Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Telephone (07/17/08)
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TITLE: Lost and Found and Lost | Previous Challenge Entry
By Alan Zimmerman
07/24/08 -
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“Hello.”
“Hello, Mrs. Barton? This is Detective Phillips.” He waited for a moment and then continued. “Sorry but there’s nothing to report on your daughter. I don’t want you to lose hope, but I have to tell you that after a week or two, the likelihood of a positive outcome starts to go down. But I want you to know that we aren’t leaving any stone unturned.”
“I know that, Detective. Thank you again for all you’ve done. Goodbye now,” and Millie Barton hung up the phone. It had been two weeks since her daughter Kathy had disappeared – vanished, really. The police called every morning but never had anything new to say – just that there was no trace of Kathy.
She looked at the pictures arrayed on the end table. Kathy at age twelve. Kathy’s graduation photo. Kathy in her wedding dress. “That’s where it all started going downhill,” she thought. “I never liked that husband of hers. And I was right. Ran off and left her with nothing but a pile of unpaid credit card bills.”
After Kathy’s husband left her, Millie took her in, but all those emotions in such a small house were difficult to bear. Millie didn’t blame her daughter for being so angry. Her whole life had been turned upside down. Millie never said anything, but Kathy knew that her mother blamed her for the failed marriage. She wished she would just say it and get everything out it the open. But now Kathy was gone. She said she was going for a drive – took the car and her purse – but everything else was still there. She couldn’t have left. It didn’t make sense. Then, the images came. Maybe she had been in an accident and the car was hidden by trees or bushes. Maybe she had been robbed and beaten. Maybe she had been …
“Oh stop it, just stop it,” Millie shouted to herself. “Stop thinking like that.” Then she started to pray as she had over and over again for the past two weeks. “Dear Lord in Heaven. I pray to You, I beg You, to keep Kathy safe. If You have taken her, my heart will be broken forever, but I will do my best to understand. But if not, if there’s chance, if there’s any hope that she’s not dead, be with her and protect her.”
The phone rang again. She nervously picked it up as she always did when it wasn’t her daily police update. “Hello,” she said, but there was no sound, only dead air. “Hello, is someone there?”
Another moment of silence and then, “It’s Kathy.” Millie recognized her voice after only two words.
“Oh, my God. Kathy, where are you?”
“I’m where you’ll never find me, so stop looking. Call off your posse, I’m not lost, I’m just gone.” Her daughter’s tone was harsh. She had heard it many times before.
Millie’s could feel her heart pounding and she said, “I have been worried to death. Are you all right? When will ...”
But Kathy cut her off. “When will you see me? Is that what you were going to say? How about never? I never want to see you again. Do you know why? Because I hate you. Understand? I hate you.” And with that Millie could hear the phone slamming down and the line went dead.
She sat there holding the telephone, the angry words still burning in her ears and piercing her heart. She sobbed uncontrollably as the cruel phone call echoed against the memories of other arguments. She didn’t know when she had been so hurt. All she had done was open up her heart and her home to her daughter. Then, through her tears she was able to whisper, “Thank you, Lord. Thank you so much.”
Kathy was alive.
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