Chasing Amanda

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Publishers Note:

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events are the work of the author’s imagination.

Any resemblance to real persons, places, or events is coincidental.

Melissa Foster ©2011

Chasing Amanda

When the secrets of the past hold the hope of the future.

Written by

Melissa Foster

For Leon, Evelyn, and Sidney Alice Shulman, who will never be forgotten

One

Molly kissed her husband goodbye and closed the front door of her colonial home, listening to the silence that echoed in her ears. It had been eight years since Amanda’s death, eight years since she’d escaped the painful memories of Philadelphia, and moved to the quiet community of Boyds, Maryland. In the stillness of the mornings, Molly found herself missing the incessant background noises of the city, which seemed amplified in the six weeks since her son, Erik, had left for college. Her bare feet lightly slapped the ceramic tile as she padded into the kitchen, stopping in front of the picture window to watch Stealth, her rambunctious Rottweiler, and Trigger, her playful black lab. Molly briefly envied their carefree lives, then turned to look at the calendar that was clipped to the refrigerator with an enormous magnet that read,
Dance like nobody’s watching!
The calendar was blank, as it had been every day this month, except for the third Thursday, where she had scribbled,
Civic Association Meeting
. Molly sighed, remembering a time when every day had held a different list of assignments and chores, schedules for Erik, and important meetings for Cole. Eight years ago she had needed a calm, almost boring, lifestyle to save her sanity. Now, she wondered if she hadn’t let it go on that way for too long. She coyly lifted her eyes to the magnet once again, remembering when Erik was young, and they’d danced unabashedly around the kitchen to silly songs from Sesame Street. The edges of her lips curled upward at the memory. That seemed like a lifetime ago. She raised her eyebrows, glancing around the empty kitchen, like a child about to reach into the cookie jar, and suddenly burst into spasmodic movements that did not resemble a dance by any stretch of the imagination. The phone rang, saving her from feeling any more ridiculous. “Yeah, right,” she said to the magnet, and answered the phone.

“Hey, Ma, what’s up?” Erik’s use of “Ma” rather than “Mom” made Molly smile. When Erik was about twelve years old, he’d suddenly started calling Molly “Ma” when he needed her help or was simply in a jovial mood, and he’d used the term “Mom” when he was angry, scared, or upset, just as Molly had called him Erik Michael Tanner when he’d misbehaved as a child. Molly had seen it as a sign of his maturing, testing the waters.

Molly blushed, her lame excuse for a dance fresh on her mind. “Not much. Are you okay?” A shadow of doubt about her mothering skills momentarily gave Molly pause. There had been a time, just before finally moving away from Philadelphia, when she’d been unable to care for herself, much less for Erik. Cole had stepped into the roles of both mother and father while Molly struggled to come to grips with the trauma that had befallen Amanda. Even now, years later, that fleeting trepidation was enough of a reminder to keep Molly on her toes.

“Yeah, ’course. I wanted your opinion. There’s this girl, Jenna? We’ve been hanging out a lot, and, um, well, she used to hang out with this guy down the hall, and—”

“And you’re his friend, and you aren’t sure if you should keep hanging out with her, right?”

Erik breathed a sigh of relief. “Yeah, exactly.”

This was nothing new for Molly. She’d been helping Erik with everything from skinned knees to breakups forever. When Erik was younger, he’d draw Molly outside to discuss matters of the heart, as if the fresh air had somehow made things easier for him to discuss. Molly pictured the way he’d drop his eyes as he spoke, the way he bit his lower lip between thoughts, just as he had since he was four, and the nervous, crooked smile that always accompanied a relieved sigh when he’d heard her thoughts. She pictured that smile while she spoke with him, gently asking about his relationship with the other boy, how much he liked Jenna, and generally getting a feel for his long-term intent, of which, of course, he wasn’t really sure, although he “really liked” her.

“Okay, so basically, I need to decide if I’m good enough friends with this other guy to be worth the pain I’ll cause him if I keep seeing her?” The conflict in Erik’s voice was tangible.

“Yeah, in my opinion, anyway. Is she worth hurting someone else, and are you good enough friends with the guy to care?” Molly thought about how cold the latter sounded, quickly revising, “It’s all about karma, Erik. Would you care if you were him? That’s what you need to think about. Put yourself in his situation. Was it a painful breakup? Were they madly in love, or was it a college fling?”

“Right. Okay.”

Molly knew the meaning behind that particular response,
This isn’t easy, so
I don’t want to think about it right now.
“You’ll figure it out,” she said. “Everything else okay?”

“I guess. Thanks, Ma, for making it a little harder,” he laughed. “I gotta run. I’ve got class in five minutes, and it’s across campus. Love you.”

Before Molly could answer, the line went dead, and Molly longed for a hug from the boy who was no longer little, the boy who was now a young man and only needed to touch base with his mom rather than follow her around, hanging onto her every word. Molly missed those moments, feeling as though mothering a young man came with a whole different set of guidelines than mothering a boy, and accepting a phone dismissal without being hurt was one of the requirements. She missed building school projects and chaperoning field trips, taking pictures at soccer games, and standing at the sidelines, painfully silent, as her son had ordered her to remain because he was embarrassed by her cheering him on, “Go, Erik! That’s my boy!” Molly shook her head, missing the child that he’d never be again, and smirking at the trials and tribulations that accompanied youth—and motherhood—then she headed upstairs to put on her running clothes.

Molly had wondered, recently, if they’d done the right thing when they’d uprooted from Philadelphia and moved to the country. Those thoughts were immediately chased by painful memories of Amanda. Nine years ago, Molly hadn’t been sure she’d make it through each hour, much less each day. After Amanda’s death, she’d spiraled into an abyss of depression, wrapped in the guilt of her silence, paralyzed by the truth—if she’d only spoken up, told somebody besides Cole, then maybe she could have saved her. Memories of that dreadful afternoon haunted her, the nightmares that followed suppressed her only hope of escape from the mental torture. She couldn’t eat, and sleeping was out of the question. Losing her job had come as no surprise, since the commute to and from work, the sounds of the busy streets, had brought constant panic—an obsessive need to search the face of every child, looking for that hint of fear, looking for the deceit in the eyes of adults. Every screeching child had reminded her of Amanda, bringing forth a gut-wrenching visceral reaction, causing parents to guide their children away from the crazy woman who wouldn’t stop asking them,
Are you sure this is your parent?
Molly remembered the unease she had felt as Amanda’s abduction had unfolded before her
.

It had been a cool October evening. Molly had left Walmart with an armful of groceries. She popped open the trunk and threw the bags in, trying to ignore the little girl’s screams coming from the black minivan two cars over. She settled herself into the driver’s seat, and rolled down the window. The deafening screams continued. Molly backed out of her parking space and inched slowly past the van’s rear bumper. The child’s father frantically tried to settle the little girl into the van, the little girl’s arms and legs thrashed wildly. The frustrated father’s eyes shot in Molly’s direction.

“She didn’t get the dolly she wanted,” the man had said through gritted teeth.

Molly hadn’t realized she was staring. Embarrassed, she had driven away. It was three days later, when Molly had seen Amanda’s face on the front page of the newspaper, that Molly put her nightmares and the image of the man together, and realized that it had not been the little girl’s father she’d seen, but Amanda’s abductor, her murderer.

Molly shuddered. It had taken her years to understand the post-traumatic stress she’d been experiencing, to relearn normal reactions, and to retrieve her confidence. In small increments, she’d begun to move forward, to accept her failure.
You did the best you could,
her therapist had told her, and eventually Molly had found her footing again, slowly moving forward with her life. She pushed the distressing memories aside and reminded herself of how she’d come to grips with the nightmare she’d lived. For years, she had been confident that she would never slip back into that panicked, anxious state, but at times like these, when she remembered, she wasn’t so sure. Determined to remain strong, she employed the coping mechanisms the therapist had taught her, reminding herself how far she’d come, and telling herself, out loud, that Amanda’s death wasn’t her fault.
Yes
, she thought,
moving to Boyds had been the right thing to do
. Erik had quickly fallen into favor with the kids at school and neighbors, and Cole had transitioned seamlessly to a nearby practice. Molly liked the close-knit flavor of Boyds, where most of the residents of the small farming community had grown up and still remained. She found safety in knowing who her neighbors were, and that strangers were few and far between in the three thousand acres that made up the small town.

The parking lot of the Boyds Presbyterian Church was empty, save for Pastor Lett’s Corvette, which, it seemed to Molly, was ever present at the church. Molly’s hamstrings burned as she stretched toward the sun, feeling each muscle pulsate as it was drawn to life. She stretched her arms above her head and let out a long sigh, thinking of the day that lay ahead, and wondering what she would do to keep herself busy. She yearned for her morning run, her escape from the mundane errands that barely filled her days.

Molly bent her lean body at the waist one last time to loosen her hips, pulling her head almost between her shins, her long, auburn ponytail flipped toward the ground. A faint clicking sound caught her attention, and she let her gaze move in its direction, but from her upside-down view, she couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. She turned and faced the aged white clapboard church which loomed behind her. Molly shielded her eyes from the bright sun and watched a blue bird whisk by.
Blue bird, blue bird, fly away home. Your wings are signs of peace for none.
Molly heard her mother’s gentle voice ring in her head and cringed.
Great,
she sighed. Throughout her life, Molly’s mother had often made random comments that Molly had later realized were psychically-charged warnings. Her mother had been clairvoyant for as long as Molly could remember, and when Molly had first realized that she had the same ability, she had thought of it as normal. She called the powerful episodes the Knowing, as her mother had. Now, she’d give anything to be able to close her eyes against her ability, wash it away like dirt from a fall. Before Amanda, Molly’s visions had been vague and sporadic, sand under a breaking wave, morphing from one second to the next in unclear shapes and patterns. Amanda’s death had changed every aspect of her life, including the clarity and frequency of her visions. Molly didn’t mark time like most mothers, cherishing each of their child’s milestones. For Molly, there was only life before Amanda and life after Amanda.

Molly caught a glimpse of Pastor Lett standing alone in the shade of the church. Her long arms hung limply at her sides. When Molly had first moved to Boyds, she had thought it very progressive to have a female pastor in such a small town. Now, as Molly watched Pastor Lett crane her neck and look into the cornfields behind her, she couldn’t imagine anyone else taking her place. She was a bit aloof and even slightly mannish, but Molly didn’t find either of those traits unappealing. Molly had quickly confided in Pastor Lett about the tragedy that had befallen her in Philadelphia, and Pastor Lett had been patient and supportive of Molly’s need to visit her at the church several times each month to cleanse the chaos from her mind. That’s what Pastor Lett had called it,
Cleansing the chaos
. She’d said that everyone had confusion in their minds about things they’d done, or not done, and that one needed to resolve that turmoil in order to move forward with a productive, sane life. Molly smiled as she thought of their visits, which had become less frequent as the years had passed and Molly had come into her own once again.