<\/p>\n
Yet another Acela Express train pulls into the Upstate New York station. It empties and pulls out again. All of the disembarked passengers scurry away, like skittish mice, disappearing down the long tunneled corridors to their various destinations, except for a small klatch of people moving to and fro at one end of the platform. It\u2019s late; I\u2019ve sat through the arrival and departure of three different trains, each 20 minutes apart. I\u2019ve observed the sea of faces: strange faces, tired faces, excited faces, but not her <\/em>face. The eyes of every redhead I met produced no flicker of recognition. At first I thought I needed a flash card labeled, \u2018Elle<\/em>.\u2019 But no, I had her photograph \u2013 the one before, the one after, especially that after. Not the aged images we\u2019d grown so accustomed to seeing on milk cartons, but the one the police had taken just two weeks ago. Out of the blue, she had shown up at the police headquarters all the way down in West Virginia. She was indeed the snatched Elle Griffin as her fingerprints matched the ones we\u2019d diligently provided. They had been taken before her disappearance during a Safe Children campaign at our local MacDonald\u2019s in Albany, New York. After years of grieving our lost only child, our daughter was finally coming home.<\/p>\n Elle was a high school sophomore when she disappeared after her school soccer practice. Searchers found only her pink duffle bag on a well-travelled footpath behind the soccer fields. Yet no one had seen the bubbly flame-haired youth who\u2019d just won a scholarship to the most prestigious art school in New York City. \u2018No trace.\u2019 That\u2019s what the officer assigned to the case had said was written on the file. His daughter was Elle\u2019s best friend so he had a special interest in the case, an interest that drove him to search for Elle long after he was due to retire from the force. When most officers were hanging up their gun holsters and trading in their police badges for Florida time-shares and Caribbean cruises, Hal was stepping up his efforts to solve a case that had gone from cold to icy. He had always sensed that Elle was alive.<\/p>\n The sightings and tips came in from the beginning, all pointing to a blue van with an out-of-state license plate. But the New York State line was where the trail ended \u2013 at a seedy remote truck stop where the gum-chewing waitress had noticed a reticent red-haired girl as she used the ladies room while an older scruffy looking man paced outside the door. The waitress had told me when I accompanied Hal, \u201cThat was some odd couple,\u201d cracking a wad of sweet Bazooka bubble gum. The smell of the stuff still nauseates me.<\/p>\n Marie had left Elle\u2019s room the same way it was that morning when Elle had gone to school \u2013 her clothes for that night\u2019s planned movie outing with friends neatly draped over the corner chair; and her high four-poster bed made with its pink and white comforter and matching pillows. It was as if preserving the room\u2019s original state would bring Elle back to us or at the very least, make the abode ready for her when she returned \u2013 like she were just on an overnight sleepover at her best friend\u2019s house. That was nine years ago to the month.<\/p>\n At 25 Elle is now a young woman. I stare at the glossy 8 x 11 police photograph in my cold, trembling hands. She has that same sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her small nose. Her fair cheeks are still rosy but the girlish looks have given way to the finely chiseled features of a young woman. She looks so much like how Marie, her mother, had looked as a bride. I cringe inside thinking about it. Marie is gone. The ovarian cancer had eaten at her as she pined for the child she\u2019d never again hold, never see graduate, never help set her wedding veil and never accompany through childbirth \u2013 those special firsts shared by mother and daughter. Marie had died of heartbreak, clutching her womb in memory, in pain and in a way that no mother should.<\/p>\n Searchingly, my eyes settle again on the group at the other end of the platform, straining to see one with red hair \u2013 auburn \u2013 but not quite red enough. I stand to stretch my legs and begin the long walk down the platform, consulting my Timex watch. Another train will arrive in 15 minutes. Two police officers suddenly walk toward me determinedly. A cold sweat settles over the back of my neck; seeing police officers approach stirs up those old feelings of dread. The younger officer addresses me.<\/p>\n \u201cHave you seen a little girl in green overalls about this high?\u201d His hand reaches out to the level of my waist as he continues: \u201cThis tall. Red hair, green eyes\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n I lose him as my mind goes back to that day nine years earlier.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026Freckles. She\u2019s carrying a pink knapsack.\u201d<\/p>\n My head is reeling now.<\/p>\n \u201cSir? Sir!\u201d The police officer persists, \u201cDid you hear me?\u201d He touches my arm.<\/p>\n \u201cUh, yes\u2026I mean, I\u2019m here for Elle \u2013 she\u2019s coming, isn\u2019t she? She\u2019s my 25-year-old daughter. It\u2019s been a long time.\u201d I hear my own voice echo in my head as if it\u2019s bouncing off the concrete walls of the empty train platform.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know, Sir. We\u2019re looking for Amanda \u2013 Amanda Wheeler. Her mother down there said she got separated getting off the train.\u201d<\/p>\n His authoritative voice reminded me of the rookie officer who had sat with me on the soccer bleachers that day nine years ago.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019ll turn up,\u201d he\u2019d said confidently, \u201cProbably went off with her boyfriend.\u201d<\/p>\n What did this young guy know, I thought. He was barely out of his teens himself, let alone understanding the anxieties of a father?<\/p>\n \u201cElle doesn\u2019t have a boyfriend,\u201d I corrected him.<\/p>\n What did he know about the studious girl who volunteered at the local animal shelter in her spare time?<\/p>\n I answered his query: \u201cNo, I haven\u2019t seen a little girl. I\u2019m just waiting for my daughter. She was supposed to be on that train.\u201d<\/p>\n I feel cold with a new fear. What if she isn\u2019t coming? Maybe it was all some big mistake, like I\u2019d first thought when she\u2019d disappeared. I\u2019m trying to wrap my mind around all the events of the last nine years, the ones told to me by the police in a phone call. There will be time later to learn about those lost years.<\/p>\n \u201cRight, then! Well, hope she\u2019s on the next train. Maybe she decided to visit \u2018her\u2019 boyfriend instead,\u201d the rookie insists and laughs good-naturedly. And the two officers turn back toward the now dispersing group of people at the other end. I stand frozen on the empty train platform.<\/p>\n \u201cWould the mother of Amanda Wheeler please come to the Amtrak Customer Service Counter? Mrs. Wheeler to the Amtrak Customer Service Counter!\u201d A professional voice booms over a loud speaker.<\/p>\n Lost in thought, I\u2019m back at the soccer field nine years ago. The new metal bleachers are gleaming in the high afternoon sun. An official with a megaphone directs volunteers and students to form teams and tells them where to search. People swarm the path like bees looking for pollen. They search until the sun goes down below the pine trees bordering the footpath, replaced by a bright yellow moon, its glow casting eerie shadows among the trees. In the end, all we had was her pink duffle bag \u2013 a cold trail \u2013 until last week when the chief of police from Upstate New York called with the news\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cExcuse me.\u201d A voice pierced my thoughts. \u201cCan you help me find my Mommy,\u201d a child\u2019s voice asks from the shadows.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t immediately answer, still in my nightmare. Our eyes meet as I look down, turning over the picture in my hand.<\/p>\n \u201cElle\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n I glance from the glossy print to her face and back again, disbelieving. I\u2019m confused. The small figure is crouched in a dark corner. My gaze rests upon the cascade of bright red curls flowing round an impish face blowing pink bubbles. And that smell\u2026I wrinkle my nose unconsciously. She grins and turns her head. I stare at the picture of Elle in my hand and note the profile of the face before me. It\u2019s like looking at twins two decades apart.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you Amanda Wheeler?\u201d I suddenly find my voice.<\/p>\n \u201cYes.\u201d She bows her head, playing with the zipper on her pink backpack.<\/p>\n \u201cYour Mommy\u2019s looking for you\u2014\u201d Amanda rises to her feet and offers me her hand and we walk down the platform to the Amtrak Customer Service Counter.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pink Yet another Acela Express train pulls into the Upstate New York station. It empties and pulls out again. All of the disembarked passengers scurry away, like skittish mice, disappearing down the long tunneled corridors to their various destinations, except for a small klatch of people moving to and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1061,"parent":148,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-593","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1022,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/593\/revisions\/1022"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}