You know you wish you were me Read online

  “Have you been out?”

  “What?”

  “Have you been out or were you at home? Where were you coming from?”

  “The alley, I was looking for Evee,” Hana’s words are quick.

  “Is that your daughter’s name, Evee?”

  “I heard her… You don’t understand, you’re wrong I heard her running up the driveway. I was on the phone.” Hana’s mind is fuzzy. How can she be in this situation, talking to a police officer in front of the house? Their house where nothing bad has ever happened. She has had anxiety attacks that felt like this. Fear and panic mixed into a paralyzing tonic that leave her shaken for hours, sometimes a whole sleepless night.

  Hana looks up and sees a different police officer talking to the neighbor across the street. The neighbor is pointing at and motioning from their house toward the alley.

  Hana feels the worry now. It’s made its way through the confusion of this. Now that she sees the police and the neighbor, she knows that something has happened. Something big. Evee is not here, the police are here.

  “I’ve been waiting for her all day.” Hana feels a soft breeze over her face. It is cool against her wet face.

  “What is your daughter’s full name,” the officer’s words are quiet, but Hana watches his face. He is straining. He looks angry. Instantly she doesn’t trust him.

  “What?”

  “Your daughter’s name,” his words are clear and loud now.

  “Evee, Evee Morris-Sims,” Hana’s voice is shaking. Everything is shaking. She drops the boot, but the officer is quicker and picks it up.

  “Hey,” he yells to the other cop standing in the middle of the street and then he throws the boot to him. “It’s the girl’s.”

  Hana’s chest feels cold now without the comfort of Evee’s precious red leather boot. “What are you doing? You can’t do that?” Hana makes a move toward the other officer, toward the boot.

  The officer puts his hand out in front of her. “Listen, I know this is a terrible shock, but we will need full access to everything here, we will need you to let us do whatever we need to do. If your daughter has been taken…” he stops and looks past her.

  She turns around expecting to see something, but there is nothing. Just their driveway as it has always been. The front of the house, the garage.

  “What?” Hana is sure he was going to say something very bad or very good, either way she needs him to finish. “What were you gong to say?”

  “We don’t have much time to find her,” he says as he walks past her toward the house.

  “Where are you going? What are you saying?” Hana says as she follows him up the driveway.

  “You said you heard your daughter?”

  “I’m sure I did,” Hana tries to put herself back in the office, on the phone. Tries to quiet her fear enough to remember. It was less than an hour ago, but she’s heard those boots so many times. Maybe she didn’t, maybe she did, she can’t be a hundred percent sure.

  “Where is her father?” the officer says as he looks at the ground on the driveway.

  “He doesn’t live with us?”

  “Where is he?”

  “New Mexico.”

  “Who lives in this house?”

  Hana thinks of Olivia then for the first time. She has no idea any of this is happening. Whatever it is that is happening, she needs to know, needs to be here. Hana runs toward the house.

  “Maam stop. Stop right now,” a loud voice booms behind her.

  Hana turns around to see who they are talking to. There are two officers running towards her. Where did they come from?

  Their grip on her arms as she loses control of her legs is reassuring because suddenly she is finding it hard to breath. The cop is standing looking at her. She doesn’t think he understands that she can’t breath, or he doesn’t care.

  “Are you all right?” She doesn’t know who said that.

  Hana looks at the police and the neighbor across the street. She should be with them listening to what and who the neighbor saw, but she can’t move. She just watches as if it is happening on TV. It’s one of those crime shows that she has no involvement in because it’s not real.

  “Maam – I’m gonna have to ask you not to go into the house. We’re going to need to have a good look around there.”

  Hana doesn’t move. The officer stands looking at her.

  “Maam?”

  Hana looks at him and can’t keep the screaming thoughts in her head.

  “Why are you so worried about me in my house? My daughter is not here. You’re telling me she’s been taken, but you are all standing around,” she is screaming at him.

  The sky is bright blue and the sun is hot as Hana kneels on their concrete porch, trying to take a deep breath. Her lungs are half the size they were twenty minutes ago. She is crying loudly now, as loud as she ever has. She wants to explode, die right here, anything to get rid of this fear that has taken over her whole body.

  “She’s somewhere, please. She’s just playing.”

  She is being picked up now off the porch. She is limp like a protestor being pulled to a paddy wagon. Her feet are dragging on the ground and she hears a low wailing sound and realizes it is coming out of her. She has always been embarrassed crying in front of anyone else, but now she can’t stop.

  The tears are falling and noises she has not made for years, since the dark days when she wailed into pillows, are coming out of her uncontrollably.

  They let her go and she is in the back yard on her stomach on the grass.

  The young cop’s questions come fast. When did you last see your daughter? What is the name of the babysitter? What do you mean Evee’s mother? Are you not Evee’s mother?

  “Yes, she’s my daughter, but Olivia is her mother?”

  The cop has gone icy cold. He looks at her and she feels a distaste she has encountered before.

  “Maam, where is the child’s mother?”

  “Seattle, she’s working,”

  “We’re going to need her contact details,” his pen is ready and he is looking around the backyard.

  “I want to call her,” she whines. Hana hates herself for using a pathetic begging voice and for the hot tickling tears welling up in her eyes. Of course she can call her. She pushes herself up and turns toward the back door of the house, but the cop steps in her path to the door.

  “I think it’s best if you just stay here and let us handle this with the family.”

  Then he motions to the lawn chair sitting in the middle of the yard.

  “What are you saying?”

  “Maam, please.” His arm is still outstretched towards the chair and he touches her lightly on her shoulder with his other hand.

  “I am fucking family,” her fists are clenched and her face is hot. She steps forward towards the back door and the cop. Her face is close to his. She can smell aftershave. She thrusts forward. Her chest bumps hard against him. He is knocked back but starts towards her with an angry look on his face.

  There is noise around them, like the hut hut of a group of soldiers. Then she is held again by hard arms, holding her tighter than before and without any sympathy this time. She is scared.

  “I advise you to calm down, before you get yourself into serious trouble,” the cop says through tight lips.

  “What do you mean? If my daughter is missing, I am already in serious trouble. Don’t tell me what to do, you’re just standing there not doing anything.”

  The officer turns away from her and walks into the kitchen through the back door as she is pulled back into the lawn chair and a different cop stands in front of her, watching her with his hand on his belt, not his gun, but not far from it.

  Hana pulls blades of grass out of the ground one by one as police move around her house. She hears drawers opening and shutting and thinks she can hear someone laughing. Their personal life is on display. She trembles as she hears the cop’s words again in her head. They don’t see her as part of this family
and no matter what her insecurities about her place in this family are, right now she is integral. She is Evee’s mother.

  There are things Hana feels that she doesn’t bother to talk about anymore. Stuff she feels she should have left behind a long time ago, in her early twenties. The worst thing about the dark days was the violence and how she was never able to stop herself from going one step too far. She has been clean and without incident for so long that she is sure that this suburban existence is her life now. The juice boxes and sleepovers have turned into enough, and now this baby, it’s all proof she is a grown up.

  So when the dark feelings come up it is usually at times that remind her of when she was young. Times when she feels a lack of control of her situation. Times like this, although nothing has ever been this bad before.

  She stands up and the cop guarding her flinches. He reaches for his gun, but then puts both arms out to stop her. She starts towards the back door, he can’t hold her still and calls for help.

  She makes it a few steps forward and then two more police surround her. Her arms are moving around her. She sees them swinging at strained faces. Then they are gone, and she is pulled down to the ground. Her face is on the cement at the bottom of the back steps. The coarse ground scratches her wet cheeks.

  She stares at the cracks in the back steps. There are ants scurrying quickly in chaos. They are afraid, too.

  She feels a sharp weight in her back and on her legs, then her hands are pulled behind her back and she hears metal, then she is stuck, bound in hand cuffs. She wails as loud as she ever has. Her throat is sore and she feels helpless.

  “She’s my baby. I’m her mommy. Please, I’m sorry I did that. I’m sorry. Somebody listen to me. I’m scared. Please.”

  She sees a pair of dark, hard shoes close to her face. If this were another decade she would be beaten, maybe killed for living with another woman. This thought and the boots, shiny, hard and close to her face, quiet her.

  She thinks of her mother. A young girl surrounded by American military for years. Who knows what the soldiers would have done to her back then if they found her here in this family, making babies with another woman.

  Her thoughts are hectic. She has the feeling that everything’s gone wrong and there is nothing she can do to make it right. Like with Manny. He was down on the ground like this. Probably scared, just like this and she just left him there. Most of the time Hana tries not to think about him. But right now she can’t stop the guilt and the fear. Everything bad she has ever experienced is with her now, on the ground where her tears are making a dark circle in the cement under her face.

  ******

  THREE

  Carol’s high-pitched yells pour out of the house. Hana’s heart pounds with anxiety in time with the sound of several pairs of feet running through the house toward the kitchen.

  “What’s happened? Where is everybody?” Carol’s voice is different. Hana can hear fear. She turns her head from the wet concrete toward the back door. A jolt of shame runs through her as she sees Carol’s face through the window of the back door.

  Carol looks down at Hana and tilts her head to the side as if she doesn’t know her, but thinks she recognizes her. Then the door flies open and crashes against the side of the house and Carol is down the steps and trying to pull Hana up.

  “Please Carol, they won’t listen to me,” Hana is on her knees now, looking over her shoulder at Carol.

  “I don’t understand,” Carol says, her voice even higher now.

  “Evee is missing Carol,” Hana’s eyes are blurry with tears, but she can see Carol’s open mouth. Hana has heard the expression, white as a ghost, but she never knew it could really happen until this moment. Carol’s eyes as the information clicks, have gone from alert to glazed and her face has lost all signs of life.

  “Maam, what is your relationship with Evee?”

  “How do you know?” Carols says loudly. “This doesn’t make sense.”

  “How are you related to Evee?” the officer is standing next to Hana now, competing for Carol’s attention.

  “She’s her grandmother, her biological blood relative,” Hana spits the words out at the officer, who doesn’t look at her.

  “Could you please come with me, maam?”

  “Why is she in handcuffs?” Carol says as she touches the metal bracelets digging in to Hana’s wrists. A little color has returned to her face.

  “Because I’m a dyke,” Hana feels ashamed after she says this. Ashamed that her anger is showing and the real problem here is that Evee is missing. “Carol, I don’t think they’re looking for her.”

  “Why aren’t you looking for her?” Carol is trying to help Hana to her feet.

  “I can assure you we have several officers…”

  “Take these off of her right now,” Carol says.

  “At this point, maam, Ms. Morris…” the cop clears his throat and straightens his body with his hands folded over each other in front of his crotch. “Ms. Morris is… untrustworthy.”

  “You’re untrustworthy as far as I’m concerned. My granddaughter is missing and you’re here abusing her mother. There are legal documents,” Carol lets go of Hana and runs into the house yelling about Hana’s legal rights as Evee’s guardian and that she owns half the house.

  Hana stands at the bottom of the steps, her arms aching behind her back as she listens to Carol’s voice travel through the house to the office. The expensive papers are in the top drawer of the desk. Carol paid a lot of money to have them written up by a lawyer, a gay lawyer, of course. It’s her rule to only employ the best gay and lesbian plumbers and lawyers, hair stylists and real estate agents she can find locally. And if there are none, she asks her friends in the community who they would recommend. Hana is not satisfied that the papers mean anything, legally, but at this moment she needs something to go right.

  “You get these things off of her. You have no right. You have no right. I know the chief of police and I will see to it that you and you, all of you are punished for what you have done here.”

  Someone takes the handcuffs off of Hana’s wrists. The young cop stands at the top of the steps blocking their way into the house.

  “I’ve shown you those papers, she has every right inside her own house, now get the hell out of my way.” Hana has always admired Carol’s ability to control men.

  Carol continues up the steps, supporting Hana’s body as much as she can. They make it to the living room and Carol gets Hana to the couch where Hana stares out the front window. Usually when she sits in this spot, she watches Evee’s head as she plays on the porch. She likes to take her dolls for a swim in a bucket or draw pictures of the flowers in the front yard. Olivia sometimes joins her on the rocking chair and Hana listens to the sweet sounds of their voices as they laugh and tell each other stories.

  Hana remembers the worried conversations and the questions she and Olivia asked before their baby was born.

  What if they get teased for having two moms?

  We’ll build up their self-confidence so it won’t hurt them.

  What if teachers or their friends’ parents discriminate against them?

  We’ll sue.

  What if they are screwed up from being so different?

  Is anybody normal?

  Never, did they ask the question What if she gets taken away?

  “Carol,” Hana whispers. Carol is distracted and looking around the living room. “I think I know who has taken Evee. I mean maybe, I don’t know.” Hana shivers. She has been able to block everything that happened with Manny out of her mind for so long. She had to get rid of the guilt to make room for a normal life.

  “Who?”

  Maybe she is wrong. Manny could be dead, if he kept going the way he was when she last saw him, he should be dead. Hana puts her head down.

  Carol grabs Hana by the shoulders. “Who?”

  “Do you remember I told you about that guy, when I was in LA, my friend,” Hana whispers.

 
“What’s his name? We have to tell them?”

  “Tell them?”

  “Hana, for Christ sakes, this is Evee, our little girl. He’s got our little girl,” Carol grabs Hana tight up against her and squeezes.

  “Manny Gomez,” Hana says and her stomach aches at the thought of what he would do if he had Evee. Then she thinks of the tiny baby growing inside of her. She wants to tell Carol, but now is not the right time. Carol is running to one of the cops and giving them Manny’s name and probably an inflated list of offences he has committed in his lifetime, only one of which she knows for sure, that he tried to kill Hana in a car wreck. But that was just because he didn’t want to lose her.

  Hana bends over on the couch, her arms smashed between her stomach and her thighs. She is exhaling, convulsing, crying without tears or sound. Feeling alone in this, the worst nightmare she has ever experienced.

  She looks up and Carol is there with the phone.

  “It’s Olivia.”

  Hana takes the phone quickly and stands up, feeling dizzy and nauseous. She puts it up to her ear and listens to Olivia crying.

  “I don’t know, just give me a minute,” Olivia says. Hana hears someone else’s voice in the background. “I’m not a child Trina, just get out,” there is a loud noise like a door slamming.

  “Olivia,” Hana says.

  “Oh god, Hana please tell me this isn’t happening. Please, please god.”

  Olivia’s crying has always upset Hana. It is loud and like her laugh. When they were first together, Olivia cried a lot. She said Hana was the first person she had been able to cry in front of without feeling self conscious. So her crying was from deep inside and scary for Hana. She would just hold Olivia until the crying stopped. After a while, the big cries eased off. It was as if she had stored all the bad stuff in one place and those cries cleaned some of it out for good. But now, these sounds that Olivia is making remind Hana of that pain she used to hear and it is so hard to listen to because she is feeling the pain as well and she can’t hold Olivia, can’t comfort from hundreds of miles away.

  “Did you look everywhere, the alley? You know she likes riding her bike there.”