I remember seeing it on the wall in a Walmart. I always liked to look at the missing kids and their names, as if I would see someone who I know and it would turn into this whole thing. What I never expected was to see a girl who had gone missing roughly 11 years ago.
She had her brown hair in one of those layered ponytails where not all the hair is in the ponytail and a cute pale pink dress on. It looked like a school photo. The paper said her name was Natalia Davis. I had contorted my face at that, as the name sounded so familiar. Like it was in memories I didn’t have access to. I read the blurb of text, which was the longest out of the papers there. ‘Natalia was last seen on July 4th, 2011. She has been reported to be taken from her parents by a white female, and put into a car being driven by a white male. If you have any information please call…’ I had stopped reading when I noticed the age-progressed photo in the corner. She had long hair, the same shade of brown as the little girl.
It was like staring in a mirror. The face shape, the eye and hair color, hell even the generic grey t-shirt put on every edited photo looked like a shirt I had at home. The only different was that my hair was shorter then the photo. I didn’t notice the fact I was shaking until I heard my mom call me from a few checkouts away. Without thinking, I snapped a picture of the poster and walked towards where my name was called.
It was a silent ride home. It was always always silent with my mom, but this was different. I was still shaking and I assumed my face was pale.
I shielded my phone screen from my mother and looked up the name. Of course, the first thing that came up was the girl. Apparently it was a cold case from a small town in upstate New York; a girl that was sitting with her parents was snatched by a woman, drugged, and taken into a van where she and a man drove off. The van didn’t have a license plate and was found abandoned near state borders between New York and Vermont. After that, every trace of Natalia and the two people who took her was gone. It was tragic, and everyone but her parents assumed she was dead. I read every article that was written about it and stumbled upon the photo again. The age-progressed one, the one I could recreate with a wig and an edited background. I saved the photo and sent it and the original poster to my best friend. If anyone could talk about this with me and keep it secret, it was them.
Before I could see their response, the car screeched to a halt. I snapped my head up and to my mom in the driver’s seat. She was gripping the steering wheel so hard her knuckles were turning white. She turned her head to me and grabbed my phone. I yelped out something of a protest but it was too late.
“You know, don’t you?” she asked while staring at my text. I nodded, stopped, and shook my head.
“I don’t remember anything about a Natalia Davis, though. I feel like if it happened when I was five I would remember it.”
My mom (“mom”?) let out a slight laugh. It scared me.
“Trauma response, I assume. Or just memory erasure. We did, after all, give you chloroform to make you sleep until we could get a new car. But,” she grabbed my hand and held it. “I’m so glad we did it.”
I pulled my hand away and pushed myself as far back as possible away from her. I didn’t know what to do. What I wanted to do was tuck my knees into my chest and cry. So I did the next best thing. I opened my car door and ran to a fence. I jumped it hoping whoever’s backyard this was wouldn’t mind a teenager asking to use their phone. I banged on their back door, letting myself cry finally. The door opened to a bewildered man who was still in his sleep clothes. I sniffled and wiped my eyes.
“Can I use your phone to call 911?”
He fumbled awkwardly for his cell phone and handed it to me with the emergency call screen open. I sucked in a breath and entered the three numbers.
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” I took another breath.
“My name is Rue Parker, or I thought it was, but I think I might be this missing kid from New York…”
It was a long afternoon that day. At some point while on the phone, my “mom” banged on the guy’s door. He kept her there at the house until police showed up. He was super nice too. He told me he had a sister who went missing but was found dead, so he was more then happy to help me. My “mother” was arrested on the spot, and I was taken to the police station while they waited to contact my real parents. That was weird to think about, but my DNA matched Natalia’s.
As I’m writing this, I am home with my family. My real family. I still don’t understand much of everything that happened. My mother (my biological one, she smells like cookies all the time and gives the best hugs) got me into therapy to try and unlock memories of being this other girl, this Natalia Davis. But I’m Rue. It’s hard and it feels like I had two lives dissolved at the same time. All because I wanted to go to Walmart with my mother.
But hey, at least those age-progressed photos are accurate!