Hunting Annabelle, page 5
She turns on him, the lower-ranking officer forgotten like he never existed, and begins her spiel again. I raise my hand like I’m in school. “Where’s my backpack?” I ask the younger officer but he just hurries away. The plainclothes officer transfers us to a small room with a table and some chairs—is this an interrogation room?—and my mom and I are alone for a minute while he goes to get his “colleague” to “take some notes.”
My mom turns to me. “Sit down.”
I sit.
She remains standing. Turquoise tendrils flicker around her silhouette and fade into the space behind her.
I am afraid.
I smooth my hair with a damp palm and fold my hands on the worn honey-brown table. “It smells weird in here,” I whisper.
Her eyes flicker over my hair, my clothes, and then she discards me with her gaze. She looks around the room, examining the corners of the ceiling and then, weirdly, the underside of the table. She comes to stand near me.
“What did you tell the police?” she asks in a voice so low it’s almost a whisper.
I look up at her uncomprehendingly.
She snaps her fingers in my face. “Sean. What did you tell the police?”
“What do you mean? I told them what happened.”
“And what is that?”
“They didn’t tell you? But I thought—how did you know to come here?”
“You told them to call me.”
“I did?” I try to remember. “I need my backpack.”
“Your backpack? Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean? Does it have your meds in it?”
“I—no. Of course not. It has my sketchbook in it. My pencils.”
“Well, when did they take it from you?”
“I don’t remember!” I instantly regret the admission.
“You’re losing time.” She sighs and smooths an imaginary wrinkle from the arm of her plum-colored, tapered-legged suit. She’s straight from the hospital. I can smell it. Her hair is a perfect A-line bob, its lines even in every way.
One interesting fact about my mom that you’d never guess: she’s very religious, just like my grandparents. It’s weird on her, like a dress that doesn’t fit, but it’s how she’s always been. I don’t know how she reconciles her completely scientific approach to all problem-solving with her obsessive memorization of the Bible. I’ve never seen her pray in a moment of weakness or call a friend from church to solicit advice or company. It’s more like a second job to her. She goes to church twice a week, studies whatever they tell her to study, and believes rigorously in good and evil and the importance of atonement for sin. She’s really, really into sin. I mean, she’s opposed to sin. Not into it. To be clear, she’s interested in people not sinning, namely me.
The plainclothes detective returns with a woman also in a suit, albeit a less expensive one than my mom’s. It has a boyish look, with rolled sleeves and a roomy fit that emphasizes her athletic build. Both are blond fortysomethings; a matched set. They have that Texas suntanned look that comes from going to sporting events and doing water sports in the six-month summer. The woman’s bangs are teased into a style that tells you she’s a professional but also a sporty, fun lady. Her eyebrows are thick and bold, darker than I’d expect on a natural blonde. The man is seeping maroon, an aggressive, thrusting color; the woman leaks a bluish violet. Both of them have their personalities in check and contained; their auras are faint, the tendrils delicate around them. They have a tape recorder and warn us that they’re going to use it, only to aid their investigation or something since I’m not a suspect.
The woman has a story, I decide. I’d like to draw her. I want to capture the expression on her face. She’s professional and this is work time so she’s all business, but behind it there’s a heavy, searching expression. She’s carrying a burden. My mom has that same feeling about her; it’s because of me.
“Mrs....Soo?” the female detective tries, unsure about the pronunciation.
“Dr. Suh,” my mother corrects her. She leans forward in her most doctoral way. “Before we get you too worried, detectives, I should let you know that I have power of attorney. My son is mentally ill.”
She’s such a liar. “Mom—” I protest but she skewers me with a glare that sends my balls shrinking up into my body.
“I understand he claims to have witnessed an abduction,” she goes on. “But I want you to take his statement with a grain of salt. He’s a schizophrenic and can sometimes mistake his visual hallucinations for reality.”
“Mom!” I yell. All three of them stare at me.
The detectives move their stares back to my mom.
The woman says, “Ma’am, your son claims to have witnessed an abduction of a young lady he was on a date with.” She has been designated as the woman-to-woman conversationalist by some unspoken code of police telepathy.
My mom is unmoved by the show of sisterhood. Coldly she says, “My son doesn’t date. He is extremely shy and reclusive by nature and really wishes nothing more than to be left alone. However, he does get easily confused. It could be that he witnessed an argument between a couple and internalized it inaccurately. These things happen. Many schizophrenic hallucinations are extrapolated from real events.”
I have to take a deep breath and close my eyes or I’m going to yell at her. A lot.
“Mom,” I say through clenched teeth. “I was on a date, and she was abducted.” I hate the word. It’s too clinical. She was taken screaming. There shouldn’t be an easy word for it.
She stares at me for a long moment. “Let’s call Dr. Beck. We’ll get you in for an emergency session tomorrow. You need your evening meds. I’m sure you’re experiencing disorientation—”
I appeal to the cops. “Her name is Annabelle Callaghan. Did you look her up? She’s a real person. She goes to UT. She’s a med student.”
The woman tells my mom, “She is a real person, ma’am. We have made inquiries. We spoke with her roommate. She lives in an apartment off campus.”
I seize onto that. “You see? Finally.”
The male cop says, “She told her roommate she would be out of town for a week or two, visiting family.”
I frown. Annabelle hadn’t mentioned anything about that to me. Actually, I remember her telling me to call her on Saturday. Right? Why would she suggest I call her on a day she knew she wouldn’t be home?
He continues. “What time exactly did you say this happened, Sean?”
“I don’t know. It was dusk. I remember that the light was dimming.”
“Dusk.” He glances at his partner. “When did we get the call?”
“I’ll have to look,” she says. She starts paging through her notebook.
“How long did you wait before you called us?” he asks me.
My hands fly up in a gesture of helplessness. “However long it took me to run around, look for the truck, then head across the street to the gas station. Five, ten minutes?”
“Eight forty-five,” the lady detective says, reading from her notebook. “That’s when he called. He called 911 and was transferred to the station by the dispatcher.”
They share a quick look. “What time would you say dusk would have been?” he asks her.
“Eight?” she guesses. “At this time of year, maybe seven forty-five? We can easily check.”
They look at me. I look back and forth between them. “What?” I ask.
“Are you sure it was dusk when she was abducted?” the woman asks. “Think carefully. You said there were taillights.”
“I’m pretty sure,” I say, becoming less sure the more they look at me like that.
I feel my mom open her mouth to speak, but the male detective beats her to the punch. “Well, I think we’ve got what we need for now,” he says. “We’ll be in touch.”
“So how will you look for her?” I ask them. “Will you start with the white truck? You can access DMV records, right? You can look up all the white trucks in the area, see if—”
“Sean,” he says, “why don’t you get a good night’s sleep? Go home and take your medication, like your mother says. We’ll touch base with you tomorrow.”
“Sleep? Seriously? That’s what you’re telling me to do?”
“There’s nothin’ here for you to do, buddy. I promise you we’re takin’ your report seriously. Just leave it in our hands.” He displays his manly palms. I look down at my own hands; they’re covered in faded Magic Marker drawings and black jelly bracelets that have been twisted into weird rings and chains. The cops and my mom are looking at my hands, too. I can imagine them thinking the word freak. I know it’s not normal for guys to wear jelly bracelets. I know nothing about me is normal. The man’s maroon aura turns slightly redder and flares out from his head. He stares at me in a smart, searching way that contradicts his football-and-beer exterior. “You had any problems like this before, Sean?”
“Like what?”
My mom answers for me. “We’ll be available to help in any way we can,” she says. She stands. I follow suit. The cops’ eyes follow me and my stomach executes a slow, unstable somersault.
Then my mom and I are in her Audi, speeding along the highway, headlights flashing past us silently. The car is like a soundproofed tank, blocking out all road noise and vibrations until it seems like we’re in a tiny room and the windshield and windows are just televisions with no sound.
“I need my backpack,” I say into the silence.
She opens her mouth and closes it again. It makes a little smacking sound, almost like a kiss. I look at her, surprised by the hesitation of the gesture, and her aura is a sickly, putrescent brownish aqua. Unconsciously I reach out, wanting to touch the vapors, and she flinches away from my hand. I pull my hand back into my lap and look out the window, stung, feeling like a little boy.
“This is not good,” she says in a voice that is rough and low. “What have you done?”
“I haven’t done anything.” My voice is weak. The words falter. I don’t sound like I’m telling the truth; I sound afraid.
She presses a hand to her mouth. Is she going to cry? Is it that bad, being the mother of a monster? Her hand is beautiful, sinewy and delicate like the hand of a pianist. She wears no jewelry at all, and I always wish I could give her a ring to wear. Her hands were made to wield gemstones, maybe emeralds. My mother is beautiful in her own way, not quite feminine enough for current fashion ideals but smooth and catlike with long, slender arms and neck, aggressive jawline and stubborn brows.
I’ve upset her with this. I feel bad. I’ve upset her enough over the years. This is the last thing she needs. My stomach fills up with nauseous guilt, something I’ve felt so many times before but always with good reason. After the nausea always comes a barrage of memories, visual and visceral; usually these memories are of horrible things that make the guilt worse and worse until I have to run to the bathroom and throw up, but this time the memories are just of Annabelle, clean and simple: her hair, her collarbones and shoulders, the line of her jaw.
My mom draws in her breath. “You’re losing time,” she says, her voice shaky. “You’re losing more time than you know.”
“It’s the drugs,” I say. “What do you expect? They’ve always messed me up like this.”
She shakes her head. She won’t say anything else. Without understanding why, my body brims over with shame and self-hatred, like these feelings are overflowing out of her and into me. Outside the window, the dark Texas night flies by. Everything still looks foreign to me here. The billboards are too high, the buildings too far apart.
At home, in my bedroom where Annabelle stood just twelve hours earlier, I close the door softly and slide down to the floor in front of it. I bury my face in my knees. From the hallway, my mom’s voice calls out, “Take your meds!”
If I were better, manlier, I would punch a hole in the wall and roar at her to go shove it. I would go out into the night and hunt for Annabelle until I fell down with exhaustion. Instead, I head into the bathroom. I take a piss and turn to the sink, reaching automatically for the place where the pillbox always, always is. My hand grasps nothing but air.
I snap my eyes down. The pillbox is off to the side, at least six inches from its usual spot at a forty-five degree angle to the sink, just next to the soap dish on the right-hand side of the faucet. Tentatively, as though the box has become a dangerous, alien object, I stretch out a hand for the cool plastic. I scoot it into its usual spot.
Had I put it back wrong after taking my morning meds? Doubtful. Had my mother moved it? She always leaves it in the same spot on Sunday nights, in the extreme middle of the counter where I can’t miss it, as though she’s afraid I won’t see it and will stop taking my medication altogether. As far as I know, she’s never messed with the pills except on Sundays.
I pick up the box and look inside. I count the pills. Nothing is missing.
In a flash, I remember Annabelle. She’d used the bathroom this morning. Had she moved this while she was washing her hands? That has to be it. She must have been worried about getting soap on the box and had scooted it away. Embarrassment flashes through me. Had she thought it was weird that I had this? Had she wondered what was wrong with me? Maybe she thought I had some incurable disease. Maybe that’s why she was so nice to me. What if it was a pity date? What if—
Shut up, Sean, it doesn’t matter if she likes you or not. She’s probably dead, attacked, raped, God knows what, my conscience screams, and I’m instantly filled with horror and agony and, for some reason, guilt.
I take my meds and stay up all night drawing picture after picture of her, trying to recapture the moments I’d already drawn and lost, tearing up one after another in frustration as they fail to properly capture her sweetness, her wholesomeness, and her glittering bronze eyes. I fall asleep in the early morning on the bed where she’d sat the day before, dangling a white sneaker and running her fingertips lightly across my cheek.
* * *
I’m awakened a few hours later by my mom banging on my door. “We have to go to Dr. Beck’s. Get dressed. I have preop at noon.”
I stare at the popcorn ceiling.
Thoughts pop into my head, unwelcome but as clear as spoken words: it’s been well over twelve hours since she was taken. She could be dead by now. Surely she’s been raped.
The second thought takes hold of me as an image. Beneath me, Annabelle’s eyes are closed and she’s kissing me with her hands in my hair. Then, like the souring of a fairy tale, the image changes and her face goes terrified. I’m still on top of her, but now I’m raping her and she’s screaming, crying, but there’s no one anywhere close to hear her.
I slap my cheek so hard my ears ring. I’m awake now.
I hurry to the bathroom. I can’t sit still another moment.
My mom is at the kitchen table with the cordless phone, the silver antenna jutting up from her profile like a spindly unicorn horn. It sounds like she’s juggling her schedule, moving meetings to tomorrow and asking another surgeon to take one of them off her hands. When she shoves the telescoping antenna back in and sets the phone aside, I ask her, “What are you doing home?”
She looks me over. “Have you showered?”
“No. Why?”
“Don’t you want to?”
“Stop, Mom, it’s not a symptom. I’m just worried about Annabelle.”
“Poor hygiene is a symptom of schizophrenia,” she reminds me.
“I know. God. I know.”
My mom is even shorter than Annabelle, who was—is—at least four inches shorter than me, but my mom always makes me feel like I’m looking up at her. Her color today is purple; it’s because she’s in a dominant mood. Red is mixing with her usual blue like it always does when she’s in the mood to control me. Brown swirls through it occasionally, like the edges of a rotting eggplant.
“Have you taken your meds?” she asks, which always pisses me off.
“Yes, Mother.”
She leads me out to her car. “Why are you home? Why are you doing this?” I ask as she starts the engine.
“I’m going with you to see Dr. Beck.” That’s all she’ll say on the ride over.
The Texas sky is blue and hot. I wonder in passing what Four Corners is like today.
Dr. Shandra is waiting for us in her arctic office. She smiles at my mom. “Hello, Dr. Suh.” She holds out a hand.
“Dr. Beck.” My mom shakes the hand with considerably less warmth and takes a seat on the sofa.
I sit on the opposite side of the couch. I cross my legs and one foot taps nervously in the air. I shouldn’t be here. I should be at the police station doing...doing what? What can I do?
Dr. Shandra sits across from us. “What brings you both to see me this morning?” She leans onto her elbow in her best I’m-here-to-help posture. Her lipstick is an interesting shade of orange-red today, made richer by the dark brown of her lips underneath.
My mom’s voice is matter-of-fact. “Sean had an incident yesterday. He called the police from Four Corners because he believed a young woman he’d been on a date with had been abducted.”
I have to hand it to Dr. Shandra; she absorbs this coolly. “Okay,” she says, and she looks at me as if to say it’s my turn to speak. Her smooth forehead reveals not a hint of trepidation, as though these are the most natural words that have ever been spoken in her office. It’s impressive.
My foot jiggles. I stare at it.
“Would you like to add to that?” she prompts. “Are you comfortable discussing this with your mother present?”
My mom’s aura flashes fluorescent magenta. She’s pissed.
