The Call

“For the last time, NO!”  Annabelle Atwater screamed into the phone, “I know the importance and significance of today but we are not doing any interviews, we have grieved and put it behind us!”  She slammed the phone down onto the base.

Gregory Atwater sat in his armchair mindlessly watching a football game, the images of the T.V. flickered off of his thick bifocals.

“Another reporter called.  They want to do some damn interview about Angel’s disappearance.  The fifteen year anniversary of the missing fifteen year old girl.  One man dubbed it ‘Fifteen for fifteen’.  They are already making tag lines to market our loss!  I say no!  What’s in the past is in the past.  If we agree to interviews those assholes would ask questions…questions that will peak someone’s interest, then they’ll….GREGORY!”

He turned his attention from the game, a blank stare plastered across his face.

“Did you hear what I said?”  Annabelle shouted as she entered the den and sat next to him.

“Yeah,” he muttered, “they want to do interviews and you don’t.  Just tell em no.”

She sighed.  “We should never have been parents.  I should’ve known something was wrong with you when we got together.  I was fourteen and you were what?  Twenty five?  Twenty seven?  Ha!”  She scoffed, “I thought I was special, turns out you just like them young.”

Gregory looked back at the television.  He heard so much about his actions that night over the past fifteen years that he became numb to his wife’s ugly remarks.  She continued.

“You had me!  A full grown and; thanks to you, sexually knowledgeable wife at your disposal but you couldn’t keep your hands off our little girl.”  She stood back up.  “I should’ve said something when I woke up and saw that you were not in bed that night.  Oh, I knew where you were though didn’t I Greg?  Oh I knew!  There you were, in Angel’s bedroom on top of my little girl!”

Annabelle began to leave the den when Gregory finally spoke.  “Then why did you help me?”

The question was direct.  His voice was as rough as two concrete slabs rubbed against each other.  The question caused Annabelle to stop in her tracks.  She turned to him slowly.

“You know why,” she rebutted, her voice was low and harsh, resembling a growl more than speech.  “I didn’t help you.  I PROTECTED US!  Angel was our daughter, but she was a hussy!  She threw her little twat all around town.  But that’s the thing…small towns are where people talk.  Both of our families live in this town.  I already had negative ass comments about Angel’s (Annabelle made air quotes) “activities” with those boys and to have word spread that I married a molester too?  I wouldn’t be able to show my face in public.  Greg, you heard her that night, the night we did what we did.  She told us that she would tell!  She would talk about you.  Tell about me knowing that you were getting pleasure from her.  We couldn’t live with that.”

Once again, Gregory sat still, the ambient noise of the T.V. continued as his mind went elsewhere.  Annabelle was familiar with that look which angered her.  The look that said to her, Gregory was mentally checking out of the conversation.  Annabelle felt the need to convince, not only Gregory but to herself, that their actions that night were justified.

“She would have ruined us Greg!  You just finished your first part of the campaign.  I was gonna be the wife of a mayor!  Even with our daughter’s past, the town still wanted you to lead.  So, when she lashed out the way she did talking about calling the police, sexual abuse and so on well…I had to do SOMETHING!”

Annabelle stopped and thought about that night.  Finding Gregory on top of Angel for the umpteenth time.  The harsh words shouted by her daughter.  Annabelle’s failed attempts to talk to Angel out of telling someone.  Her mind flashed to grabbing a nearby lamp and striking the temple of Angel’s head.  The crunch sound that the blow made before Angel collapsed on the floor.  She remembered how scared she was when the reality of her actions came forward.  She recalled dropping the bloody lamp next to Angel when their daughter started to move again.  Without hesitation, Gregory scooped up the lamp and struck Angel again, and again until her head was left as a pink mush.  Covered in blood they looked at each other.  Gregory’s cement voice played in her head the same words he said that night.

“Now we are in this together.”

The phone rang, snapping Annabelle from the past into the present.  “Another one.”  She mumbled to herself.  She stormed over to the phone and snatched it to her ear.

“Look, we’ve told you people everything we know about our daughter’s disappearance!  Mayor Atwater and I are still very upset about the whole ordeal!”

“Are you?” A female voice responded softly.  The voice sounded so familiar it caught Annabelle off guard.

“Wh-who is this?”

“Does my voice have to be muffled by the sound of dad’s hand to sound familiar to you?”  The female replied.

Annabelle’s blood froze.  She walked with the phone to the den.  Gregory looked at her again, this time, his look was as if he expected something.  Annabelle’s voice caught in her throat.  What came out was barely above a whisper.

“A-Angel…on the phone.”

Gregory raised an eyebrow and scoffed, “Bout time you heard it, she’s been calling since yesterday.  I thought it was in my head.”

Annabelle dropped the phone, causing it to bump softly on the den carpet.  She walked dumbly to a window in the den overlooking her rose bushes.  The same bushes that Angel Atwater was buried under.  As she looked out, Angel’s voice was heard in the background growing louder each time she spoke.

“Hello?  Hello? HELLO? HELLO? HELLOOOOOO?”

 

END