The summer I turned 10, my mother went missing.
One day, the same as any other, I woke up, took my packed lunch out of the fridge and went to off to school. Except it wasn’t a day like any other, because when I got home, my mother wasn’t there.
This in itself wasn’t too unusual, she had been plenty busy in the few months before her disappearance that she was out more often than not, so I didn’t suspect anything was wrong until dark rolled around and she still wasn’t home.
She had never left me home alone for so long, let alone the fact she hadn’t told me she would be late home. Usually she left a scrawled note, explaining to heat myself up some dinner, feed the cat, do homework, but there was nothing stuck on the fridge.
I did these things anyway, my sense of unease growing with each hour that passed.
I waited until I couldn’t wait anymore, and I went through the junk draw the find the small black telephone book mum kept in there. I thumbed the pages until I got to my nan, and with trembling hands, I dialed her number.
I try to not reminisce too much on that morning. What I did, what i didn’t do.
At that stage, mum and I weren’t getting on the best. Once upon a time, we were inseparable, best friends who did everything together, who told each other anything and everything.
And I know you’re probably thinking, well you’re growing up, no nearly teenage girl is going to be best friends with their mum, it was a natural part of growing up.
And that’s true.
But it wasn’t me pulling away from her, it was her distancing herself from me.
It started just after her and dad divorced.
She had requested full custody, and he hadn’t fought back. She told me we were going to live in a lovely house out in the country. A fresh start, she said.
The house was lovely, but it was lonely.
And it was only a few weeks we were there before mum started acting differently.
I left behind all my friends, everything I’d ever known. At school I had trouble making friends. At home.. Mum was distracted. She spent a lot of time in her room, with the door locked.
Sometimes I could hear her sobbing, and I would gently knock on the door, asking if she was okay, if I could come in, but she never replied. She would just kept crying softly, and eventually I would walk away, my own tears hot on my cheeks.
The next morning she would act like everything was fine, never making a mention of the night before. But even though she could fake a smile, I just knew things were different. She hardly embraced me, hardly talked to me. Apart from the basic things like cooking and laundry, I could’ve been a house guest in her home, a stranger.
As an adult, after lots of therapy, I can see she was holding me at arms length, but as an almost 10 year old kid, I didn’t understand it, all I knew was it was as if my mum didn’t like me anymore.
I didn’t have any friends to talk to, my dad would call once a month, asking the same mundane questions. Once I asked him if mum was okay, like actually okay, and he paused for the longest time. Then he gave a nervous laugh and changed the subject.
The next time I spoke to him, mum was already missing.
After I phoned my nan, who in turn called the police, I sat out on the front porch step, blanket wrapped around me, and waited.
The headlights flashed and for a brief moment, I pretended that it was mums car coming down the driveway, but I knew the headlights were much too low for her jacked up jeep.
The police had a look around, asked me questions I couldn’t answer. I had no idea what she would be doing today, she had never said.
I explained that I last saw her that morning, sitting in her armchair in the lounge. She was dressed in her exercise clothes, black pants and a t-shirt. She was writing in her diary. She seemed normal.
I didn’t tell them that we didn’t speak to each other,that the last thing my mother had heard from me was the slamming of the front door as I had left that morning for the school bus.
My nan took me back to her house, tucking me up on the couch with a blanket that smelled like mothballs.
She rang around on the phone, I could hear her through the partially closed door to the kitchen.
As I laid my head against the pillow, listening to my nan asking if anyone had seen or talked to Tracey today, I imagined my mum, and I fell asleep dreaming about her.
In my dream, we were happy.
The police took me to the station, and interviewed me properly.
There were no signs of disarray in the house, no signs of a struggle. Mum had simply vanished.
The police asked about a boyfriend. There was no men, at least that I knew of. And mum hadn’t kept in touch with many of her old friends, but since we moved, she had seemed to make a few new ones. Not that she had confided in me, of course, I only knew because I had been home sick one day when someone had come over.
I was under strict instructions to stay in bed, stay in my room all day. But when I heard mum talking.. I was curious.
As I said, she never had many friends and I’d never known anyone to come over to visit. I couldn’t resist a sneak.
The woman was young, younger than mum. Even though I couldn’t see her face, I could just tell by the posture, the mannerisms. She was dressed in all black, a mini skirt, fishnets and red gumboots. A black baggy jumper, despite the summer heat. Her blue and green hair was in plaits.
I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but mum seemed upset. Her hands flew as she spoke in hushed whispers, an upset expression on her face. When she spotted me hidding at the top of the stairs, her face froze. Her eyes went from fear to anger, and I ran, actually ran, from my position to my room.
Mum had never laid a hand on me, not in my entire life. But in that moment, I could tell she wanted to kill me.
A few moments later I heard the front door close, my mums car starting up.
When she got home later that night, I was still in bed, feigning sleep. She didn’t stop to check as she walked past my room, like she would usually have done ,instead she simply closed my door with a firm click.
I never saw the girl again. And the next week, mum was gone.
So, to cut a long story short, my mum never came back. After a few weeks, the police pretty much stopped looking. They’d interviewed a lot of people, taking a keen interest in my dad, so I heard as I listened to my nan discussing it each night as if it was the evening news. And I guess for me, it was.
The police had mums case open, but explained there was little they could do without any evidence of an actual crime being committed.
Dad came to see me at nans, just the once. He was nervous and jittery, he looked like he’d aged 10 years in the last few months.
We made awkward small talk, siting around nans small table, snacking on her home made bisciotti and brewed green tea.
Dad told me that my mum loved me very much, and that she would be home soon.
My nan tutted at this, but I smiled at my dad, and said I know and I think she will too.
Dad nodded like I’d said the right thing, scanning my face intensely for any signs of deception that I thought otherwise.
Almost as an afterthought, he asked if I had a good birthday.
I thought about the day, it was sad, and despite nans best efforts, I spent the day miserable.
I told him I had a great time.
When he left, he told me he would be back next week, same time.
He never came back, and he never called me again.
Life wasn’t easy. But it wasn’t bad. A lot of therapy, I’ve been honest and faced my fears, the fact my mum could’ve just left on her own accord. She was sick of living with me, I know that, and I now know there was nothing I could have done to prevent or change anything that transpired. I was just a kid.
Last week I turned 30.
I’ve just gone through a nasty divorce, the cliche situation of a husband banging his secretary. Laughable, right?
Since I was on one income, supporting our daughter that my ex didn’t seem to give a shit about.
I was at a local market, selling some of the candles I’d started making when I met her. I was trying to get some extra income, trying to pay the rent of the shitty cottage we’d just moved into.
The cottage wasn’t much, a run down, weed infested dump and my daughter hated living out of town, but it was all I could afford. I tried to make my best out of a shitty situation, but I could feel her stare right through my fake laughs.
The woman was young, maybe in her mid 20s. She had that free vibe of being childless, being free of responsibility and for a moment it made me yearn for the time before, but instantly I regretted it. No matter how difficult life was, I was blessed to have my daughter. She made the hard days worth it. She made everything worth it.
The woman asked if I had been here before, and I told her no.
She mused I looked familiar, and did I think she looked familiar to me, too?
I shook my head, both irritated and mesmerized by her presence.
She shrugged then, and gave a happy, gleeful, laugh.
She brought one of my candles, and she held it right to her nose, smelling it the whole way she walked off.
When I got home, there was a big yellow envelope shoved into my mail box.
I felt an off feeling then. It was Sunday. No post came on the weekend. And once I pulled the package out to inspect it closer, I saw it had no stamps anyway. It was hand delivered.
I’d left Olivia at home, for a Pre teen, she was really mature and stuck to doing homework and watching TV while I was gone.
I asked her if she heard anyone outside earlier, but she shrugged and said she didn’t know.
The envelope was bulky, full of Polaroids.
I pulled them out one by one, scanning each thing quickly, my heart beat and confusion increasing with each piece I handled.
Photos of women, with the day and year written in blue pen scrawled on the back.
I did not recognize any of the women, until the last photo I pulled out, a photo of my mum.
Everything crumbled then.
It didn’t make sense. Who had left this, and why? There was no logical explanation. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to phone the police.
But then I read the back of the photo. The date my mum went missing. But also more letters, more words.
“We can help you not end up a photo in this pile. Tell your daughter to go to her bedroom. Then answer the door.”
Trying to keep the shake out of my voice, I asked if Olivia would mind going to her room for a bit. I had a friend I met at the market coming over, and I needed to talk to her in private.
Olivia gave me a strange look, but left without fuss.
Even though I couldn’t have guessed, when I saw the girl from the market at the door, I wasn’t particularly surprised.
She was beaming her big smile, and I felt my face clench in frustration at her apparent happiness.
“What the fuck is going on?” I hiss through clenched teeth, trying to keep my simmering anger down.
The girl grins, and repeats the part about keeping me safe, like the note had said.
She tells me a few things that don’t make sense, and gives me another piece of paper, this one outlining the ‘rules’.
I read the paper. I stare at the words. They are words, but I cannot get my brain to register them. It refuses.
“I don’t understand though.”
She laughed at that, wildly, unhinged. “That’s because it’s not upto you to understand. You follow the rules, you get saved. You don’t.. And your missing persons photo will be added to that ever growing pile.” her voice was sing song. “we are just the messengers, you know. Like, for whatever reason, you were chosen for this. It’s like a rebalncing, you know? It’s as simple as that.”
I dont say anything, and soon enough she leaves. I hear the door close. I don’t tell Olivia to come back down.
I stare at the paper in my hands, the one that tells me to save my own life, I must give another. I must give the life of my daughter, to save myself.
As Olivia sleeps, I watch her. I think when she was a baby. So tiny. So precious and just depending on me for survival.
I wonder if my mother thought those same things, as she weighed the choice in her own hands.
For the longest time, I couldn’t understand the night before my mum went missing. I’d heard her outside my door. Hovering. She wanted to come in. I wanted her to come in. But I never asked, and neither did she.
Eventually, her footsteps faded, and I drifted to sleep.
I wonder if I will see her soon.
I wonder if she will be waiting for me.
Tomorrow, when Olivia leaves for school, I leave too.
But I cannot take the same route my mother did. I cannot leave my daughter wondering.
So I’ve written this post, for when she’s older, maybe she will be scrolling reddit and come across this post. And just maybe, she will understand that her mother didn’t leave her, her mother just wanted to save her.