Wren
“Are you kidding me! You can’t be serious!” I slam my fist down on the grimy desk in front of me and stand so abruptly, the chair I have been sitting in flies back and slams into the office wall.
The office, if you could call it that, of Chief Detective O’Malley is cramped and dirty. To say it’s gross would be a serious understatement. A thick layer of dust and food particles cover most of the flat surfaces; not that there are many left without something piled on top of them. Debris is scattered across the stained floor and the waste bin stands in the corner overflowing with rubbish. The smell alone would curl the wallpaper, if there were any.
I can’t help but be outraged. Is this pathetic little man really not going to help me at all? Sitting on the other side of the desk, he wipes away the coffee mustache he’s been sporting and continues staring at me. “Why aren’t you doing your job? My parents went missing days ago and you’re just sitting here! Why! Do you even have anyone looking for them! Isn’t that like, I don’t know, kinda the whole point of being a cop! You know, it’s that thing you get paid to be.”
My outrage clearly doesn’t phase him. Judging by the look on his pudgy face, this entire thing seems to be annoying him. I can’t believe this is happening. Does he even care? I’m about to be an orphan here and this so called “defender-of-the-peace” is just sitting here like lump of lard in a bowl; doing nothing to find my parents, but then again, how can he expect to find anything if he can’t even find his morals in this disgusting room he passes off as an office?
“Now, look here, lass.” Suddenly seeming to grow some sort of a back bone, he sits up straighter and actually wags his finger at me like I’m some sort of toddler that needs to be scolded. “As I have been tellin’ ya before. We are doin all we can. There is only so many men I can be assignin’ to missin’ persons. I understand ya are upset and rightfully so, but sittin’ here barking at me isn’t doin’ anyone any good. Like I have told ya before, when there is something to be tellin’, I will let ya know. Now, why don’t ya try goin’ home and gettin’ some sle…”
The door to the office suddenly bursts open and slams into one of the many piles of questionable materials. Somehow it manages to stay intact. A lithe figure walks into the small room. Recognition registers inside me at once; even though I know I have never seen her before. The woman in the doorway has an older version of my face, my mother’s face. There’s no way this can be her though. The fact that she could be here now seems impossible and yet, here she is, standing before me…My grandmother.
She moves into the room before gently shutting the door behind her. There has to be something seriously wrong for my grandmother to be standing in the same room as me. There have never been any visits or even phone calls, not even a lousy birthday card and now she’s here like Mary frickin’ Poppins.
There is no denying who this is though. I have heard my whole life how I was a little clone of my mom and now I can see we are both just copies of the woman who is now handing a sealed, official-looking envelope to the detective. Our similar appearance must make him realize she is somehow my family because he doesn’t question why she burst into his office. He simply motions for her to take the only remaining chair in front of the desk before opening the package and pulling out a set of crisp white pages.
I can’t bring myself to move. Completely frozen in space and time, I can feel it in my soul that something is atrociously wrong. My parents aren’t coming back. They won’t be found. They’re gone.
When he flips the pages open to read them I swear I see a tiny flash of light and his eyes frost over for the briefest of moments. It happened so fast though I’m not entirely sure what I saw.
“I see. I see.” O’Malley mutters in his rough sort-of-Irish accent as he reads through the pages that have been inside the envelope. “Well ma’am. Everythin’ is seemin’ to be in order then. I shall be turnin’ the lass over to ya now. I will be steppin’ outside so ya may be havin’ a proper conversation with her then.” What does he mean I am to be turned over to her? I’m not his to give and he just told me to go home. What’s going on here? With a click of the door I notice he has indeed left. Did he seriously just leave me in here alone with her? Can he not see the obvious panic on my face?
“Hello, Wren.” Her voice is gentle as a breeze and not what I am expecting. “I am sure you have figured out who I am.” No shit Sherlock. “I am your Grandmother or your Nona as it is called where I come from.” She motions to herself. “It is truly both wonderful and terribly horrendous that I am finally getting to meet you.” Her face holds a smile but her eyes hold so much sadness I feel my guard slipping. I may be trepidatious, but the emotion in her eyes has me pausing.
She doesn’t seem to be scary, crazy or even mean. All the things I thought that could have been the reason she kept from visiting at least just once. I mean, seventeen years is a long time to never see your family. She seems sad, broken even, but not what I imagined over the course of my life.
My parents never spoke much about her. Mom simply said it wasn’t possible for her to visit because she lived so far away, but never said just how far that was. Not like that’s a good enough excuse to never see your flesh and blood. She always seemed torn, yearning to say more but never did. I could never get more out of her, but occasionally when we would be doing something and I would ask how she got so good at whatever the task at hand was, her reply would always be a version of ‘Oh, my mom taught me.’ In an off-hand kinda way. She would get a sad, distant look on her face and that would be the end of it.
“What happened to my parents?” I manage to get out. My voice sounds small and shaky. Her uneasiness permeates around the room; gripping my heart in fear.
“My dear sweet child, I am unsure how to say this, so I shall do it quickly. I have terrible news for you.” She pauses and reaches out, touching her hand to my forearm. “Your parents are no longer here.”
An eerie ringing starts in my ears and I hear nothing else though her lips are still moving. Shock, I’m in shock, even though I knew the words she was going to say before she had said them, it does little to ease the blow. They’re gone! Dead! She said it plain as day. That’s why she’s here. She has come to lay some claim on me she shouldn’t even have. I have to get out of here!
“NO! I don’t believe you!” I scream, ripping my arm out of her grasp. I throw the door open with a bang; papers and other debris fly everywhere. I sprint down the hall as fast as my feet can carry me. There’s the exit. All I have to do is make it outside and I will go find them myself. All these useless adults, they don’t know anything.
I slam into the double doors that lead outside. They burst open. A blinding light hits my face. I hold my hands up to shield my eyes. I stop short, deciding that tumbling face first down the station’s steps would probably end with a trip to the hospital and I would be forced to sit in a room with her. My skin warms and tingles all at once. Suddenly the sounds of the street disappear and are replaced by something else. Is that water? Why do I hear water?
