You know you wish you were me Read online

  ******

  EIGHT

  Hana watches the houses from the front window. It is quiet on their street now.

  There had been another fight with the police because they wanted things from Evee’s room. Her blanket and some clothes. They needed hair and photographs. Hana had yelled again.

  Olivia helped mediate this time, suddenly calm, telling Hana that the police were there to help. Their job is to find Evee and they have to do everything they ask.

  Olivia kept them out of the room as she and Hana gathered some of Evee’s things. Then she watched as Olivia dropped them into a plastic bag and the officer twirled it around like Hana does with the garbage bags. Twirled it then tied the top into a knot.

  I could have done something. I could have.

  She lets go of the curtains and they fall together and she can no longer see the street. She walks around the living room for what must be the 100th time since Evee was taken almost forty-eight hours before.

  Evee was taken.

  She drags her feet as she walks from the big window to the back of the couch. From the back of the couch to the front door.

  The police had hooked some device to a special telephone in case someone calls so they can trace it. Olivia had listened intently, nodding the whole time another policeman, the millionth they’d dealt with so far, had explained how the phone worked.

  “No one is going to call,” Hana had said.

  Hana regretted the words as soon as they came out. She was behaving like a child, fighting everything the police had done and said. Olivia hadn’t respond when Hana said this, but Hana knew Olivia thought she was behaving like an idiot. She hadn’t said anything, but Hana’s knew Olivia wished she wasn’t there. And then there was Carol. Hana thought Carol has always had doubts about Hana’s abilities as a parent. She must finally feel vindicated because this experience has proven to her that Hana is not fit to care for her granddaughter.

  They had gone out to search more dark parks, beaches, apartment blocks, parking lots.

  Hana is ready for Carol and Olivia to gang up on her when they get back. She has been waiting for that to happen for years. It’s inevitable. She’s just a loose addition to the family after all. A stray that they have just put up with.

  Hana has to get out of the house now. She finds her flip flops by the front door. She only wears them when she waters the lawn. She hates walking in them. As she walks toward the back door, the foam of the flip flops hit her heals, making a pat pat sound that she hates. She tries to walk on her tip toes, but the hard rubber digs in between her toes. She stops in the kitchen, holding the door knob to the back door. She looks around. She looks at the sink, full of water and the bowl of pancake mix she had started to clean the day before or the day before that – the day Evee was taken. It seems so long ago.

  The last meal they had together was pancakes. Evee’s face was coated with pancake syrup and Hana was getting annoyed because Evee was eating with her hands. Evee had been pushing Hana’s button all morning because she had woken up with the idea that she was going to turn on the VCR and watch a movie, but there wasn’t enough time. So she was grabbing large pieces of pancake and wiping them on her plate in a deep puddle of syrup before shoving them in her mouth.

  As Hana got increasingly irritated at Evee, Olivia seemed oblivious.

  “Evee stop that right now,” Hana said sternly. Evee stuck her tongue out, but then covered it with a piece of pancake. Hana looked at Olivia who had her eyes on her own pancakes as she cut them into small pieces. She could hear Olivia’s reasoning in her head. Just ignore her.

  “I’m going to take that away from you and later you’re going to be very hungry because you played with your food instead of eating it,” Hana’s voice is strained. She watched Evee dip her nose into the plate full of syrup and lift her head and laugh. Hana grabbed Evee’s plate, but Evee grabbed it as well. Evee screamed.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Olivia says.

  “She’s being obnoxious,” Hana whined as she turned to Olivia for help.

  “So are you,” Olivia said, coolly then she popped another piece of pancake in her mouth. “And you’re making a mess.”

  Hana looked down at the plate she and Evee were fighting over. It was titled and syrup was dripping onto the table.

  Evee laughed. Hana set the plate down and licked syrup off of her arm. Then she grabbed some of Evee’s pancake and shoved it into her mouth.

  Evee laughed even harder and grabbed pancake and shoved it into her mouth as well.

  Hana picked up another piece and moved toward Olivia, who was giggling.

  “No no no, watch the suit.”

  The kitchen is a mess. Hana hasn’t cleaned at all since Olivia and Evee have been gone. The big bowl is filled with water and pancake mix residue, which is now a foamy mess in the sink. The plates and forks, syrupy and sticky, are stacked on the counter.

  Is this normal? Could the police will use this against her? Dirty dishes stacked in the kitchen for who knows how long, does that count as neglect?

  She unlocks the back door quickly to get away from the mess. This is what they do sometimes, this family. They leave the house in order to avoid the mess.

  A sink full of dishes, well, off to the beach then. Messy rooms, let’s go shopping and buy more clothes to fill them with. They joke about it. But right now, Hana has no one to share any of their jokes with. She is alone and the way things are looking, this may be it for her. This may be her future, leaving this house as quick as she can to get away from any reality that lives inside.

  She hurries down the back steps straight out onto the grass of the backyard. It is wet with the dew from the late evening fog. Her feet are wet. It would be easier to walk around if she took of her shoes, but she leaves them on. She walks towards the back fence. It is dark as she leaves the reach of the streetlights in front of the house. The back of the yard is overgrown. She takes a deep breath and smells grass under her feet, and cat shit. Cats love their yard. They hide in the tall grass waiting for mice and birds, sometimes sharing the glory of their catch by leaving carcasses on the back steps. Hana hates cats.

  Hana walks the length of their back fence. Deliberately stepping on the overgrown grass, her flip flops slipping from the base of her feet and twisting in between her toes. She runs her hand along the panels of the tall fence.

  The events earlier in the day return. She looks at the cement near the back steps. She feels a pain in her right wrist where one of the hand cuffs dug into skin, near the bone. She feels ashamed when she thinks about all of those police staring at her and the noises the neighbors must have heard.

  Towards the corner of the fence, she feels the boards wiggle. These are the pieces she has been meaning to fix. They come off easily. She slips through the hole and she is in the neighbor’s back yard. She tosses her shoes off now and picks them up. She runs through the neatly mowed grass of the family next door.

  Of course their yard is tidy, she thinks as she runs past the playhouse and the swing set. They’re religious, she doesn’t know what kind. They have three kids, maybe more. She has only spoken to them a few times. Mainly to promise she would fix the fence soon. She is quickly on the cement of their driveway. She slides past their station wagon.

  On the sidewalk she feels exposed. She turns right and starts to run toward the end of the street. She hasn’t run in a long time. It doesn’t feel good. Her feet hit the hard ground at strange angles and she is aware of her big body bouncing and skin being pulled. She stops after passing a few houses. She drops her flip flops on the ground and slips them on.

  She walks to the end of the street. Across the way is high school. She looks both ways. The street is empty. No cars or people. The Twilight Zone again. She is scared because she remembers being young and walking home on nights like this. She would have been a little older than Evee. She was so scared on those streets alone. The mist was thick and she would get wet and it was cold. There were always noises f
ollowing her. If she sped up, so would they. Once she got to her house, the noises would stop. She would unlock the door and call out to her father. “I’m home, dad,” even if he wasn’t there to hear her. It was one of the things that kept the noises outside.

  What protection does Evee have? None. They have sheltered her so much. They didn’t know.

  She crosses the street and walks along the chain linked fence to an opening she has seen others use. Part of her hopes others have used it tonight and she might not have to do anything. Maybe someone else will hurt her. That’s what she is looking for out here. Someone to hurt her, make her feel this emotional pain somewhere else on her body. Right now it’s all inside, in her brain. She wants it on her body. She wants bruises and cuts.

  She walks toward the other end of the field. No one is here. It’s a Friday night in the summer and nobody is around. Se was so sure she wouldn’t be the only person out on a night like this. The only thing she sees is one of those football training things, the one the guys push ram with their bodies.

  Something cracks as she hits the ram hard. Something around her shoulder. Her collarbone? She straightens up and her bones crunch. She can go again. She walks backwards several yards and stares again at the worn vinyl. It looks hard and she runs toward it again, this time her sandals slip out from under her feet on the wet grass. She falls hard on her right knee. The pain shoots up her leg and into her lower back.

  She lies on her back. The wet ground crawls into her clothes. She straightens out her body. Her knee is throbbing and she is looking at the stars. Maybe she’s the only person out here because everyone else has somewhere to be. Somewhere they belong.

  She looks up at the stars.

  Hana has taken off once, years before when Evee wasn’t even two yet. She hadn’t planned it at all. One night, after Olivia and Evee had fallen asleep, she packed a backpack and instead of going to work she drove for hours.

  At first she was excited. It was the middle of the night and the lights were pushing her along the road and the warm air blowing through the open windows filled her with a sense of freedom that she had always wanted to experience. She felt like she could drive anywhere and start again. She could go to Vegas or Canada. She had always wanted to see Niagara Falls.

  The euphoria didn’t last long because as soon as her eyes grew heavy, she thought of their nice bog bed and Olivia’s dark hair on her little pillow and the smell of the misty morning as Evee wobbled around the house watching their every move as if they were the most wonderful things she had ever seen.

  She pulled over and called Olivia just outside of Bakersfield. As the phone rang, she watched the dust blow across the highway and felt like she was in a David Lynch film and at any point a curtain would fall and she would be living her life backwards, married to a man with orthopedic braces who recited Rolling Stones lyrics with marbles in his mouth.

  Olivia finally answered the phone a little out of breath. Hana could have hung up than and driven home. Olivia wouldn’t have known anything, but she couldn’t be dishonest.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hana, are you OK?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you crying?”

  “Yeah,” Hana was trying to catch her breath.

  “Why? What’s wrong baby?”

  “I’m, I don’t know. I’m scared.”

  “Can you come home, just leave early. It’s OK. Come back to bed.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not, sweety. Come on.”

  “I’m at a truckstop.”

  There was a pause and when Olivia spoke again, her voice was not as comforting. “A truckstop, where are you?”

  “On the grapevine,” Hana said. “I tried to leave, but I can’t, but now I’m so far away and I’m tired.”

  “Are you coming home?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “Do I want you to? Why would you ask me that?”

  “Sometimes I'm not sure, I mean do you want me? Or do you need me?”

  “I love you, Hana. I want you here, I need you here with us.”

  “Sometimes I want to escape.”

  “Me too,” Olivia laughed a little.

  “I’m not kidding. I just want to, I don’t know, dissolve or something.”

  “Sweety, you’re scaring me a little. Do you want me to come get you? I could call mom…”

  “No, don’t’ call her. Please, I feel so stupid.”

  “You’re not stupid Hana.”

  “Sometimes I just want to drive. I sit in that house and look at the dishes and the laundry and I don’t feel like I belong there. I want to get away, but then I got out here and there’s nothing for me out here.”

  Evee has been taken.

  The words, no matter how many times she repeats them in her head, can not be true. Even though the neighbor saw something. Even though there are police throughout her house and out in the front yard, bending over and marking spaces on the ground. She can’t let herself truly believe she may never see her daughter again.

  She is thinking about war and those mothers in Columbia with the signs. Displaying their missing to the world together.

  I don’t want to go to some group for this. I don’t want to sit there with grieving parents. I don’t want that to be us. She thinks of a colorless room with the chairs set up in a circle. Men and women sit in the chairs, shoulders slack, mouths open. Is that what she is going to be like if the worst happens?

  The president who said that famous line about “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” never had anything like this happen to him? He couldn’t have, otherwise he wouldn’t have said such a stupid thing. Fear hasn’t taken Evee away, a person has. Maybe fear had some part in all of this, but it wasn’t something she was overly concerned with at this moment. She doesn’t want a psychological analysis of the person detailing the reasons why they would do something so disgusting as take a child away from her home.

  In fact, if Evee were to be returned home safely, she wouldn’t even press charges. She would want the hole thing erased from their memories. Someone else can sit in court and look at the solemn face of the idiot who came close to their house and took Evee.

  “Please please please please bring her back. Please find her. We can handle whatever happened. We are strong. Please give her back. Please.”

  All of her air has floated out of her body and she is trying to take more in, but she is crying again.

  All she wanted to do was go camping with her family.

  Her family. That’s what she is now. Olivia, Evee. That is her life. That’s all she has. It’s the most she’s ever had.

  She gets herself up with this thought. She needs to be home. She is being selfish out here as if she is going through this alone.

  The air is cold and damp as she walks home now. She takes the flip flops off and feels the course ground underneath her feet. It feels real. She feels real now. It must have been Manny. No one else would want to hurt her.

  She remembers gripping the door tightly when Manny accelerated the car. The door was open when he reversed. The door got heavy and she felt like she was being pulled out of the car. She wanted badly to be out of the car, but not like that. She wanted badly to be away from Manny and whatever it was he was going to do. But she pulled hard to shut the door and stay in the car.

  “Stop Manny, stop,” she screamed.

  He did not look at her. He didn’t wince when she yelled at him again.

  Then the car lurched forward, speeding even faster toward a dead end. A small barrier set up at the end of the road to keep cars out of the fairgrounds.

  She screamed. She thought about jumping out, but she couldn’t.

  The small barrier was sturdy. They would have put it in with a crane, maybe a forklift.

  “Please Manny, don’t. Don’t do this,” she was crying. Then she looked at the steering wheel and realized she could do something. She was bigger than him. Her body lunged forward before she cou
ld talk herself out of it. Her hands were turning the big wheel like she was steering a boat out of the path of a tsunami. The car turned so sharply she was thrown against her door and she heard her body smashing against car. She heard her hands hit the roof.

  She heard Manny’s voice, he was talking loudly, he was crying then the car hit something. The back of the car hit the barrier. She was thrown again, this time against the dashboard. She was able to get her hands in front of her head. She floated then smashed hard into the old car. Then everything stopped.

  She didn’t look back at him as she opened the car door. She wanted to get as far away from him as she could. If he wasn’t hurt, he would come after her. If he was hurt, she didn’t want to see it. She didn’t want to risk feeling sorry for him. Engaging with him.

  So she got away as fast as her aching body would let her. Just beyond the barrier there was a path along the back of the fairgrounds. She started walking and everything that had just happened repeated in her mind. What was he saying while he was driving? She was worried about the wall approaching so quickly.

  She heard sirens coming from the road leading to his car. She stopped. She could hear yelling. It was Manny. She couldn’t understand what he was saying, but he wasn’t shutting up.

  She stood there a moment trying to hear then she looked behind her. There was a chain linked fence. She went over to it and if she grabbed onto it and stood on her tippy toes, she could see over a wall to the front of the car. There were police there. The car was at an angle, with the back smashed against the cement barrier.

  Three policemen were looking at the ground and moving around the side of the car. One had his gun pointed at the ground. She couldn’t see, but she knew Manny was there in the path of that gun.

  He wants to die, she thought.

  She didn’t want him to die. She didn’t want that. She turned around and ran. She ran along the path that was at the back of the fairgrounds away from the scariest thing that had ever happened to her.