The Stirlings and the Missing Statue

Chapter Twelve: I Love You [This Many Kilobytes]

"Have they called?"
His voice was weak, but more than likely only dramatically so, since the only exhaustion Mr. Stirling had endured was from hovering over the master bedroom's porcelain throne for the last four hours. Lunchtime had come and gone and they'd not heard from their children who were being uncharacteristically quite independent.
"We told them not to use the phone unless it was an emergency, dear," Dr. Stirling drolled as she flipped a page in her book.
"But Mitchell had the phone in his backpack."
"Hmm?"
"What if something happened and they couldn't get to the phone?"
Dr. Stirling caught her voice and angled the top of the book down toward her lap. "Well, why didn't you say that before they left?"
Mr. Stirling was wrapped in his blanket and sitting on the loveseat again, having announced that he could give no more to that porcelain God as he emerged from the Master bedroom almost triumphantly. He raised his arms out of the blanket-wrap and gestured to his wife with frustration. "I was busy at the time, Harriet."
They were never the traditional couple, with sweet nicknames that were used solely for each other, but the use of her first name was almost startling. She closed the book over a dog-eared page and glared over at her husband, ready to let loose the string of chastisements she'd had at the ready for hours. But his pitiful, pudgy face, made pale and twinged with the slightest note of discomfort settled her. For the moment.
"They're fine," she snapped. "It's five miles away. It's a hike."
Mr. Stirling shook his head disbelievingly and made some kind of move to rise from the loveseat.
"Oh would you..." Dr. Stirling began as she tossed the book onto the end table beside the reclining chair. "I'll call them. Just sit." She held her hand toward him as she closed the chair's footrest and she rocked forward with the seat. "I'm afraid if you move too fast, we'll have to pay for a new couch. That's leather, dear."
Mr. Stirling made a scowl but then scrunched his nose in agreement. Dr. Stirling moved to the kitchen where each of the other three children's, her, and Mr. Stirling's phones were charging on the counter.
"This won't count against us, will it? It's part of the plan...just don't use data, right?"
"What. Does. It. Matter?" came Mr. Stirling's response.
"Well..." It was clear that Dr. Stirling considered her response and changed her mind. No one could say that she didn't love her children. But extra fees on the already exorbitant phone bill annoyed her enough to count every minute and every kilobyte spent by them. "It's ringing!" She couldn't allow her husband to think she cared for their children any less than she did. She unplugged the phone from the charger and placed it on speaker so that they both could hear. The ringer sounded three more times before a click. Mitchell's voicemail was not setup, a robotic woman's voice told them.
"Are you kidding?" the worried father of the foursome cried out.
"Kids don't use voicemail."
"NOT THAT!"
Dr. Stirling had returned to the recliner and held her phone aloft as she plopped down again. "I'll try again, calm down."
Mr. Stirling's face was red with worry and exasperation over his wife's nonchalant attitude regarding their four children's unknown whereabouts. The phone in Dr. Stirling's hand rung suddenly with a 1990s pop music tone. Dr. Stirling tapped the accept button before the boy band in the song could get to their first 'Baby'.
"Mitchell," she said flatly. She'd forgotten at first to turn the speaker on and was distracted for a moment while she tried to tap the button on the blank screen. Realizing that she couldn't quite get it while the phone was next to her face, she brought the phone down, punched at the button and repeated Mitchell's name.
"Mom?"
"Mitchell, hey bud!" Mr. Stirling cut in, bounding off the loveseat and leaving the blanket behind.
Dr. Stirling caught herself looking at the blanket and the empty couch for any soils. Not only were there none, her son's shaking voice brought her back to the phone.
"Dad? Is that you?" Mitchell's voice was soft as usual but full of fear. The boy sounded like he was on the brink of tears.
"Where are you, Mitchell, I'll come get you. Where are your brothers and sister?"
"Dude. Dad, relax. It's Declan," the voice on the phone responded.
Mr. Stirling let out a breath. He knew he couldn't say that he hated any of his children, especially the ones that shared his genes (or was that worse?), but Declan sometimes popped into his mind as the one child he wished he'd raised better. Callum was prideful and Mitchell was shy, Ez had her own issues with perfection and desire for power, but Declan was dreadfully cruel at times.
"Declan, where is your brother and so help me," Mr. Stirling began.
"Will you seriously come get us, though?" Declan asked. "This mountain BLOWS."
"But not like, blows," Mitchell piped in, sounding far away.
"Are you having fun at all? Did you find the cave?" Their mother had elevated her voice to her sweetest level.
"Did you even hear me? It sucks!" Declan whined.
As was the family custom, Dr. Stirling had pretended not to hear him and continued to pretend like he wasn't complaining like he always did.
"Declan, honey, put Callum on the phone. Or Ez. Or Mitchell," she pleaded.
There was a scramble the parents could hear on the other end and then Callum said hello and tapped something next to the phone's microphone.
"Don't use video!" their mother insisted.
"I wasn't. You're on speaker now."
"Callum, is everyone alright?" Mr. Stirling asked. "You guys ok?"
"Yeah. The truck dropped us off about an hour ago, not much trouble, you know. The usual."
Mr. Stirling laughed. There was nothing usual about sending his kids off on the back of an agave truck to climb into some cave in the side of a mountain.
"So you haven't found the...the cave?" Dr. Stirling asked tentatively. "I was really hoping you'd have a good time, honey. I'm sorry."
"Actually, we just found it," came Ez's voice. "It's kind of tucked into a little rock formation and there wasn't even a path to it."
"The walls are streaky with some really cool green..." Callum's voice cut out and neither parent could hear what he was talking about.
"Cal?" Mr. Stirling called out.
"Yeah....'re here. ...ad?" The phone cut in and out before it lost the call entirely.
"They must have walked into the cave, that's why it cut out."
Mr. Stirling didn't want to accept his wife's answer. He wanted to know his children weren't walking into a death trap or that they wouldn't be kidnapped walking alone in the middle of a foreign country not known for its overall safety.
Seeing the distress in his face, Dr. Stirling reached out for his arm. "Oaxaca is safe. All the travel books and guides said so."
"It doesn't mean we should have sent our children off to explore by themselves!"
"Where was this at any point this morning?"
"If you remember," Mr. Stirling began, "I was a little preoccupied at the time."
"You've never shown any kind of worry for these kids on any of our vacations and it is NOT MY FAULT YOU DRANK THE WATER!"
Mr. Stirling threw his hands up and could feel a blowout fight with his college sweetheart, his wife of eighteen years, his soulmate. But his soulmate was being particularly careless, this time around, with her idea of parenting. He mentioned as much in his next piece of the burning argument at hand, and lived to regret it for the following two hours. Dr. Stirling and he went back and forth, each taking the time to stomp out into the garage and fight over the keys to the car at least a couple of times and each deciding and then un-deciding that their children were safe.
* * *
Meanwhile, back in the cave...
Callum, Ez, Mitchell, and Declan, their stomachs empty and beginning to rumble, their footsteps heavy, loud, and untrained for any kind of hiking, especially in the dark with only two flashlights among them, began their descent into the cave.
None of them, even the best Spanish speaker nor the most investigative among them, noticed the fallen sign at the entrance warning, with some desperation, that, should they enter, they may never see the light of day again.