
“Oh forgive me…the girl he’s “making love” to,” he said with another lewd laugh. “Whatever. The point is that I know that you know where he and his sister are keeping my boy. All I need from you is an address and as soon as I find out you’re not lying to me, your mother walks out, Scott free.”
“I don’t know how you look at yourself in the mirror,” I said. What the hell was I supposed to do? This was my entire fault. I promised myself after Justin that I wasn’t going to do this again…falls for with a guy who is battling one demon after the other. This is just what I deserve for not running away the second that he told me about his sister, or at the very least, the second Mitch showed up. I couldn’t trade my own mother’s safety for Marie and Victors. Damn it! What the hell was I going to do?
Book 4 Comes Out February 22nd
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