fiction writing: missing

I’ve been here for five months and thirteen days. I know this because every time Vince goes down the street to get food I take some toilet paper from the bathroom and record the days on it and roll it up under the floorboard of the basement. There are a few other things down there in my secret compartment beneath the floor boards, like an old hello kitty keychain my little sister gave me and a promise ring my parents bought me when I was thirteen, an old movie ticket stub that was in my pocket the day I left forever. My heart is underneath those floor boards, the life I used to know is buried in that dirt. The idea of never knowing what will happen next, that fear that subsides in the pit of your stomach like a seed growing into a tree, it eventually turns into a garden, a beautiful garden, and you soon forget what it looked like before. The fear that has held me captive for so long now is who I am and nothing more exists. I used to be a daughter, a sister, a best friend, a girlfriend. I used to be a ballerina, a mermaid in the summer and a snow angel in the winter. I always led the family in Christmas caroling and I could speak a little Spanish, enough to brag about, anyway. But I’m not that girl anymore, I vaguely remember her, like an old photograph shoved in a box in the attic.

I hear the door to the basement being unlocked. The familiar smell of vegetable soup and old leather fills the room. Vince is here. I’ve come to the point where the sound of the door slamming shut no longer makes me jump, it no longer sounds like my heart screaming, as if someone were finally here to take me back, back to the world that I’m not a part of anymore. Now it is just another sound like the wind and the dripping faucet, nothing that would bring me hope or salvation. I let the noise sink into my skin as I cover up the hole in the floor and run to the rocking chair that faces the wall. There are only two pictures on the wall, one is a serene picture of the ocean and one is of a little girl with curly brown hair. She looks tired, more tired than a little girl should be. I’ve stared at that wall for far too long, knowing every crack, line, and colored flaw. The dry paint that dripped from the wood paneling along the edges is horrendously noticeable, and some days I sit and think about what I would say to the person that painted this room. If I ever met them. I might scold them, or maybe the surreal brilliance of it all would make me cry at their feet, feeling grateful to see another human being and convicted for judging them all at the same time. These are the ideas that have filled my mind day in and day out, and now I can’t remember what’s real and what isn’t.

“Here. I got you this.” Vince’s voice is startling as he walks toward me. He hands me a candy bar. He is getting better at being less defensive and less aggressive, it is like he is beginning to trust me, and as much as I fear and hate him for what he did, his small acts of kindness are somehow becoming more humane and more genuine to me. It is like I can’t help but be grateful, like he is doing me a favor or something. It actually makes me quite sick. I take it and don’t say anything.

“Jimmy is coming over soon. You know what I told you about when Jimmy is here, you keep to yourself down here and stay out of our way. I can bring you some movies or something if you want…” It is unbelievable really, the way he talked to me before and the way he talks to me now.

“Thank you” I say.

I used to never look him in the eyes, but I am getting better at a few glimpses here and there, just to let him know I appreciate the somewhat twisted kindness. I don’t understand it and I really don’t understand why I return it. Vince is a tall, lanky man, with a young face except for the wrinkles around his eyes and his slightly graying auburn hair. His nose is large, and his eyes are like two small almonds, full of dull darkness and rimmed with red, as if he hasn’t slept in days. It gives me chills.

Jimmy is, to my knowledge, Vince’s friend that comes by every few weeks with a lot of cash. They sit at the table upstairs smoking pot and counting bills. Every time he comes over I hear some yelling and a few doors slamming, and then silence. Five months here and I still haven’t figured out what the cash is for or where it comes from. But then again, I haven’t figured out why a lot of things happen. Vince looks at me suspiciously, like he always does when I say thank you, and then turns to walk up the stairs. I wait.

I’ve left Vince’s house maybe four times since I’ve been here. Each time the ground beneath me feels more and more soft, almost fluid, as if the wet grass could not keep me still. And then the gravel so unforgiving, making my trembling legs hit the rocks lightly like a scared rabbit. But I never forget the blue sky and playful white clouds, they haunt me from the back of my mind. I follow Vince quickly to his van, where I then cover my face with different scarves and lay in the back seat of the van so that no one can see me from the window. The only time he ever lets me leave is when he gets that “feeling” again that the cops might come by, so paranoid that his eyes are constantly shifting from me to the windows and doors. I’ve come to understand Vince’s irregular breathing and periods of distress, so intensely chained to his own fear that it almost eases my own.

I remember one morning when Vince hurried me into the van, we were driving past an old flea market about five miles away from my home. It is amazing really, how the same locations that you know for so long can become so disoriented and empty, and that I can peak into my old life so easily from the tinted windows and yet be so absent from this neighborhood. I used to be pained with anger, thinking that I could be found so effortlessly, and yet no one has come for me. Then Vince stopped the car as he got to the stop sign, and after warning me not to move from the car, he ran across the street into the flea market.

I sat up cautiously and looked out the window, seeing nothing but an old street lamp near the sidewalk opposite the flea market. I looked at a flimsy piece of paper taped onto the pole with bold red words “MISSING PERSON”. The words were deep and running off the page, etched into my palms and sending a cool wave down my body. I stared into my own face as if I were seeing a ghost, a picture that I knew from my sixteenth birthday party about four months before Vince found me. I hated the picture, my shoulders were awkwardly hunched over and I was trying to pick up my kitten who was playfully running around my ankles. My best friend Meriella was in the background laughing, and I never noticed the admired look on her face until this moment. Here was the first time since I’ve been away that I began to weep, uncontrollably weep, unaware of my eyes streaming and my body falling over the leather seats. I didn’t make a sound, but I cried heavily into my mass of frayed brown hair.

When I sat up Vince was leaning over the front seat, looking at me with bitter disappointment and a small amount of sympathy. “What’s wrong with you?” he nearly shouted. There was a crack of weakness in his voice, a note of guilt because he knew what was wrong, and he knew that I was so very broken. I watched him swallow back his vulnerability and he searched my eyes, begging me for affirmation, as if he really cared what I thought of him. But in this moment I believed that he cared, he cared and it was his downfall, it was the very thing that led him to his own tortured life.

After that day, I wasn’t angry anymore. I stopped pitying myself and began to focus all of my thoughts on my family and friends. I knew that they cared. My family is pretty close, I guess. Ever since I can remember we’ve held the best Thanksgiving dinners that everyone in town comes to. My dad is a likeable guy, always playing golf with his buddies from work. My mom teaches an etiquette class, she’s quite the southern bell… so you can imagine how challenging it was growing up to exceed her expectations. But they were great folk, and their reputations were flawless. My little sister is president of her 6th grade class and informally president of the “perfects,” a group of girls in her grade that are already shaping together the exclusive and status-centered world of middle school. She never stops blabbing about it. It’s quite shocking, hilarious, and repulsive. My brother Patrick is twenty-two and the farthest away, physically and emotionally. He left for college a few years ago and didn’t call us for a year, then reported that he had been living off the land with some Hippies in Oregon. My parents were disgusted, hurt, and outraged, and even though I’m not supposed to, I admire him for it. Every so often I went to the upstairs closet and called my brother secretly because my parents didn’t want me talking to him. We talked about everything, and he was my escape from the cookie cutter world that I lived in. Sometimes I think about him and wonder what he’s thinking, maybe he is secretly glad like I was for him. But nevertheless, I always rationalize myself into believing that these people are the ones that truly know me, and because of that I long to see them again.

So I imagine Jimmy left now, because I can hear Vince yelling again. But this time it’s more piercing, more urgent. I look at the door, expecting it to swing open at any time. Usually when Vince gets angry he paces, and he doesn’t like to be confined in one room. But he’s not coming downstairs. This time he starts moaning, as if he were in unbearable pain. I sit there dumbfounded, not knowing what to do. Maybe I should go upstairs and make sure everything is okay… I usually wouldn’t be so bold, but his howling makes me incredibly uneasy.

I walk up the stairs soundlessly, keeping my small hand along the wood of the door and listening more intently. He is weeping gently, and the sound of it sends shivers down my spine. I creak the door open that to my surprise is unlocked, and he stops.

“I - I’m sorry… I just wanted to make sure…” I can’t get the words out, I feel like I’m not even speaking. He stares at me blankly, and then turns to look at the door.

“Get out,” he says. His words are cold and lifeless, but I don’t feel them sting. The room feels like a cloud, and I don’t recognize anything. I’ve never really taken a close look at the setup in here, it’s quiet but unsettling.

“Are you alright?” I am really asking for it this time. He doesn’t answer. “I just heard.. It sounds like you’re hurt.. I just heard this sound and..” my face is heated and my feet start backing toward the door again.

“Does it look like I’m fucking hurt?” This one stings.

“I .. I guess you aren’t, I’m sorry I’ll go back downstairs--” My eyes fall to the floor. I am so afraid, but mostly I am sorry. I am sorry that he is hurt on the inside, something that only a child could see. I still hold my childlike eyes, it is something Vince did not take from me, and it leaves me broken. His life is a gaping wound, and I pity him for it. It is beyond trying to understand why I am here with this man, it is beyond anger. It is sorrow.

I walk solemnly down the stairs and sit in my chair, my apple cheeks too raw to feel tears trickling. My pale olive skin is flushed pink, and my tall posture gives me the demeanor that everything is alright. Those damn etiquette classes - they can cover up any humanly unsatisfying emotion. Suddenly Vince opens the door and walks down the stairs, dragging his feet like he’s drunk. He collapses on the floor opposite my chair, his back against the wall and his knees bent in front of him. His sigh breaks the silence.

“Maybe I am hurt.” His eyes are at my feet and I don’t say a word. My heart jumps and I want him to keep talking, to say anything. He looks for a response, and I open my mouth but nothing comes out.

“What do you think is the hardest thing to accept?” he asks, so thoughtful and gentle. I remain still. What does he mean, the hardest thing to accept? Where was this coming from? I shake my head like I refuse the question.

“Just… in general?” he asks patiently. I can’t believe this is happening.

“Myself… I guess,” I said. His eyebrows raised as if I were tricking him.

“That’s really it? That’s the hardest thing for you to accept?”

“Yeah. What’s the hardest thing for you to accept?”

“I don’t know. I guess myself too,” he says.

“We’re not so different.” I say with a smile. He is unbelieving of my comment, but I think it comforts him in a way. He picks up his feeble body and walks toward the stairs, pausing at the foot of the step.

“Do you miss it?” he asks.

“Sometimes.”

He nods and walks up the stairs. For the first time, I feel close to someone other than my family. I may not know Vince the way I know my family, but I know him the way I know myself. We have both hidden our weaknesses for so long that we are conditioned to feel alone. And whether we’re crazy or not, we accept what we will, and cannot accept the rest - and that is what brings us to accept each other.

I ponder the words that were spoken as I try to sleep on the cot in between the wall and the stairs. I can feel each spring, and the stiff sheets that smell like smoke are pulled over my eyes to keep my head from spinning. I begin to doze off as thoughts turn into colors and swim around my cot, they pick up my mattress and I float up through the door and out the window, flying through the night sky and landing in a sea foam green ocean with daffodils all around me. In the distance I see my family and Vince all around a dinner table, eating their thanksgiving turkey - everyone but Vince. His plate is full of dry bones and nothing more, and my family does not offer him anything to eat. I become very angry, and try to stand but fall into the ocean, my lungs filling with salt water. I can see the transparent layers of sand and clear blue, passively looking through the water and seeing a wave of the sky, broken with salted stars. My brothers hand pulls me up and we fly into the blanket of clouds, finally reaching the table that my family and Vince were sitting at. My brother takes the plate of bread and hands it to Vince and me.
“We are travelers on a journey. I am one beggar showing another beggar a piece of bread. Please accept it, what more are you than dry bones?” he asks, smiling.

I wake in a cold sweat. It’s still dark outside and my heart is beating faster. I don’t know what is happening, but I feel very urgent. I run upstairs, screaming for Vince. It is like nothing else in the world matters.

Vince is standing in the middle of the hardwood floor, the lights are off and all I can see is his face illuminated by the moon from the skylight. I hear the rain tapping gently against the tin roof.

“Vince.”

“What is wrong with you?” he asks. He is shaking.

“Everything. But that’s not the point, the point is that we’re more than this. Vince, I don’t blame you, for anything. I accept you, I accept myself, I don’t want to live this way anymore, but it’s more than that. I don’t want to live the way I lived before…”

“What are you saying?” he is getting angry.

“Vince, don’t get mad, I’m just saying that its oka-”

“You want to leave, don’t you?”

“What? Vince, that doesn’t matter, I’m trying to tell you -”

“I know what you’re trying to tell me. It’s okay, you think I’m nuts, everyone does. Jimmy thought I was nuts last night when I told him I didn’t want the money, you think I’m nuts because I took you away from this perfect life, and, and,” he is sobbing now, his shoulders are heaving and his fist is clenched tightly.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“It’s nothing,” he says.

“What does Jimmy have to do with this?”

“Don’t play stupid! He comes here all the time, you’ve seen the money, you’ve heard the yelling, don’t you play stupid, damnit!” he is screaming at me.

“Vince. Tell me what is wrong.” I try to calm him down, but he starts pacing.

“I love her, I really do love her…” he is being hysterical now.

“Who do you love?” I ask.

“I love my daughter Emma, I love her so much.” He falls to the floor. “When Karen and I broke it off, she left me with the kid, she left me with this beautiful little girl that didn’t have anything to do with my scum life. Karen, she got to get away, she’s a pushover business woman now and so everyone pitied me and I got the child support. Emma could have been such a good girl, she was beautiful. I really did love her…”

My head is spinning, I sit down on the ground and look him in the eyes as he uncovers his past, spitting out the words like they would slowly kill him if he keeps them in any longer.

“So Emma just left. As soon as she was about 15 she left me, and I didn’t blame her at all, in fact I was glad she wasn’t there to see the way I was for any longer. It killed me! So I didn’t tell anyone, anyone except Jimmy, he’s the middle man between Karen and I and he brings me the child support every month. I know its because Karen doesn’t want to involve other people, she’s hiding something from them and me and I don’t even want to know, I’ve never wanted to know. Well, the government never found out that Emma left. Karen either. Jimmy always wants me to start up a drug dealing line with him, but I always just save it. I would give it to Emma, but you don’t understand, I need it, and I…I don’t know where she is. I can’t tell Karen because she’d be heartbroken.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, he began to resemble a husband and a father, his face looking older than I thought and his hands warmer. The girl‘s face on the wall in the basement comes seeping into my mind, her soft curls and tired face. I begin to see the heaviness in her eyes. “Vince… I don’t understand…”

“ So last night Jimmy was bugging me again for the drug dealing, and all I could do was think about Emma… And you. And how you’ve been so nice to me, and I don’t know why… So I thought maybe Emma would give me another chance. Or at least maybe I could give her something that she needed, maybe some cash or something. I told Jimmy I was going to send it to her, I was going to get the government to track her down so that they would stop sending me child support. I couldn’t take it anymore. I’m a terrible, terrible man and I can’t accept the way that I am. That‘s always been the problem…” He buries his face in his hands and whimpers.

I sit beside him and put my hand on his shoulder, tears streaming down my cheeks. “You love her, and I know you do,” I say. The rain slows and the wind that is howling calms down as the pale orange horizon begins to peak through the silhouettes of trees. His eyes are transparent.

“I’m sorry. When I saw you walking back from school that one day, I - something in me snapped and I thought of Emma.” I hug him until the heaving stops, and my breathing slowly rests with his heartbeat. I remember so vividly the day that it all changed. I remember his cloudy face through the glass of the windshield, I could barely distinguish his eyes from the rocks in the gravel that I was silently kicking. I was thinking about Meriella and how I wished she would have waited to walk back home with me since I was only in my meeting with Mrs. Wilson for about ten minutes. Mrs. Wilson told me that afternoon that I was failing her English class, and all I could think about was Meriella’s impatience and the grief it would cost my parents to tell them their perfect daughter was failing. I remember the self pity, me, me, and me. I kicked away the rocks in my path like I kicked away Vince’s abnormal staring. I can remember it like an old family story or a scrap on my knee. The image is systematic and haunting, it is always right there to hold my hand and let me know the mistakes that I’ve made infused with the rough unpredictability’s that you cannot control, perfect daughter or failing student. How quickly your thoughts can change. The ease in his arms as he dragged me into his car is what I remember the most. But now I can put away the image and let it fade away. Eventually I fall asleep, right there on the cold wooden floor, exhausted from the truth.

When I wake in the morning I am in my cot, and I wonder if I dreamt the entire night. I run upstairs, and the room is empty. I shout for Vince, but he isn’t there. There is a note on the counter that reads:

I claim to have loved and lost many people in my life
We must see that they are gone to see them at all. I am now painfully aware of myself…
Intensely awake with reason and presence
By your acceptance of me,
I have hope for myself.
Thank you.
Vince

I fold up the letter and walk downstairs, not knowing what to do with myself. I notice that the picture of the little girl is gone, leaving a bare white mark on the wall and oddly a sharp pain in my heart. I put the letter under the secret compartment in the floor board, along with my old life. I close the hole and walk away from the abandoned house, looking back ever so often. It was always abandoned, just like Vince. The leaves are burnt orange, falling around my feet, and I repeat Vince’s words in my head over and over as I walk slowly down the dirt road that is five miles from home. I have hope for myself. Painfully aware. Intensely awake.