Still Missing

'That's great!' Yeah, now I can pee more during the day, I can actually eat when I'm hungry, and up until I had to talk about my dead daughter, I'd gotten that whole closet-sleeping thing down to a couple of times a week. Wasn't that great? But I choked back my bitter words--he was just trying to be nice, and who the hell was I kidding? I did need a shrink.

'You still there?' And then with a sigh he said, 'Crap, I'm sorry, Annie. I'm saying all the wrong things, aren't I?'

'No, no, it's not you, it's just, well, you know...stuff. So how are things going at the restaurant?'

'We have a new menu. You should come in sometime? Customers seem to like it.'

We talked for a while about the restaurant, but it felt like having one of our old conversations through a fun- house mirror--everything was distorted and neither of us knew which door was the safe one. I opened an unsafe one.

'Luke, I never said--and I know I should have before now--but I'm really sorry about the way I was to you when you first came to the hospital. It's just that--'

'Annie.'

'The guy who took me, he'd told me things, and...'

'Annie--'

'I didn't find the truth out until later.' When I kept refusing to see Luke, Mom wanted to know why. Then she told me not only did Luke not have a girlfriend, he actually held fund-raisers for searches at his restaurant with Christina right up until a week before I came home. Mom also told me the police questioned him for a few days, but he proved he was at the restaurant when I was abducted. She said that even after they let him go, a lot of people still treated him like he had something to do with it.

I remembered my reaction when The Freak told me Luke had moved on with another girl--while he'd actually been accused of hurting me and then kept trying and trying to find me. The least I could do was agree to see him.

I said, 'But then I made such a mess of the visit.'

'Annie! Sshhhhh, it's okay--you don't have to do this.' But I did.

'And then when you saw me at Mom's...' I didn't even know how to begin to explain what happened there. Only out of the hospital for two weeks, I was napping in my old room at my mom's when I heard voices in the kitchen and stumbled out to ask her and Wayne to keep it down.

Mom's back was to me as she stood at the stove with a big pot of something in front of her and a man next to her. The man, whose back was also to me, bent down as she fed him something from a spoon. I began to back out of the room, but the floor squeaked. Luke turned around.

Distantly I heard Mom say, 'Good, you're up just in time! Luke was just tasting some of my Spaghetti Surprise, and he wants the recipe for his restaurant. But I told him, if he wants it, he's going to have to name the dish after me.' Her husky laugh filled the air already heavy with oregano, basil, tomato sauce, and tension.

Luke's honest face had been one of the things I'd loved about him, and now it paled with shock. He'd seen me in the hospital, and I'm sure he'd seen my photo in the paper, but I'd lost more weight and in Wayne's old tracksuit I probably looked even thinner than I was. My eyes were ringed by dark circles and I hadn't washed or brushed my hair in days. Of course, Luke looked even better than I remembered. His white T-shirt set off the tan on his forearms and the muscles in his chest. His dark hair, longer than when I was abducted and perfectly tousled, shone in the kitchen's bright lights.

'I brought you flowers, Annie.' He waved a hand toward a vase on the counter full of roses. Pink roses.

'I put them in water for you, Annie Bear.' Mom was looking at the roses, eyes narrowed--slightly, not enough for anyone else to see, but I know my mother. They had been measured against her own roses and found wanting.

I said, 'Thanks, Luke. They're pretty.'

For a few seconds that felt like hours, the only sound in the kitchen was the bubbling of the sauce on the stove, then Wayne swaggered in and thumped Luke on the shoulder.

'Luke! Great to see you, boy. You staying for dinner?'

Mom, Wayne, and I looked at Luke as a flush rose in his face. He looked at me and said, 'If Annie--'

'Of course Annie wants you to stay,' Wayne said. 'Shit. Do the girl good to have some friends over.' Before I could say anything one way or another, Wayne had his arm around Luke's shoulders and was leading him out of the kitchen. 'Let me get your opinion on something....'

Mom and I were left staring at each other. 'You could have warned me he was here, Mom.'

'And when was I supposed to do that? You never leave your room.' She wobbled slightly and braced a hand against the counter.

Now I saw it--Mom's face wasn't just glowing from the heat of the stove. Her eyelids drooped slightly and one--the right one, as always--drooped lower. My eyes found what they were looking for behind the container of pasta but within reach, a glass of what I knew would be vodka.

I'd noticed that Mom's predilection for 'blurriness' seemed to have achieved new heights in my absence. After I'd been home for only a couple of days, I surfaced out of my bedroom when I smelled something burning. I discovered a batch of what I think were peanut butter cookies in the oven and Mom passed out in front of the TV, where they were replaying an interview with me--taken when I was just released and shouldn't have been talking to anyone. I had turned my face to the side so my hair fell like a curtain and shielded me from the camera. I turned the TV off.

Her pink robe--or, as she would say in a really bad French accent, her peignoir-- gaped, revealing the skin of her neck and the upper swell of her small breasts. I noticed that her skin, always her pride and joy, although there weren't many parts of her body she didn't consider her pride and joy, had begun to turn crepey. In her hand she gripped a vodka bottle--my first sign things had changed; she used to at least mix the stuff. She must have just fallen asleep, because the cigarette between her full lips was still burning. The ash at the end was over an inch long, and while I stood there it quivered, fell, and landed on her exposed chest. Transfixed by the cigarette cherry glowing closer to her lips, I wondered if she'd even wake up when it began to burn her, but I gently removed it. Without touching her, I leaned over and blew the ash from her chest, then threw the cookies out and went back to bed. I figured her drinking would abate some once I'd been home for a while.

Now, standing in her kitchen, she spotted my eyes on the drink and moved to stand in front of it. Her eyes dared me to say anything.

'You're right. Sorry.' It was just easier.

Not able to think of a graceful way to get out of it, I soon found myself helping bring dinner out to the table while trying to avoid Luke's eyes. His hands reached to take a hot bowl from me and I remembered those hands on me, then I remembered The Freak's hands on me, and I dropped the bowl. Luke's quick reflexes caught it right before it hit the table, but not before Mom noticed.

'You okay, Annie Bear?'

I nodded, but I was far from okay. I sat with Luke across from me and pushed the pasta around on my plate. I was all too aware of the clock above my head telling me I wasn't allowed to eat at this hour, and my empty stomach curled in on itself.

During dinner my stepdad was trying to tell Luke all about his latest business idea when Mom interrupted to ask Luke whether he noticed her use of fresh parsley in the garlic bread she'd baked herself. Oh, and did she mention the parsley was from her own garden? Wayne got another two sentences in, then paused to take a mouthful. Mom was off and running. She explained the finer points of creating the perfect spaghetti sauce, which seemed to involve her touching Luke's arm every twenty seconds and smiling up at him encouragingly when he asked questions.

After everyone else's plates were empty there was a pause in the conversation as they all focused in on my still-full plate. Then Wayne said, 'Annie's doing much better.' We all stared at him and I thought, Compared to what?

Luke said, 'Lorraine, that was amazing, and you're right, ours at the restaurant doesn't even come close.'

Mom tapped his arm and said, 'I told you, didn't I? If you're nice to me I might show you a few of my tricks.' Another throaty laugh.