Senseless

Chapter Eight

  After dusting the downstairs, I decided to call it good enough. I would deal with the rest later, after doing literally anything else. While the task itself took virtually no effort I was mentally exhausted. I set the duster down on the coffee table and melted into the couch.

  As I sat in silence I could almost hear Emily scolding me, "Are you really just going to veg all day Mom? I'm proud of you for dusting but this isn't healthy." 

  I knew she was right, as she often was when it came to me. I had never been a hermit, shy at times, but never one to back away for long. While Emily was growing up I was never allowed to shy away. She was a social butterfly, treating everyone as a friend she hadn't met yet.

  Smiling to myself I shook my head remembering the "stranger danger" conversation fiasco when she was about 3 or 4. Even though the town was safe, or so I thought, I wanted to make sure  Emily knew the potential dangers of walking up to strangers. She let me go through my spiel, looking at me the whole time, which is rare for a toddler. The look on her face was one of pure confusion, her little nose all wrinkled and adorable. When I asked her if she understood what I was telling her she looked down, hands wringing with pent-up energy, and blurted out, "Mama! You my best fwiend! I won't let stwangers take me way from you! There isn't any stwangers anyway!" It was all I could do not to laugh. As I spent the next few minutes trying to explain what stranger meant, I knew I had bitten off more than I could chew.

  The next few weeks everyone we came across Emily would look up at me and loudly whisper, "Mama is that one a stwanger?"  I was mortified! After the first week or so I tried to warn everyone who came into the diner that this was likely going to be a conversation and not to take it personally.

  I couldn't help but chuckle at the memory of walking into Ms. Avalon's house to pick Emily up after work, after three agonizing weeks of this, and hearing a conversation between my firecracker of a daughter and Ms. Avalon's daughter.

"You understand why you need to be safe right? So no strangers okay?" said Hannah gently.

  I smiled thinking it was never going to work, I had tried for weeks! Preparing to walk in the room I was halted by what I heard next. I heard Emily giggle, followed by, "Mama keeps me safe! We know evwybody! I just like mama's face."

  My child, the child that meant the world to me, was messing with me! I knew then and there that Emily was smarter than me. I wondered when she had figured it out.

"Mom! Snap out of it! Get back out there and live!"

She was right. Whatever the future held was never going to come to me if I stayed in this house. However, I also would never find out what happened to her if I didn't investigate on my own. I knew what needed to be done. It was time. Pulling my phone out of my pocket I scrolled through my contacts, settling on a name. Sighing heavily I closed my eyes and hit the call button.