Love in Darkness (Castles on the Sand 2)

Nineteen

The clock by my bed reveals that it’s 4:30 a.m.

I roll out of bed and pull on some shoes. “Okay, I’ll call the police.”

“I’m going to check Wilkstone Road.”

I hear her run up the stairs, past my door, and out to the garage. A moment later the garage door opens with a rumble.

Without thinking, I call Officer Li’s cell phone. It’s only when he answers, groggy, that I realize how rude this is. “I’m sorry. I shoulda just called the non-emergency number or… I’m sorry.”

“What’s up, Alex? Your mom missing again?”

“Yeah. Go back to sleep.”

“Just give me a minute and I’ll go check Wilkstone.”

“You don’t have to-”

“Gimme a break. I’m not gonna just leave your mother to wander around in the middle of the night. I’ll call you back once I have something to report.”

“Thanks. I’m gonna… I guess I’ll check the bluffs and the beach.”

“Yeah good idea. Okay, talk to you soon.”

“Thanks.”

“De nada.”

I pull on my jacket and grab a flashlight, then pause and wait. Something is very, very wrong. I wait and listen.

Silence.

And then it hits me. That’s the problem. I never hear silence anymore. Or is it a problem? Is this my medication working, or is this the voices playing tricks on me? I push those concerns aside as I head out the back door.

As always there’s a wind coming in off the sea, and today it feels like a million weak little hands pushing against me, trying to turn me around. I head down the five steppes of our landscaped yard until I reach the bottom with its little bench and wrought iron table and chairs, where I brought Madison for a candlelit dinner on prom night. Today my gaze sweeps past this and along the jagged edge of the cliff beyond. “Mom?”

There comes a faint noise that could be someone crying in the distance, or could be one of the many phantoms in my mind.

I look up and down the bluffs. They’re rocky and jagged and I wouldn’t be able to see if someone were over the next little crag. Having said that, there’s a narrow little path down to the rocky beach below that I want to descend, though I’m not sure whether that’s logical. If she’s at the bottom of the cliffs, odds are she is not in good shape. If she’s still at the top, I could find her before she falls.

But I feel like I should go down the path, so I do, grasping the metal rail that was affixed by whomever first owned this property. The path is so narrow that when Madison and I would go down it, we had to move single file. I always went first so I could catch her if she slipped, and I remember how nervous she’d been the first time we’d descended it. “This banister is safe?”

“It gets slippery sometimes, so just go slow.” The metal was rusty on the underside but smooth on top from all the hands that gripped it on their way down.

Now, as I grasp it, it doesn’t budge. It’s well cemented in place, which means if my mom came down this way, she’d have had this to hold onto. “Mom!” I call out. This time there’s a slight echo off the rocks that gets swallowed by the vast expanse of sea. The tide’s out, but on its way in, and along this part of the bluffs, it can sometimes come in far enough to cover the beach. That gives me a sense of urgency.

“Mom!”

My feet slip, but I keep hold of the banister and right myself, then continue to clamber down as fast as possible.