The weekend arrived and, after a late night at prom, the kids were sleeping in. Shane took that as the perfect opportunity to discuss the future with Carrie.
“Honey, we’re both getting older and I’m worried something will happen to us before we make plans.”
‘Shane, you’re always worrying,” Carrie lightly teased.
“Yes, but the last thing I want is for the kids to start bickering and arguing if something does happen. Who gets what, who stays, who leaves, who is in charge.”
“You’re right. So what’s your opinion on the matter?”
“It’s such a hard choice. No matter who we choose, the others will be hurt.”
Carrie paused for a minute before continuing. “Well, how about we donate the house to the city and none of the kids will get anything?”
Shane choked on his food before realizing that Carrie was just joking.
“Okay, okay,” he laughed. “I’ll think on it some more.”
After receiving an invitation for a party at Gene’s the adult Avendales decide to head out and have some fun, leaving the teens to fend for themselves for the night. Back at the house, each of the kids are engaged in their own activies. Uvie is struggling with her homework, unsure what to make of this bloody math. Gnomes only need to be able to count how many trees they need for a village or how many ingots for a sword. What do I need to know algebra for?
Verne stargazes (the one activity he finds he can look past the outdoors for) and Vesper works on her art, again.
Frustrated, Uvie decides to go outside and get some fresh air. Maybe the fairies could help her find the right answers. As she steps out the front door, she notices a stray cat on the lawn. Overcome with a desire to touch it, she walks towards it.
However, the cat is not interested in her and takes off over the bridge. Uvie follows, focused on her goal, never noticing the shadowy figure behind her. She reaches the dead end on the outskirts of town before something sparkly catches her eye. “Oooh, goblin gold,” she thinks excitedly to herself and heads towards them, cat forgotten.
That’s when everything went black.
“Dad you need to come home,” Verne sounded panicked on his phone call to his father late that night.
‘Slow down, what is it?”
“I know you’re at that party but Uvie’s missing. We don’t know when she disappeared but we can’t find her anywhere. And her phone goes straight to voicemail.”
Shane quickly hung up, grabbed Carrie, and walked a block before catching a taxi. As soon as they walked in the door, both Shane and Carrie looked around the room for Uvie, hoping that this was just a cruel prank by the twins.
They knew when they saw their faces that it was no joke. Vesper shrugged her shoulders, at a loss for words for once in her life and Verne fought back tears at his distress. Shane immediately phoned the police and was informed that an officer was on his way.
When the officer arrived, Shane explained that his oldest daughter was missing and that an investigation needed to be started immediately while the rest of his family looked on from the foyer.
“How long has she been gone,” the deputy asked. When Shane clarified that she had been home when they left for Gene’s party , the deputy explained that a missing person’s report couldn’t be filed until after 24 hours.
“Look, she was probably upset and ran away to ‘prove something’. That’s the way of teens. She’ll likely turn up later tonight or tomorrow.”
“No, you look. You don’t understand Uvie. Hell, I barely understand her and she’s my daughter. She has a very…different outlook on life. She probably went searching for fairies or trying to help the gnomes recover their woodland home. She’s really naïve and there is no telling what she might believe from a stranger.”
At the mention of fairies, the deputy couldn’t help but laugh. He tried to mask it as a sneeze but failed miserably.
“Alright you insensitive, incompetent asshole; you WILL find my daughter and you will start looking tonight.”
“What do you want me to do,” the officer yelped. Clearly, he was a rookie and had been sent out here as an easy first assignment.
“I don’t care if you have to lie on the paperwork, falsify the report, or give your superior a blowjob. You will start your investigation immediately. Or I will have your job.” With that, the deputy left. Shane was partially embarrassed by his behavior but he needed his daughter found. Soon.
The Avendales tried to maintain a semblance of normality. Verne took over caring for Rump as he felt sorry for the poor, abandoned pup. He found that the fake happiness and smiles he shared with Rump slowly started enabling him to smile for real.
Vesper, of course, retreated into her art. She stopped sharing her creations with her family, hiding them during their progress and destroying them when they were finished. Shane and Carrie both often found themselves lost. They would be in the middle of doing something and zone out, only to find themselves, minutes later, standing in the same spot, as if they had been placed on pause while the world went on around them.
It was during one of these times, while Shane stared down at his cereal, not caring that it got soggy, that his phone rang.
It was the police. He called Carrie out into the living room. His beautiful wife, once so involved in fashion and chic herself, rarely showered these days, rarely did her hair, and always had dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep.
“What is it,” she asked him, sounding tired and emotionless. She had cried all her tears already.
“Honey, it was the police. They want us to come down to the station. They, they think they found Uvie.”
“Oh my God, is she alright?” Panic and relief flooded her at once.
“Carrie,” he paused, his heart breaking all over again. “They want us to identify a body.” He grabbed his wife into a hug and held her as close as possible, feeling her physically deflate as her hope once again left her. They showered and dressed, making their way to the police station to live every parent’s worst nightmare.
Walking in, they were shown to a smile, carpeted room with a window to the morgue. Even with the hospital curtains, the sterility and tragic nature of the room wasn’t hidden. They held hands in their misery, taking small comfort in the fact that they had each other, even in this time. Finally, the body was wheeled in. Shane and Carrie held their breaths.
“It’s not her,” Carrie whispered.
“Are you sure,” came the voice, tinny and flat through the intercom.
“Yes. I’m positive.” Carrie still cried, partially relieved that it wasn’t her daughter lying on that table, but still grieving for another woman’s daughter, another family’s loss.
Shane could see the resemblance: long dark hair, large lips, pretty face. Though he could tell it wasn’t Uvie, the similarities sent a shiver up his spine and he couldn’t help wondering if his daughter’s disappearance was linked with this girl’s death.
After their first, and only, visit to the police station, months pass with no word from the police. Frustrations arise among the family. Uvie’s bed stayed as she left it the morning she disappeared. Vesper retreats further into herself and her art, unsure how to cope with her family any more. She blames her parents for being gone the night Uvie disappeared. She reflects on her sister's life and notices her art gets dark, like her mood. She calls this The Forgotten Queen's Crown.
Verne, on the other hand, blames the police. He heard his father’s conversation with the deputy and caught on to the unwillingness to start the search early. They were getting nowhere and, if they had started as soon as it had been reported, maybe his sister would be found by now. He made a vow to himself that he would never turn away someone in need of help.
“You fool, you call this a makeover,” a customer screamed at Carrie after a home fashion appointment. “Maybe this is why your daughter left; couldn’t stand to be associated with a woman who thinks ratty sweats is fashion,” she taunted, sneering at Carrie.
“You vile woman, how dare you say such a thing!” Carrie couldn’t believe that a person would take such a tragic event and downplay it and use it to hurt another person deliberately. She took the rest of the day off and went home, falling into another restless nap.
About 6 months after Uvie’s disappearance, Shane approached Carrie in the living room.
‘Honey, I’ve been thinking,” he started, uncertain how to continue.
She looked at him, suspicious and wary about what he had been considering.
“I think, maybe, we should have another baby.”
“You…what? I understand the emptiness, believe me Shane, I do. But we can’t replace her. We can’t get her back. We can only go forward.”
“I know honey, but maybe bringing another child into our home would make it bright again.”
“No. It’s irrational to think that any person could fix this for us. We don’t, I don’t,” she corrected, “have the love to give to another child. How would they fill, learning that we decided on a baby to fill loneliness that can’t be filled? No.”
Shane reluctantly agrees that she's right and tries to box his grief up and hide it in a closet.
Rump couldn’t understand why no one wanted to pay attention to him. Vesper, when not folded in front of her easel, was sleeping.
Shane avoided Rump at all costs. When Carrie was home, she usually slept on the couch when she could.
Verne was his only friend. Where had Uvie gone? His masters were slowly building their lives back together, one fragment at a time and a dog was the last thing most of them were concerned about.
“You’re not dressed,” Carrie prodded Shane one evening after getting home from work.
“I know.”
“Jeannie invited us to her birthday party. This is the big one. Six-five. She may retire soon. She’s been your best friend your entire life and a good boss.”
“I know. It’s just, remember last time we went to a party,” Shane winced as he subtly reminded Carrie of the pink elephant in the room.
“Yes, I know. I also know that we likely could have done nothing to change that. You RSVP’d yes, we’re going.”
So they did. And, rather unexpectedly, they had a decent time though both were relieved to get home at the end.
“How can I help you,” Carrie greeted the officer at the door reluctantly. Though there had been no leads in the investigation, an officer at the door was not a good sign.
“Mrs. Avendale, may I come in?”
“Please, have a seat. Let me get my husband.” Both she and Shane arrived back to the living room to find the officer still standing.
“I’ll be direct since I don’t want to fill you with false hope. The department thinks that it is time to declare Uviana officially dead.”
Carrie gasped, hearing the words outload. Shane attempted to keep his composure though he had been. She and Shane looked at each other, unsure what to say, not knowing how to proceed from here.
“It’s not usual standard procedure for a missing person to be declared dead if they’ve been gone less than a year. But, usually in these types of cases, there are some leads. We have absolutely nothing.”
Resigned that they would never see their daughter again, Shane and Carrie reluctantly agreed. The officer brought a symbolic urn inside. Carrie stared down at this empty ceramic vase, that didn’t hold her daughter’s ashes, but in many ways held her all the same.
“I’m terribly sorry for your loss. I hope this can bring you some closure,” and once again, Shane and Carrie were alone.
That night, they lay in bed, speaking without talking of all the things they were contemplating. Finally, Shane broke the silence.
“I feel so damn guilty!”
“Shane it’s not your fault.”
“I know. It’s just, it’s so long ago, but I was wishing that it would be easier to choose who we could leave responsible. I never meant I wanted one less choice.”
“This is just a tragic catastrophe. It has nothing to do with our choice.” Carrie snuggled close to her husband and held him. He sighed.
“I think the best choice will be Verne. He’s been so diligent about trying to stay normal. Vesper is having a harder time with it. Not that she’ll talk to us but she just seems to be in her own solitude. I don’t think forcing her to take charge will help any. She’s got enough on her shoulders.”
“We all do but I think you’re right. Verne has a level head amid the circumstances. If anyone can handle it, he can.”
Husband and wife cuddled together, thankful for their family. They thought of the one lost and cried their tears together and then pushed it past, once and for all. It was time to move on and make sure their other children were taken care of and knew they were loved. Uvie would always hold a place in their heart but right now, this moment, was for the living.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What a hard chapter to write! I admit, I was a little blubbery at the end of publishing it. More Avendale women go missing than normal! Actually, the last one was a glitch but Shane doesn't have to know that. Very, very soon, I will be posting the three generation heads for download. Am also thinking of including Uvie as well. See if she ends up anywhere interesting. She is NOT dead but I don't know if I'll ever get around to writing about her, as that's not really the focus for Verne. Anyway, next chapter will officially mark the start for Verne. Maybe we can go a generation without someone disappearing. :P
