So You Say You Lost Your Baby
Egon learns about himself when meeting a lost mother – Chapter 10.
The Tenderness of Wild Beasts
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Chapter 10: So You Say You Lost Your Baby
To find the house of the Garrisons, I had to go up a narrow street and turn before an old acacia, in a narrow path bordered with wisteria. I parked my car against the garage of a neighbor and walked to the house in the warm wind, atoned by the khoros of cicadas. The two-story house was trying to hide in the shade of a tall coulter pine, but the heaviness of the summer afternoon was turning its peach color into an unbearable glow, and my black polo shirt into a wet sponge. As I rang the doorbell, I wondered why this place was so deserted; no police car, no friendly relatives, no other journalists. Even the 101 nearby was completely silent. And then I noticed the tiny sandbox with its abandoned miniature cars and shovels. I realized that police officers, mourners and press vultures should naturally be missing, but not children. I also became aware that I had stood right there thirteen years ago. The Garrisons were living in your former house, Joan. I called myself an insensible monster twice. Then, Delia Garrison opened the door.
She was looking less like the slutty demimondaine depicted by some internet comments, and more like a fried co-ed who had just woken up to find out she was missing more than her dignity. I could not say if the color of her mid-length, greasy hair was natural but I was adamant the void in her eyes was. Probably not a bad person at all, just the product of our society. She did not seem surprised, happy or tired to hear my request, and she let me in, as if she had already caught a force of habit. A thirteen years old habit. Considering my presence in this very same place at said period, I could not help shivering. Thirteen years ago, this house already had a missing kid, and it was you. But it also had a missing mother, so Delia’s presence was new to me. And Oliver knew where you both had disappeared: in Boston. The new equation of the remaining mother and the unknown whereabouts of the kids did not seem auspicious.
At first, her lifeless voice only expressed languid courtesy –coffee, cold drink, cigarette, seating, do you want, do you mind– as if she were sedated. But suddenly, her eyes fell upon a framed picture of her children. I witnessed the activation of the unfortunate automaton. Contained tears, broken voice, threats to potential abductors, the punishment they would not receive if just lost or on the run, all the publicity she had done to find them, the best picture to illustrate the article, the number of messages she received, the “I don’t want to put that in the past, you understand, I still have hope”.
I did not feel she was fake. I just thought, “This is the world we have, where a mother can only express her tragedy through a stereotyped social protocol instead of her genuine personal emotions.” Delia Garrison was a social media post on legs, and the show she was putting inside her deserted kitchen was not for me; she was on a loop, ready for the live, worldwide broadcast. Because we were all taught to be. She was your age, she was a young mother separated from her children; my paternal, human empathy should have overcome her paralyzed authenticity. Yet, I could not. Was it my own protocol of cynical voyeur?
Patiently, I was noting down and recording stories on Fiona’s designer shoes and online vlog as well as on Nathan’s breakdance and cooking lessons –or vice versa. Their life was organized from reveille to bedtime, full with impersonal activities and possessions. My Gen X childhood started to whisper in favor of a mutiny. After all, at this stage, no one knew for sure what happened to these children.
I had prepared a set of pictures to help her recap the chronology of the evening and, of course, I had slipped in the one with Nahuel on it. Oddly, she pushed that one away almost immediately, while babbling on her great parental instructions, scapegoating nannies.
Unfortunately for her, I was there for only one thing, and it had nothing to do with her missing children. So, when I asked her to name friends that could be potential witnesses, I specifically pointed out Nahuel Summers. She swallowed, and for a second her choreography went on the blink. Was she wondering why I was picking him in particular –knowing something, feeling something? Or was she beginning to contemplate her part of responsibility and guilt? Not at all. It was just alien to her scheduled steps. She was Error-404ing.
“Who is this guy?” I insisted.
“It’s… Nahuel Sum…thingIdon’tknowhimwell… at all.”
She was blushing and then blanching.
“That’s one hell of a name,” I joked. “Friend of the groom or of the bride?”
Her only possible reactions to my manoeuvre were laughing, conjuring up a sudden fatigue or getting on the defensive, which she switched to in no time at all.
“You wanna say I’m a junkie, right? Unable to take care of my kids, right? C’mon, I was not high, your honor! Who are you to judge me? I mean, you come to my house to insult me…”
I tried to stop her.
“I just wanted to look for some potential witnesses, ma’am, that’s all…”
“Bullshit! You are like the others, bitching on me, clutching your pearls because I was a single mother at a party. I’ve ruined their precious marriage, y’know? You write papers on their awful family to sympathize with them, but all I get are accusations and shame… who the fuck do you think you are?”
I am a guy who would rather spend days scanning 70s newspapers for old murders than to socialize with people, that is who I am, ma’am. That was not making me better than her, though, and I was feeling bad to have come there with my obsession with a guy I met years ago, just to bother a distressed young mother. I also pondered a second about what she slipped on the newlyweds. Piece of shit if you ask me. But I will leave this part of the social commentary to you.
Delia’s paranoia got full throttle and my attention span had expired. She had given me a vital piece of information on the guy I was looking for. He was the local dealer. An occupation that would make him easy to find on another occasion, but certainly not in a cop-packed town. Just my luck.
I did not have to find a way out, Delia Garrison was already tapping away on her phone, grunting, probably sending her followers after me with an infuriated social media rant. She was back on track, so I sighed and walked out.
As I opened the door, I ran into the sheriff, Dwayne Landry, who was about to ring.
“Shit,” he said, recognizing me.
“Shit indeed.”
I tried to smile, but I could see he was still mad at me. A little worried too.
He moaned, “Tell me you didn’t blow her up.”
“Bad news?”
He did not answer. He did not need to. Behind us, she was still burying herself in her own digital court, and as notifications were ringing out, her thirst for justice was turning into precarious satisfaction. I was wrong about judging the newlyweds; I was a piece of shit myself at that moment. You’re happy, smartass? Hell no, I was not. Dwayne silently nodded. I knew he was agreeing – or even enjoying – my realisation.
“Let us alone,” he requested, “but wait for me outside.”
Putting his hat on his chest, he entered the fresh doorway and went to meet the mother of Fiona and Nathan.
As I closed the door behind me, I could hear her saying, “Did you find them?” then, “No, that’s impossible!” and finally, it was the most chilling scream ever, one that had survived to the age of social media numbness, coming from the dawn of time, when it was decided that nothing, nothing will ever get better.
(To be continued.)