Tina always knew how to make him hurt. He hated that she blamed him for not being around enough in her childhood. Especially when the fact was that it was her mother who kept him away from her. Nothing he did was ever good enough for her. It began when she was just a newborn baby. Stan had wanted to change a diaper every now and then, but if he suggested it, Melanie would simply laugh and tell him he was too distracted, that the baby would roll from the changing table while Stanley was lost in some thought or just remembered something he needed to write down.
“You leave this to me,” she had told him. “This isn’t rocket science.” Then she would laugh and take the baby from his hands. Later, when she was older and Stanley wanted to take her places, Melanie would always come up with some excuse for her not to be able to go.
“She needs a nap,” she would say or, “no girls are interested in space ships.”
“It’s a shuttle,” Stan would correct her, but it was no use. Twenty-five years Stanley had worked at Kennedy Space Center, and never once had he been able to take his little daughter there. Or the son who came later in life.
“She’ll be bored to death,” Melanie would say, and take the girl away from him again.
In the end, Stanley finally stopped trying. He immersed himself in his work and his research and let Melanie bring up the children. According to Melanie, it was for their own good. It was what was best for them.
Now, Stanley felt like he had gotten a second chance with his granddaughter. It was all part of his plan to try again. To make up for what he had lost. He only saw Elyse once a year, when Tina came down over spring break. But it had quickly become his favorite time of year, and the visit to Disney his favorite event. Elyse was now four years old and so delightful he caught himself hoping she would never grow older.
“Don’t grow up and get angry and mean like your mother and grandmother,” he would whisper, when she ran to Mickey Mouse and gave him the biggest hug in the history of hugging, still smiling from ear to ear, even after waiting an hour in line to get inside of his house.
“Look at me, Grandpa!”
Stanley looked and took her picture while Mickey put his arm around her. While looking at her on the screen, he shed a small tear, thinking how he had dreamt of doing something like this with Tina when she was young. Elyse had the exact same smile as her mother. It was captivating.
So much time had been wasted, so much lost.
Chapter Five
March 2015
The sun shone through the windows at my condo, cruelly exposing the salt covering the glass on the outside like a filter. It had been blowing from the east for a few days in a row, and the layer of salt in the air from the ocean lay thick on my windows. The salt was like a mist. Now, the wind had finally settled and it was quiet again outside.
Inside my condo, it had become quiet since my parents moved back home when the forensics techs finished their work on the motel, and since Shannon King had decided to move into an apartment I helped her find in the same building as mine. She didn’t want to keep imposing on my family and me, even though I told her she could stay for as long as she wanted. She needed time and space to find out what she was going to do. Joe had promised her he would drag her through a custody battle when he left Cocoa Beach to go back to Nashville. I was certain he wasn’t bluffing. A guy like him never bluffed.
Meanwhile, the kids and I had gone back to normal. As normal as it gets when you work as a homicide detective. Shannon and I were still seeing each other, and she and Angela often came down to the motel and ate with us. On weekends, we all hung out together at my parents’ place while I helped them out.
“Dad?”
It was Abigail. She was standing in the living room rubbing her eyes. It was almost time to get up. I always woke up at sunrise. It was my favorite moment of the day…standing in the living room and watching the sun come up over the quiet Atlantic Ocean. The waves were glassy this morning and I wanted to go surfing as soon as I dropped the kids off at the bus.
I put my arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “You sleep well?”
She nodded and stretched.
“Are you looking forward to spring break?” I asked. Today was the last day of school before break. I had signed both kids up for surf camp all week.
Abigail nodded. “I can’t wait to go surfing.”
“I don’t want to go surfing.” Austin had come out of their room too.
I smiled and kissed him. “I’m sure you’ll want to once you get there,” I said. “It’s going to be fun.”
Austin groaned. “No, I won’t.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked at me angrily. He was always grumpy in the mornings and made a big deal out of small things. Mornings were the worst for him. He wasn’t a morning person like Abigail and me.
“This is not the time to be discussing this,” I said. “Get dressed. Grandma is waiting with breakfast at the deck.”
They both sighed, then turned to their room where I had put out clothes for them to wear. Today was a big day at the school. There was an awards ceremony to mark the end of the quarter, and both kids were up for an award. I couldn’t be prouder. I had told Sheriff Ron I was going to come in late today. I wanted to be there and take pictures of my babies.
I looked at the clock. It was a quarter till seven. I walked to Emily’s door and knocked. “Are you up, sweetheart? I don’t want you to miss school.”
There was a sound and someone grunting something behind it and I figured it was her. She wasn’t a morning person either, but it hadn’t always been like that. I guess most sixteen year-olds weren’t morning people. When she was younger, Emily would always be the first one up, jumping on my bed. Now, she hardly spoke a word to me till the afternoons. She went quiet behind the door and I knocked again. “Don’t fall back asleep, honey.” Abigail and Austin came out from their room all dressed and with their backpacks on. “We’re leaving for Grandma’s now,” I said.
“Fine,” Emily yelled from behind the door.
“See you this afternoon, sweetheart.”
She answered with another grunting sound, and I hoped it meant she was awake enough to get herself into that car of hers and make it to school on time. I had long ago decided she needed to take responsibility for her own life and hoped it was working. I wasn’t going to be the kind of dad that checked up on her constantly. I wanted her to know I trusted her.
Chapter Six
December 2002
She was a Christmas child. A true blessing for Dottie and James West, as were the three previous girls. But this one was special. Dottie knew she was. Not just because she was born on Christmas night. There was something about her that made Dottie love her more deeply than she had the other three, who were four, six, and nine at the time of little Elizabeth’s birth. She knew right from the beginning when she looked into those very blue eyes of her newborn that this one was different than the rest. Just the way she felt while lying in her arms was different. Her body felt different.
When Dottie took her daughter home, she wondered why she hadn’t heard her baby cry yet. With the previous three girls, they had cried from the moment they could breathe, but not Elizabeth. She was just lying there, quietly staring at her mother.
“Do you think she’s alright?” Dottie asked the next morning, when she woke up and the baby hadn’t cried all night. The baby was in her crib staring at her mother without making a sound. “She’s so quiet,” Dottie said, looking anxiously at her husband.
James shrugged. “I’m sure she’s just fine. She’s just quieter than the others. That’s all.” James took a shower, then got dressed. All the while, Dottie tried to feed her baby. But Elizabeth didn’t want to suckle. It frustrated Dottie, who kept trying to get her to take the bottle.
“She hasn’t eaten at all,” she groaned in desperation.
James pulled out a pair of pants from the walk-in closet and put them on. He grabbed a shirt and a tie.
“You think she’s
alright?” Dottie asked again.
James sighed. “You’ve asked that seven times since we brought her home. Yes, I believe she is just fine. Just like the three previous were fine.”
“She just feels so…so different,” Dottie said.
“Different how?” he asked.
“Floppy,” Dottie said, and looked at her husband. She kind of liked the way Elizabeth felt in her arms. She was so soft, but she worried that something could be wrong.
James smiled, and then leaned over his wife. He kissed her on the forehead with a light chuckle. “Remember when we had Anna? You thought she had a tumor because of that big birthmark she had on her forehead. And what about Dana? She had little spots all over her body that turned out to be hormones or something. And what was it that was wrong with Tiffany?”
Dottie smiled. “She cried all night two nights in a row and I thought she had colic.”
“Now did any of these beautiful girls ever die or have anything wrong with them besides what was going on in your mind?” James smiled and kissed her again.
Dottie drew in a deep breath. He was right. She had felt the exact same way with all of her children. It was only natural for a mother to worry about her baby. The truth was, all four children had been different. No two were alike, so it was silly to compare them in the first place.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go to work,” James said.
“I wish you didn’t have to,” Dottie said.
James smiled again. “I’ll be back tonight. Try not to spend all day worrying. Try to enjoy our newest little family member while I’m gone.”
“But, what if she doesn’t eat anything?” Dottie said anxiously.
“She will. All children eat when they get hungry enough. Let her settle to this new reality first, then you’ll see. It’s all a little much right now.”
Dottie felt emotional and overwhelmed. She was about to cry. It was the same every time she brought a child home. It was such a sensitive time. She always spent at least one whole day crying afterwards.
James grabbed his briefcase. Dottie could hear the other kids in the hallway now. It was time to get up and get them to school. Luckily, it didn’t seem like Elizabeth would demand much of her mother’s attention this first day at home. She could still attend to the needs of the others. Was it just this simple? Was Elizabeth simply just an easy child?
James leaned in over Dottie and kissed her again. He looked deep into her eyes. “She’ll be fine. Do you hear me? She’ll eat when she gets hungry.”
Chapter Seven
March 2015
Shannon looked at her daughter in the back seat. It was the last day of school before spring break, and they were both looking forward to some time together. Angela had started at Abigail and Austin’s school, not in the same class, but they still saw each other every day at recess. But it had been a rough couple of weeks for her daughter. Starting a new school in a strange new place was a lot for a six year-old. But she had handled it well. She was a tough cookie, Shannon was happy to realize.
“See you this afternoon,” Shannon said, as they reached the drop-off line and it was their turn. A teacher helped Angela get out of the car. Shannon had been driving her every morning, even though she knew Angela could go on the bus with Jack’s kids, but Shannon wasn’t ready for that yet. It was hard for Shannon to let her daughter go…ever since she was kidnapped, but life had to go on, and especially Shannon needed her life to move on.
Things were getting harder with Joe, who was building his case against her. Shannon had her lawyer working to build her case, but she was terrified of how this would end. Plus, Angela missed her dad and kept asking when she was going to see him, and that didn’t make things easier. All Shannon wanted was for her daughter to have as ordinary a life as possible.
“Love you, Mom,” Angela said and slammed the door.
“Love you too,” Shannon said, and watched her daughter spring after the other kids inside the yellow brick building. Shannon had come to love Roosevelt Elementary. The entire atmosphere was just what her daughter needed right now. It was a safe environment and there was a lot of warmth. The only thing Shannon worried about was the press. As she drove past the entrance and back onto Minutemen Causeway, she spotted two photographers in the bushes outside of the school. They had been there waiting for their photo-op ever since Angela had started at the school. The school knew about it, and so did the local police, so they made sure they didn’t get onto the school’s property, but had to stay outside. They still managed to get pictures now and then of her daughter when she was dropped off and picked up, but that was all.
Shannon knew they were trying to get pictures of her and Jack together. They had already succeeded and had plastered the photos all over the magazines. The cover of one of them this week read Shannon’s New Bad Boy and then they had printed a picture of Jack in his board shorts coming out of the water. It had made Shannon so angry, but Jack had been really cool about it.
“It’s the price you pay for dating a celebrity,” he had simply said and kissed her. It had been such a relief for Shannon. She was afraid the press would end up destroying the healthiest relationship she had ever had. But Jack was a cool guy. He wasn’t so easy to shake. Not even when they teased him at work.
“They’ll grow tired of us eventually,” he said, the last time photographers had jumped out of the dunes while Shannon and he were walking on the beach together. “I’m hardly that interesting.”
He had a way of making Shannon laugh, even when things were bad. She adored him for that. Shannon had decided to stay in Cocoa Beach, to be close to him and his family, who had welcomed her so warmly. Both she and Angela seemed to be thriving here, and except for the photographers, it was as close to paradise as she had ever been. Bruce, her manager, kept asking when she was going back on tour, but she hadn’t been able to give him an answer. The papers wrote about her custody battle and divorce and then about her new lover, and she needed time, she kept telling him.
“I can’t hold them for much longer,” he kept saying. “The label is getting anxious. They’re afraid of losing money. But I’ll try.”
Shannon didn’t care much about her career lately, or her label for that matter. Now was the time for her to heal her wounds. And it was time to focus on Angela. Plus, she had started to learn how to surf. Jack had been teaching her and she had to admit it was hard, but she quite enjoyed it. There was nothing like starting the day on the ocean among pelicans and dolphins. She wasn’t going anywhere now.
Shannon stopped at a red light in downtown Cocoa Beach. She smiled when she saw two young guys with surfboards under their arms. A sign told her the street would be closed later in the afternoon because of Friday Fest. She was going there with Jack, while his mother had promised to take care of the kids. Sherri was so sweet. She really liked Angela, Shannon could tell.
Shannon picked up her phone and scrolled through her emails. She received hundreds of those daily from her fans. Mostly praise for how much they loved her music; some of them were haters, who asked her to drop off the face of the planet and hoped she realized she was going to hell for living her life in sin. Over the years, Shannon had gotten good at ignoring them and only read the good ones. Those that made her feel good.
Today, one of the emails made her pause and forget about the light that now turned green. In the subject line it said.
I’m sorry for what I have to do.
Chapter Eight
March 2015
Katie Mueller stared out the window of the mini-van as the countryside passed by. They had almost reached Orlando and were less than an hour from their destination. It was the first time Katie was going to spend spring break without her parents. She was going to Cocoa Beach with some people from her college. She had heard about how everyone went to Florida for spring break since she was a child, but never thought she would actually go there herself. It wasn’t exactly her type of thing. She wasn’t a party-girl like the others i
n the mini-van. Not like Leanne or Britney, who were already drinking beers and taking shots up in the front of the car.
As the mini-van hit 520 towards Cape Canaveral and the bridges leading to the island, the girls were singing loudly and laughing, while the three boys that had come along on the trip enjoyed watching them. Katie wondered what she was even doing there.
It was Greg that had convinced her to come. Greg was a history major like Katie. He was the one driving the car. Katie’d had a crush on him since the beginning of the school year. So, naturally, when he asked if she wanted to come, she had said yes. Her parents were thrilled to hear that she was going.
“Finally, you’re getting out a little,” her dad had said. “I’m glad you’re making some friends. College is supposed to be a fun time. I know mine was.”
Katie wasn’t going to have fun. She couldn’t tell her dad that, but that’s what she had thought to herself. She was going because she thought she might get to spend some time alone with Greg. She hadn’t realized she would also have to endure the perkiness of Leanne and Britney.
“How are you doing back there,” he asked, looking at Katie in the rearview mirror.
Leanne and Britney giggled.
Katie smiled. “I’m good, thanks.”
Greg smiled. “Good. We’re almost there. I booked us all rooms at a small motel. It’s right on the beach. I’m sure we’re going to have a lot of fun. Girls stay in one room, boys in another.”
They were seven in total. The last girl, Irene, wasn’t part of the party-troop either. Still, she wasn’t the type Katie saw herself hanging out with either. She couldn’t stop staring at her fake mega-boobs. And the fact that she always wore those small tank tops that didn’t seem to hold anything inside made her look ridiculous, like a porn-star in some bad movie. She didn’t think she had anything in common with this girl, who at the age of twenty-one, insisted on having something altered on her face or body at least once a year, paid for by her parents, naturally.