“Have you seen Chloe?” I ask. “I thought she’d be home from school by now.”
It’s an hour since the end of school and my daughter, is not back yet.
I phone a friend whose son is in Chloe’s class. “Have you seen Chloe?”
She says she hasn’t seen Chloe since yesterday.
Oh man, where could she be? I start to feel unease rising in my chest. Where is she? I know the moment I see her everything will be all right.
I phone another friend.
“Have you seen Chloe? She’s not home from school yet.” I can hear the panic in my voice now. Cold fingers have grabbed my throat. There’s a knot in my gut. Twisting, turning, making me feel sick. Where can she be?
“Mum, where are my new trainers?” Chloe shouted from the shoe cupboard. “They’re not in here!”
“I don’t know,” I shouted back, “They’re your shoes. Try under your bed.”
Three minutes and some stair stomping later she reappeared in the kitchen wearing her trainers looking pleased with herself.
“Found them,” she beamed, “Can we go now?”
Tonight was a big night for her. It was the Year 6 Leavers disco at her school and Jack had asked her to go with him. She had liked Jack for ages and was super excited to get there.
“You look great,” I told her, “Let me take a picture!”
“Mum! We haven’t got time.” She screwed up her face cutely, trying to get her own way. “Come on!”
“All right madam, calm down, let me get my coat on.”
I took the picture and went to get my coat. She did look great. Shame her father wasn’t around to see her looking so beautiful. God, she was growing up fast. She was just five when he left us and just starting at the school she was preparing to leave now. She was clever. At least her dad left her with that. He was always the clever one, the one with brains. “Let’s just hope she has your looks and my brains,” he used to joke when she was a baby. I guess he got his wish, she is beautiful and smart and I’m so proud of her.
“Right you, let’s go and get you to your disco.”
“Have you seen Chloe?” I ask.
No, the school say, she was in all day and there are no after school clubs. We don’t know where she is.
I am scared now. The knot in my gut has twisted tighter, so tight it hurts.
I start to pray.
God let my Chloe be safe, let me find her, please God.
I realise this is the first prayer I’ve said since Chloe’s dad left us, the day my faith in God shrivelled. Not died, but certainly forgotten. It was like I put God in a small box in my head, then put the box in a draw and shut it. Now I want to open the draw and get God out of his box so the he can find Chloe. Where is she?
I start looking in the streets. I trace the route she takes to school. I can’t see her anywhere. I go closer to home and start knocking on doors. “Have you seen Chloe?” but no one has.
Time begins to feel strange. I feel strange. One hour becomes two, now three and four so quickly it’s like I’ve been standing still while the world kept on spinning.
I phone the police, they come round. It’s now mid-evening and I am very scared. I try to stop myself thinking but I can’t help it. What I am thinking is what might be happening to Chloe right now. I can see her in some awful dirty place where some awful dirty old man is doing things to her; awful dirty things that make me feel sick. A cinema screen plays these images in front of my eyes. I stare at the police officer without seeing her. I see my beautiful Chloe screaming, begging him to stop.
The police are looking. They have helicopters and dogs, lots of manpower. They say they will find her. Please God let them find her.
I am losing grip on what is real. The cinema screen plays the terrible film; I rock backwards and forwards. I feel very odd. I step outside myself and see I’m crying, rocking, hugging my missing daughter. My fear and desperation rise to an unbearable pitch. I flee to a place where I am blind and deaf to everything except my pain, my grief, my panic, my loss; where everything else is forgotten. My fear has obliterated the future, rendering the past meaningless; all I have left is this present moment, standing in an empty space, outside time, outside movement, outside life. I look into the void.
I vomit. It hurts. The acrid smell and the burning at the back of my mouth bring me back. I just went to the brink.
“Mum, can I go to the cinema with Jack next Saturday?”
“To see what?”
“High School Musical. Jack’s dad says he will drop us in town and give me a lift home” Chloe said.
“I guess so.” I told her. Secretly, I was pleased she was making friends with Jack. He was a nice boy; always polite whenever I saw him and his parents seemed really nice.
Jack was the first boy that Chloe had been “friends” with. I told her that she probably wasn’t quite old enough yet to have a proper boyfriend she squirmed with embarrassment. But, Jack was nice and they hung out with each other either at the local shopping centre on a Saturday morning as I mooched round the shops, or at the cinema.
Chloe was gaining her independence and slowly I was letting her. She was already better at managing her money than I was. She had a small income from doing chores around the house, which supplemented her pocket money, and she dealt with it maturely, saving every week. She bought clothes and make-up mostly, never too much and always sale items. One day she would be an accountant or bank manager.
My hope has faded. Drowned by a tide of fear and dread. Incoming waters extinguished its flame. One day becomes two, now three and four and there is still no sign of Chloe. I watch the clock as I wait for news. But no news comes. No news is not good news; no news takes Chloe further from me. Each second ticks a step further. She is moving away from me. Sometimes as I watch these seconds tick the clock slows to an interminable pace. The second hand beats out a slowing rhythm, a pulsing heart counting down to death. My death or Chloe’s? Is she already dead? Where is she?
God where is she? Surely you can see her? Surely you know where she is? Why don’t you bring her back to me? Why are you doing nothing?
I appear on television. My voice catches as I read a statement the police wrote for me.
“Have you seen Chloe?” I ask. There is no panic in my voice. There is only a hollow sound, emptiness, blackness.
Now I am watching the news and I see myself. My eyes too are empty. They have no glimmer of hope or life left in them. They are holes.
I smiled and wave at Chloe. She made the slightest movements of her fingers as a concession to waving back. She turned back to look at the boys playing Joseph and the innkeeper.
“I’m sorry but there is no room at my inn” the boy said.
Chloe made a wonderful Mary! She remembered all her lines and the Sunday school teacher had told me afterwards that she would win an Oscar one day!
The morning service had been just right and all the kids in the church enjoyed it. Chloe said she especially liked the sermon that week, mainly because the vicar used a hand puppet to tell the children some funny Christmas related stories. Chloe was enjoying church and getting to know God for herself. I remember feeling so happy.
One week becomes two, now three and four. There is only now a still and certain darkness. The days blur, a haze of aching pain. The sharp horror is gone. I no longer wake with that split second amnesiac half dream that all is well. Even false hope has fled. I grieve. Days pass as the waves on the shore flick through the pages of history. Constant, reluctant, one after another after another. All the same. Wave of sadness after wave of sadness. Day of darkness after day of darkness.
I still pray.
But now the prayers I speak are not to a God whom I once loved and believed in, but to the air, the breeze, the birds, the trees. I speak them to myself, for myself. I don’t need a God anymore now. Everything I had that was worth protecting is gone. My husband, my daughter, my joy, my hope, my life. All gone.
Time marches onward. One month becomes two, now three and four. Time is the thief. If I could go back in time I would have my Chloe back. But I can’t, I won’t ever get her back. I look at the clock less now. Time is meaningless, I drift though it.
One year becomes two, now three and four. I still see her in my mind. She is unchanged, she hasn’t aged. I long for a different life, a life where I can watch the sorrows of her changing face. I dream of the soft look her eyes had once.
I can’t see the point anymore. I am numb. I am lost.
And so I reach for the bottle of pills.
