Ultraviolet

Chapter Six: The Departed

For the first time since leaving Sunshine, I was completely alone.

I was accustomed to being alone. Preferred it actually. With a mother as batshit crazy as my own, loneliness was peace and quiet, a moment to be myself.

Grocery shopping was my favourite game. I used my pink Hello Kitty watch to time myself, having little competitions to see how fast I could find the microwave soups made by "real Americans" as my mom would say. I ran up and down the linoleum aisles, my dirty sneakers squeaking as I abruptly turned corners and weaved between other customers.

Mom would give me her credit card and a shopping list then waited out in the car for me, so I could do whatever I wanted, much to the chagrin of the judgemental mothers trying to control their own children. Sometimes those women would try to scold me, but I was sprinting out of the aisle before they could.

One day, Mom told me to go in and fill up the trolley, then she would meet me and pay. So I went ahead, playing my usual game, grabbing things and rushing throughout the aisles. Only this time, the list was three times the size it normally was, and most of the things we had never even tried before. Oh well, I'd thought, maybe she got paid extra this week.

In fifteen minutes, I had an over flowing trolley and was off to find Mom. I walked beside the dairy section, turning left to look into each aisle for my mothers blonde hair and colourful clothes, only she didn't appear. I went again, this time walking between the aisles and double checking out the front in case she was waiting by a register. No luck.

"Hi, Sweetie." A nice old lady who was at a register called out to me. I was getting worried and my eyes began to water. I wiped at my face with the heels of my hands and turned to her. "Is everything okay, where are your parents?"

"My mom is supposed to be meeting me." I told her. "I can't find her."

The lady, who later introduced herself as Susan, then took me to the back room and called out for Mom on the loud speaker, telling her that I was waiting for her.

I don't know how long passed, just that the sky outside the window in the break room turned pink as the sun set and Susan and her manager slowly became more and more upset, their faces etched with worry.

I remember meeting a grumpy police officer; he asked me questions in a gruff voice and then took me to the police station- only after Susan explained to me that I wasn't being arrested.

I was waiting in a kitchen with a young looking officer who kept trying to get me to play checkers.

"I'm not a baby." I cried at him. "I don't want to play a game. I want to know where my Mom is. I want to go home."

He sighed, more annoyed that he'd pulled the short straw of watching me than worry for my circumstance. "I know, we're trying to figure that out for you."

I slapped the checker board off the table, the pieces scattering across the floor. The officer grumbled a word my mother taught me never to repeat then dropped onto the floor, picking up the pieces.

I dropped beside him and helped, muttering a tiny "Sorry" to him.

"Look," He said, as he continued to collect the pieces. "We are still having trouble finding your mom." He admitted. "But we're trying to get in touch with your grandparents. Have you met them before?"

I had, years ago. I vaguely remembered their orange house and the floral scent of my grandmothers perfume. Mom claimed they were witches and were trying to steal me from her. I now know they had just asked her to let them help raise me, in the fear that my mother would do something stupid like abandoning me at the grocery store.

I nodded, and the officer smiled slightly.

"I think you might be living with them for a short time, that could be fun."

"They live on a farm." I told him. "Maybe they'll let me plant a flower garden."

"Maybe."

I liked things at my grandparents. They lived in a gigantic orange farmhouse with a wraparound porch. I spent my time there learning how to play chess with my grandfather, and learning how to throw knives and axes with my grandmother. It was the best time of my life, but just thinking of it makes me sick to my stomach, because I know how it ended, I know what happened next.