I moved out of my mom’s place about 2 years ago. At 26, perhaps well overdue by some people’s standards, I was finally starting a real life with my girlfriend of 3 years. My mom lives in a rural area in Ontario, Canada with my younger brother; hick-ville, middle of nowhere, cow-town, you get it. The house is well over 100 years old, how old exactly, I’m not entirely sure.
Being that my mom got the house with her job as a dairy farmer and is technically renting, it’s hard for us to be able to make updates to the house. So most of it is very outdated, late eighties, early nineties at best. We did manage to convince her landlords/bosses to get us some new hardwood floors in the kitchen, redo the lone bathroom and laundry room, but that’s essentially it. The basement was unfinished by even the most ridiculous of standards, sporting dirt floors and more spider webs then I have ever wanted to see, but it was home at one point in my life for over ten years.
In late July I got a phone call from one of my mom’s coworkers who explained to me she hadn’t shown up for work that afternoon. This may not be overly alarming to some, but I can count on one hand how many times in twenty-something years my mom has called in sick to work, and she certainly would never no-show. Instantly, I knew something was wrong. I left work and drove the 25ish minutes out to her place and let myself into the house.
My dog greeted me at the door as she always would when I came for a visit; I call her my dog because she was, but she’s old and has bad legs and can’t do the stairs at my apartment, and my mom loves her so it was only fair she stayed behind when I moved out. I quickly did a sweep of the house, even venturing into the unfavourable basement. No sign of my mom, and no sign of my brother either for that matter. Both of their vehicles were still in the driveway and their many sets of shoes all seemed to be accounted for, that I knew of anyway. I really didn’t know what to make of the situation. I sat down on the couch for a moment and noticed my mom’s keys on the kitchen table. I didn’t see my brother’s keys anywhere so I went back up to his room and sure enough, there they were, sitting on his end table. The door was locked when I let myself in, as was the only other entrance to the house.
I avoided calling the police because, of course, they are legal adults which means they aren’t technically missing until 48 hours have passed. I then decided I’d stay the night, and called work to tell them I wouldn’t be in the next day. I made a handful of phone calls to see if anyone had heard from either of them, but no one had. I didn’t really know what else to do at this point and figured I’d have more to work with tomorrow so I watched some TV and hung out with my dog, who I don’t get to see that much, and hoped they’d show up in the meantime. I called my girlfriend and talked to her for a while, explaining the situation. Soon after, I was still pretty worked up, so I popped one of my mom’s sleeping pills and the last time I remember looking at the clock it was 11:37pm.
The next morning I wake up to my mom’s voice. I look up at her face and I’m instantly awake at that point. She looks at me and says “When did you get here?” Shocked, the only thing I could muster up was the words “Are you okay?” Confused and concerned she replied with the same question. I continued, “Of course I am. I came by yesterday afternoon after Denise told me you didn’t show up for work. What the hell happened?”
The reply to that question still gives me the chills over a year later.
“I had the day off yesterday. I didn’t even leave the house. We have been calling you off the hook, where have you been?” My mom doesn’t screw around. I know she wasn’t lying to me, or at least she thought she wasn’t. I brushed it off, told her I had a bad dream and still wasn’t really awake. I then fed her some bullshit about just needing some space. It was the first thing that came to my head and gave a logical explanation of my presence. She told me to grow up and call my girlfriend who was worried sick and I told her I would on the way home.
After listening to her beak off for a while, everything around me seemed okay, despite the fact that I wasn’t at all. My brother came down the stairs just as I was leaving and went into the bathroom after saying hello to me. I left while he was still in there, confused and worried. But I didn’t know who to be worried for. While I was on the road I decided to call my girlfriend but my phone had died overnight. Once I arrived home, I was greeted by my very angry girlfriend, asking me where the hell I’d been the last 24 hours. I had never seen her freak out like this before. After what had happened at my mom's, I felt it best not to say what was on my mind, that I had explained everything to her last night. I remember doing so very vividly, but if I had, she wouldn’t be reacting this way.
I finally managed to calm her down, and she left the apartment for work. I sat down in the living room and plugged my phone in. Once it finally came to life, I started going through it and quickly realized I had made zero outgoing calls and sent no texts. My call history was completely blank for the last 24 some-odd hours. Then, the missed texts and missed voicemails started to flood in. A few people asking me where I was, if everything was okay, etc. One text from my boss that is particularly haunting read “If you’re going to bail on work the least you could do is give me a fucking call and let me know. Is everything okay?”
I still don’t know the answer to that question.
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Credits to: Arca9iner
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