Gone Missing

I walked into the Dandridge Police Station one Saturday morning and looked around. Never having been inside it, I felt as if I had entered a strange world. Wanted posters here, assorted other posters there. Officers coming and going.

One of the police officers spotted me and approached me. “Is anything wrong, Miss?”

I nodded. Trying to find some easy way to broach the subject, I gathered my thoughts and failed. Maybe it was easier for the Red Queen in Wonderland. She was able to think of several impossible things before breakfast each day, after all. I had enough trouble with one impossible thing before breakfast.

“Are you feeling all right, Miss?” they asked.

I frowned. “I'm not sick. It's just been difficult dealing with this. What would you do if you woke up one morning and your house wasn't your house anymore and you were the only person living there?”

“Go back to bed, probably,” they said. “This might be just a dream.” When I didn't smile, they went on. “All right. Why don't we go to my desk? You can tell me what happened, what your name is, what their names are, and your street address. I'll email the report to other county police stations and see if anyone's seen them.”

That seemed fair enough. I nodded.

They led me deeper into the police station until we stopped at their desk. We sat down on opposite sides of it.

“Do you want any coffee or tea?” they asked. When I didn't answer, they went on, “It might help you relax a little.”

“Coffee, please,” I said. “With cream and sugar.”

“Caff or decaff?” they asked.

“Either will do,” I said.

As they prepared the mugs of coffee for both of us, they asked, “When was the last time you saw your parents?”

“Before I went to bed last night,” I said. “I gave them each a hug and a kiss on the cheek. They hoped I'd have nice dreams.”

“Any change in the pre-bedtime routine?” they asked.

I thought about it and shook my head. “It's about the same every night. We all have daytime jobs on weekdays, so I rarely see them in the morning. But on weekends, we try to do something together. On Saturday, if not also on Sunday.”

“I see,” they said as they handed me my mug and they sat back down again.

The coffee was hot. I blew at it, but it didn't cool down as quickly as I'd hoped. Eventually, it was cool enough to do more than just sip it.

“I expected to see them at the kitchen or in the living room,” I said. “Dad would be reading the newspaper, while Mom would either be doing the same or getting breakfast ready for the three of us. Then I realized that my bedroom wasn't really mine anymore. I went out into the upstairs hall. That was different, too. I went down the stairs and the living room wasn't even remotely familiar. It was also uninhabited. I heard noises in the living room. Maybe Dad was outside and Mom was in the kitchen. That was okay. I went to the kitchen. The woman there turned to look at me and neither of us recognized the other. 'What are you doing in my house?' they asked me. 'Your house?' I asked. Last night, this was my house. I lived here with my parents. Have you seen them?' 'No one's lived here for years,' they said. 'The real estate agent assured me of it. Maybe you should go to the police station and see if they can help you.' 'What if they say this is my house?' I asked. 'Then I'll move somewhere else,' they said. 'Promise?' I asked. 'I promise,' they said. 'But I don't think that's too likely.' 'Oh?' I asked. 'Why not?' 'The last residents died over a hundred years ago,' they said. 'Maybe you're a ghost haunting this house. But you don't look like one.' 'I don't feel like one, either,' I said. 'You're not a squatter, are you?' I asked. They shook their head. I went back upstairs, got dressed (at least the new resident and I wore similar-sized clothes; but their taste seemed a bit odd to me), and then headed here.”

I watched as they entered all that into fields on their computer screen.

“Name?” they asked, almost like an afterthought.

“Melissa Corey,” I said.

“Age?” they asked.

“23,” I said.

“Parents' names?” they asked.

“Isaac and Eleanor Corey,” I said. “They're both 49.”

“Street address?” they asked.

Surely they knew all this, but maybe they had to ask about it anyway.

I sighed. “92 North Holland Street. Do you want the town, state, and zip code?”

They shook their head. “That gets filled in automatically by the software. Phone number, including area code?”

I gave it. “Blood type? Hair color? Eye color?”

“Not necessary if you aren't the missing person or persons,” they said. “This is a police station, not a hospital. Recent photograph of them? I can scan it and add it to the email.”

I opened my purse, then my wallet. The only photograph I had of my parents was from last year when we went camping in the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming. I gave it to them.

They typed some more. “There. It's been sent to every police station elsewhere in this county and state,” they said. “If that's not enough, I'll send it nationwide. Someone is bound to report seeing them somewhere. Maybe not immediately, but soon.”

“So I just have to be patient?” I asked.

They nodded. “These things can take awhile.”

“In the meantime, where do I live?” I asked. “There's a woman in my house and neither of us knows the other one. Do we share the house or does one of us have to move somewhere else?”

“If you both don't mind, you could share it,” they said. “It makes it easier to contact you if we need to.”

“I'll ask her and see what she says,” I said. “Hopefully she'll say yes.” I finished my coffee, put the mug on their desk, stood up, and left.

Back home, the unknown woman was still there. She didn't seem in any hurry to leave. She had washed in the meantime and was wearing a pair of blue and yellow pajamas. She seemed to be happily making herself comfortable in what wasn't her home at all. Unless, of course, she hadn't just rearranged everything.

I sat down on the living room couch. Blue and green with embroidery. Seriously? Mom and Dad would never have approved of it. Maybe back when they were kids, but today? Not a chance.

“How did it go?” she asked.

“Huh?” I said. “Fine, I guess. You'd think that they would have heard of my parents. They were well-known in this town. The Coreys. We used to have the best July 4^th cookouts and the best Boxing Day and New Year's Eve parties. And now it's as if -- they'd -- well --”

“Disappeared?” she asked. “Dropped off the edge of the Earth?”

I nodded. “Have you heard of them?”

She shook her head. “Sorry, no.” She held out a hand. “By the way, I'm Susan Marshall.”

I shook it. “Melissa Corey.”

“Why don't we have breakfast?” she asked. “I have eggs I can poach, scramble, fry, or boil.”

“Fried, please,” I said. “Over easy.”

“Done,” Susan said. “Bacon? Sausage? Hash browns?”

“All of the above,” I said, feeling hungry now. “If it isn't too much trouble.”

“No trouble at all, Melissa,” she said and went into the kitchen.

How quickly we sounded and acted like neighbors or even old friends. I wondered, though, if she really didn't know my parents. But she didn't seem suspicious to me.

Maybe my parents had gone somewhere for the day and I'd simply forgotten about it? That was possible . . . but I'd never had memory problems like that before. I mean, I was only 23.

Maybe I was just imagining all this. Maybe if I just went to bed, fell asleep, and then woke up later back in my real house with my real parents downstairs?

Or maybe this was real.

The phone rang. On the second ring, Susan answered it in the kitchen.

“Susan Marshall here,” she said. “Anything new about the missing people? No? That's too bad. Do you need to talk with Melissa? No? All right. Call us when you hear something or you need more information from us. Good day, Officer.”

So casual. So normal. So very very ordinary. Nothing new, nothing strange, nothing weird.

I wanted to scream. Maybe I should've. Get some of the frustration and tension out of me. But there would always be more until I was able to see my parents again. Until everything went back to normal. If it ever would. Which was looking more and more doubtful.

Maybe I'd had memory problems all my life? Maybe this was all a hallucination? Or maybe I should do as I'd been advised: go back to bed, fall asleep, and see if I wake up where I should be.

Susan and I had breakfast at the kitchen table. She sat where Mom would've. I sat where I usually sat. Dad's seat at the near end was empty.

“It's so unusual to meet previous residents of a place I've moved into,” she said. “Especially when it's been so long in between owners.”

“Who did the agent say lived here before you?” I asked.

“The Wallace-Underwoods,” she said. “He served overseas in World War 2. She was a canteen volunteer at his airbase in England.”

“Is that where they met?” I asked.

She nodded. “They weren't much younger than you. But the war seemed to make everyone grow up so much faster than usual. There was even a couple who were 18 or 19 and were already married.”

“Their parents didn't mind?” I asked.

She shook her head. “It was more common back then.”

Back then. When was it? What was today? For the life of me, I couldn't remember the date. I'd remembered my age when the police officer asked me, but what day was it? And what month and year?

“What's today?” I asked.

Susan paused, then said, “March 18, 1986. Ronald Reagan is the president again.”

The governor of California was now in the White House. In my world, he was still governor and someone else was in the White House: Simon van Roos (his parents were immigrants from Holland). And the date felt wrong. Too early.

I looked around for a calendar. There was one on the wall next to the stove. It said MARCH and the year was 1986, as Susan had said. 31 days. At least that much felt familiar.

She looked at me with concern. “Maybe you aren't feeling well. Why don't you go to bed? I'll check on you every so often.”

I nodded. Maybe that was it. I was sick. I just needed some sleep and I'd be much better afterward.

“You remind me of my mother,” I said as I stood up.

“She must have been a wonderful mother,” she said.

I nodded again and went upstairs.

My bedroom -- or whoever's bedroom -- was still in the same location. I got back into bed, closed my eyes, and hoped for the best.

When I woke up some hours later, I saw Susan sitting near my bed, a book in her hand. The lamp on the night table was on.

She saw my eyes open and smiled. “Feeling better now? You slept a long time. Several hours.”

“But still in your house, not mine,” I said.

“Maybe it would feel better if we both said 'our house',” she suggested.

“It would feel even better if someone had seen and/or heard of my parents,” I said. “It's as if they never existed.”

“I confess that I checked online records,” she said.

“And?” I asked hopefully.

“Nothing about any Corey except yourself,” she said. “Maybe your mother was a teenager and unmarried when you were born?”

I shook my head. “Both my parents were married when I was born. Seven or eight years, I think. At least I had a photograph of them.”

“Could I see it?” she asked.

I nodded. “It's in my wallet, which is in my purse.” I pointed at my purse. She handed it to me. I opened it, then opened my wallet. “It's missing.”

“What's missing?” she asked.

“The photograph,” I said. I searched both wallet and purse. “I know I had it at the police station. I held it before I let the police officer scan it. She gave it back to me.”

“How nice to have a photograph of your parents,” she said. “I never had a photograph of mine. They died when I was a baby.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” I said.

She shrugged. “My adopted parents were just as nice. I love them both. They gave me this house as a college graduation gift.”

I tried not to stare. “That's some gift. Houses aren't cheap. Mine wasn't. The neighborhood was mostly upper middle class and wealthy people.”

“Maybe it didn't do so well after your parents disappeared,” she suggested. “When I moved here, half the neighborhood had empty houses. I could pick whichever one I wanted, but this one seemed the best choice for me.”

The phone rang again. Susan left “my” bedroom and went downstairs to answer the phone. I could just barely make out what she was saying.

Had we only one phone in the house? I didn't think so, but maybe we did.

“Hello? Susan Marshall here,” she answered. “Yes, she's still here. Shall I ask her to come to the phone? All right. One moment.” She called upstairs. “Melissa? It's the police station. They want to talk to you.”

I joined her in the kitchen. She handed the phone to me.

“Ms. Corey?” the female officer asked.

“That's me,” I said.

“There's no record anywhere of your parents,” she said.

“Nothing?” I asked, trying not to stare at Susan.

“Maybe you were adopted and your birth parents moved somewhere else or they died?” the officer suggested.

“They were alive,” I insisted. “They were alive last night. Before I went to bed. This has to be a mistake. I showed you the photograph. The one you scanned.”

“There was no one in the photograph, ma'am,” the officer said. “I can email the scanned photo to you and you can check it yourself.”

“You'll have to,” I said. “Now the photograph is missing.”

“Sending it to you . . . now,” the officer said. “Just check your in-box.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I will.”

I had to borrow Susan's laptop. I went to my email account, checked the inbox. The message was there, waiting for me. I opened it and clicked on the attached photograph. It wasn't of my parents at all. It was a photograph of downtown Dandridge, seen from the top of hill, before you went downhill and under the highway's overpass.

“Are you sure this is what I gave you?” I asked.

“Yes, ma'am,” the officer said. “Maybe you gave it to me by mistake?”

“No, no,” I said. “No mistake. When I last looked at it, it was of my parents. I gave it to you. Now it's not of them at all.”

“I'm sorry, but we'll have to close this missing persons case,” the officer said. “Unless you or we happen to find more information that helps track your parents down.”

“I guess you did your best,” I said. “I'll yell if I find anything.”

We both hung up.

“Like trying to find a needle in a haystack,” I told Susan. “I wonder what will be missing next. Me?”

“I hope not,” she said. “You're a nice person. I'm glad we met.” She paused. “Do you need more sleep?”

“Maybe a little,” I said and yawned.

She hugged me and gave me a kiss on the forehead like Mom used to. “Sleep well, Melissa.”

I nodded and went upstairs.

Hours later, the phone rang again.

“Hello? Susan Marshall here. No, everything's all right. Just another beautiful Saturday. Who? Never heard of her. She was looking for her missing parents? How interesting. Did she find them? No. That's too bad. Yes, of course, I'll call you if I see her or hear from her. Good day.”

Susan went to the mailbox on the outside wall next to the front door. As she hummed an old tune, she went through the mail, throwing away anything that had “Melissa Corey” on the front of it. Then she went back inside.