We can’t find our daughters. We search with flashlights in the woods. We look with friends and cousins and strangers for a tennis shoe, a set of keys or pieces of denim in the twigs. We think it’s Liam from across the street. We know their friend Sophia knows something. We suspect strangers with their kind words and supportive hugs. We attend a vigil. We are forgotten after a year.
We think we see Heidi sipping a peppermint mocha, juggling her chunky knit bag on her shoulder as we wait in line at the coffee shop. We could’ve sworn we saw Kayla, riding a bicycle, hair pulled up in a loose ponytail as we walked along the painted boardwalk in the park. We see their pictures hanging up on a billboard as we enter the grocery store. We have to believe they are somewhere.
We are separate, living in apartments nearby one another, away from a house drained of 9 pm meals after games, tight schedules and fast fashion in closets. We plan on how to tell them when they come back. We’ll tell them we tried. We’ll tell them we couldn’t get past the silent dinners, the silent bedrooms, the silent bed we unraveled every night for clues. We’ll tell them in a few weeks, a few months, a few years. We promise to tell them.
We receive a phone call. We jump with each ring. We want it to be Kayla telling us she’ll be home soon. We want it to be Heidi, late at night, wanting a ride home. We answer and it’s the police. We need you to come to Washington Park. We share a car for the first time. We say we miss this. We agree to see the lights like we used to do every year. We hold onto each other and say, it’s not them, it’s not them.
Pam Avoledo’s work can be found at pamavoledo.com