Chapter 8 Angela
ANGELA
“Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message—”
Angela slammed the phone to the glass coffee tabletop. Half-drunk cans of soda toppled over. Liquid doused her pack of cigarettes, melting loose tobacco and the ashes from joints onto its top.
“Son of a bitch!” She tossed the pack of cigarettes to the sunken suede sofa. The plastic casing was damp, but they survived the debacle.
On the edge of the table, fast food packaging still laid from this morning’s breakfast, a few crumpled napkins beside them. Angela tossed them onto the mess. As soon as they touched the liquid, they molded into the chaos. Napkins? No. Soggy, useless lumps.
Hands balled to fists, brain sloshing against her ears, Angela headed for the kitchen area of her studio apartment. The washrag drawer was empty. Hanging over the faucet, though, was a crusted, dried-out hand towel. She returned to the coffee table with it.
The job was haphazard, sticky residue remaining on the glass top, but she mopped up most of it.
With gritted teeth, she picked up her phone again, praying that it would light up with his name.
It didn’t.
She went back to her call log.
David (21 outgoing) 9:34 a.m.
Work (3 minutes, 52 seconds) 7:06 a.m.
PCP (12 minutes, 18 seconds) 4:38 p.m. Yesterday
David (32 minutes, 43 seconds) 3:25 p.m. Yesterday
That was the last time they’d spoken. 3:25 p.m. yesterday.
She had called him twenty-one times this morning. He’d answered none of them.
To hell with it. She dialed again.
This time, she made it to the voicemail.
After the generic message played, she rubbed her eyes.
“Hey, honey. It’s me again. You said that after you talked to Jess and found out about Junie, you were going to call me back.
That was at 3 o’clock yesterday. Now it’s 9 the next day, and I still haven’t heard from you.
You didn’t get picked up, did you? I know you would’ve called me by now if you did.
” Jaw tight, she imagined him, again, sitting in a jail cell, waiting for her to bail him out.
“Damn it, boy. If you’re not in cuffs right now, I’m gonna beat your ass whenever I get a hold of you.
Scaring the shit out of me like this. Call me back, kid. ”
Angela ended the call.
For a few heartbeats, she stared at that call log. Then she went to her contacts.
David 1
David 2
David 3
David 4
All the way up to David 15.
She called each number. She got the same automated voice message each time.
This never happened. Never for this long. David always called her back. It may have taken him an hour, or two, or three, but never more than twelve. Even if he was on a bender, he called her back well before twelve hours passed.
Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. A mother knew. It was a sixth sense, an instinct.
Angela scrolled through her contacts again, checking to make sure she wasn’t missing one of his other phone numbers. When she made it to David 15, another name caught her eye.
Denise. A woman she hadn’t talked to in three years.
But a woman who may know something now.
Angela dialed, and she waited. On the fourth ring, the woman’s voice came through the speaker. “Hello.”
Not a question. Not a friendly greeting. A blank, unsure-why-she-had-even-picked-up sort of voice.
Still, Angela needed answers. “Hey, Denise. Long time, no talk. How have you been?”
“Living the dream.” Short. Abrupt. As was always Denise’s nature. “Do you need something?”
“Yeah, actually.” Angela fought the urge to use the same tone Denise had. “I was wondering if you’d heard from Jess.”
A moment of silence. “If I had, you’re the last person I would tell.”
Angela rolled her eyes. “Look, I know you and I haven’t always gotten along. But our kids loved each other once. We share a granddaughter. And—”
“And your junkie son is the reason I lost them both,” Denise snapped. “We’re not friends, Angela. We never will be.”
Angela was all but grinding her teeth now. “I never asked to be. But that ain’t the point. Point is, David got a lead on her yesterday. But I haven’t heard from him since, and—”
“Good. Now you get a taste of what it’s like.
” Every word that left Denise’s mouth carried the sharpness of a blade.
“The last time I heard from Jess was a week after she disappeared. She told me she was safe, so was Junie, and they were happy. They were going to build a better life. She didn’t want me in it, or you, or your son.
And let’s just be honest with ourselves, Angela.
For good reason. I hope he didn’t find her, because all he did was make her life a living hell.
Fingers crossed one of his drug buddies got hold of him and he’s rotting away in a storm drain right now. ”
Angela’s stomach tightened. She clenched her fists so hard that her fingernails left bloodied crescents in her palms. “What the hell is the matter with you? No matter how hard it’s been for me, I would never wish something like that on your slut daughter—”
“Because you know the same thing I do. All those problems boil down to your son. How many times did he put her in the god damned hospital, Angela?” Flames licked each word. “She was a great mother. The only mistake she ever made was getting in bed with David. Don’t call me again.”
The line went dead.
Angela dropped the phone with shaking hands.
She stared at the mess on the table. She reran the phone call she’d had with David yesterday in her mind.
She thought back to that look on Jess’s face when she’d lain in a hospital bed, holding newborn Junie in her arms, with a busted lip.
She remembered the ice, the emptiness, in that child’s eyes when Junie had looked at her father only days before they left.
A droplet of tobacco and ash-laced liquid dripped onto her toe beneath the table. And she couldn’t take it anymore.
She took hold of that glass table as she stood. A shove toppled it onto the stained, beige carpet. Glass shattered. Soda spilled. Ashes and tobacco fluttered through the air, falling to the ground like rain.
For a moment, she just stood there, staring at it. Deep breaths lifted and collapsed her chest and shoulders.
This was the mess she’d made. She didn’t even know where to begin cleaning it up.