CHAPTER SEVEN
“What do you mean your father is missing?” Babel’s mother asked him.
“You haven’t heard from him have you?”
“Babel, I haven’t spoken to your father in over a year.”
Babel didn’t respond to that. He knew his mother and father hadn’t spoken in quite some time but he had no idea that it had been that long. “I just thought maybe he might have contacted you, if nothing else to pass on a message to me. He and I were supposed to have dinner at his house tonight.”
“Honey, I’m sure your father is just fine. Maybe he went out for a walk and ran into someone he knew. You know how your father is. He didn’t speak much to me during our marriage but he sure can talk someone’s head off when wants to. I’m sure your father is fine and will be along soon.”
“I’m sure you’re right. I’ll let you go. I just didn’t know if you’d heard from him. I’ll wait here and hopefully he’ll turn up.” He told his mother he loved her and ended the call.
He waited for another thirty minutes. His father still did not show. He went back through his father’s house to see if maybe his father had left a note for him that he didn’t see the first time. He checked the kitchen counters, the front of the fridge, and then moved to his father’s desk in the living room. There was nothing.
Then, he noticed something. On the desk was a picture of the Taj Mahal in India. What drew Babel’s attention to the picture is that it was in a frame.
His father had a box that contained all of the photos of places that he had been. Babel seemed to remember having seen the photo of the Taj Majal before but it was in the box, not on his father’s desk. His father was very private about his military life and did not leave pictures lying around. And he definitely did not put them in frames.
He picked the photo off the desk. At first he saw nothing unusual about the photo other than it was framed. He turned the frame around to the back looking for something there. There was nothing.
Out of curiosity, Babel slid the photo out of the frame. On the back of the photo was written the word Home.
“Home?” Babel asked himself. “What does that mean?”
He put the photo back in the frame and started to search the house again for a note. After thirty minutes of searching he came up with nothing.
Frustrated and concerned, he walked back into the living room. He grabbed the photo of the Taj Majal from his father’s desk and sat down on the couch. There were people in the photo but the photo was old and slightly fuzzy. He couldn’t make out who the people were.
He looked at the photo for a few more moments, looking for something he was missing. He didn’t see anything.
He took the photo out again and looked at the word Home. It was his father’s handwriting. He thought for a while on what that could mean but came up with nothing.
He set the photo down next to him and then slouched down on the couch, propping his feet up on the coffee table. As he did, he recalled how much his mother disliked feet on her coffee table. His father thought that if he couldn’t use a piece of furniture in a manner of his choosing, that piece of furniture wasn’t worth buying in the first place. He felt this way especially strong when it came to coffee tables and his feet. Perhaps that was why his mother disliked feet on her table so much.
Babel decided that he would wait for his father at his father’s house, rather than going back home. He would stay the night if need be. Hopefully his father would be returning soon.
Babel laid his head back on the cushions of the couch. One moment he was looking up at the ceiling thinking that his father needed to paint and the next moment he was waking up to sunlight pouring into the living room.
Babel blinked his eyes several times and sat up. The lamp that he had turned on next to the couch was still on. He rose from the couch and walked around the house looking for his father. His father was not there.
His watch showed that it was a little past seven thirty in the morning. He knew his mother would be awake. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and called her.
“Good morning, dear.” Her voice was clear which meant she had been up for a while.
“Good morning, Mom.”
“Your dad never showed up last night, did he?”
“No, he never did. I’m worried. It’s not like Dad to just vanish and not let anyone know.”
“That doesn’t sound like him.” his mother agreed. “Did you check for a note?”
“I checked but I didn’t see one. I did find something strange. On his desk was a framed photo of the Taj Mahal. When I opened the frame, the word Home was written on the back of the photo in Dad’s handwriting. I…Mom are you still there?” His mother didn’t answer. “Mom…” he repeated.
“I’m here, honey. Do you have the picture?”
“Yes, I have the picture. I…”
“Don’t lose it.” his mother cut him off. “I’m coming to see you.”
“What are you talking about? You live in New York.”
“I’m leaving now. Meet me at the airport in three hours.”
“This doesn’t make any sense.”
“Babel. I am your mother and I’m coming to see you. Now, if you don’t want to leave your mother
