Will You Be Sorry When I'm Gone?

Chapter 15

Present

“Police in the Renfrew Almeda area are searching for this woman, Amelia Davenport,” a recent photo from Matthew’s phone was displayed on the screen. I smiled. It was taken on our friend’s sailboat the weekend before the fireworks. The weekend before I died. It had been a good day. We had a lot of fun.

“Mrs. Davenport, wife of the President and CEO of Davenport Industries, Matthew Davenport, was last seen this past Sunday night when she left their Renfrew neighborhood home to run an errand before the family’s plans to attend the Founder’s Day fireworks.”

That’s a tactful way to put it, I thought.

“Amelia Davenport is 5’5” tall with medium brown hair and a medium build. She was driving an indigo blue Miata with the licence plate ‘MELI’. Her husband believes she was likely wearing jeans and a blouse and either Vans or Converse shoes. Mrs. Davenport is not known to have any health issues and is not thought to be at risk of any harm to others or herself. Mr. Davenport reports he and his wife had had a small disagreement and he initially thought his wife was taking time to cool off.”

The scene changed to Alex, Anna and Matthew in the driveway earlier today. All three of them had red eyes from crying.

“Our mom had never gone this long without at least texting my sister or me, even if she’s mad at our dad. We haven’t heard from her since Sunday night. Mom, if you’re out there and can hear this, please come home?”

Oh, Alex, my baby boy. I’m right here, sweetheart. I’m right here beside you.

I laid my head on his shoulder. Alex shivered.

“You okay?” Anna asked him. Matthew, his parents, Kieran, Emily and Alecia all looked over.

“Just got a weird chill,” Alex said and shook his head and rubbed his shoulder. He shivered again.

Kieran, Emily and Alecia had pretty much moved into our house. Now that I was an official missing person, our house became command central. Police were in and out, a hotline was set up, neighbours came and offered help. Some just brought meals not knowing what else to do.

“Anyone with any information about the whereabouts of Amelia Davenport are asked to call the police hotline listed on your screen.”

“We should offer a reward. People will call if we offer them a reward,” David said.

“Let’s see if just getting the word out there helps first,” Rachel said.

“In other news, forensic investigators looking in to the brush fire that closed the 410 between Almeda and Renfrew are no closer to determining the cause of the fire. However, they said they were able to identify the VIN of the car that was found at the bottom of the embankment where it had come to rest against a tree after rolling down the embankment. Police will run the number and contact the owner or the owner’s next of kin. This is a developing story. Now back to Julie and Michael in the newsroom,” the on-scene reporter said.

“How sad,” Julie said. “I hope the Davenport family finds Amelia soon, and that she’s alright. Our thoughts go out to her and her family tonight. And remember, if anyone has any information, please call the hotline that was displayed on the screen, or you can find it on our website.

Now over to Kevin for the weather,”

Matthew turned off the TV.

“I’m going to bed,” he said, standing up. He lost his balance for a second. I tried to grab him so he wouldn’t fall. He stumbled and shivered.

“Dad?” Alex asked. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah. Just got a little light headed for a second. And a really odd chill just now. I’m fine. I’m okay. I just need to get some sleep,” Matthew said. He shook his head and made his way upstairs.

Over the weekend police and neighbors, as well as a myriad of volunteers, were in and out of the house. The police set up search areas in the places I would most likely be.

Armed with flyers showing my vital statistics - age, height, features, and a photo of me, the volunteers went door to door in the neighborhoods and hotel areas I could have conceivably gone.

The police went to the airport and checked with domestic carriers.

Matthew went through the desk in my study to see if there were credit card statements for cards he didn’t know about. There weren’t. Matthew rarely questioned my spending on our cards. There was no reason to get secret cards.

He turned on my computer to see if he could find something. A flight confirmation or a hotel reservation. Once he figured out my password - the twins’ birthday - he searched through my emails, using every search term he could think of. He checked my browser history. Nothing.

Monday morning found my family sitting miserably together in the dining room. Mrs. Watkins had made everyone breakfast but no one was really eating.

It had now been a full week and there wasn’t a hint of where I could be.

My siblings were vacillating between scared and sad, and angry. Kieran kept shooting death stares at Matthew. But his face softened whenever he looked at my children.

Anna seemed to be in a perpetual state of misery. Her eyes were red rimmed and she hadn’t been sleeping well. I sat through the night with her as she sobbed off and on. I watched as she went through my last texts to her. Paragraphs from me. Short sentences from her.

But when she scrolled through her camera roll, I saw she’d saved every photo I had sent to her. Silly photos where I was trying on silly looking hats for a party Matthew and I were going to back in April, photos I took in Aruba at Thanksgiving, where we had gone, again. The photo I’d insisted on taking before we left her at her dorm at Brown. She’s kept them all. Every insignificant moment I’d wanted to share with my daughter.

Alex had dark circles under his eyes. He also hadn’t been sleeping very well the past couple of nights. He had also been going through our texts. Again. Paragraphs from me. No more than six words from him.

Matthew was gaunt. Pale. His mouth was in a straight line, maybe slightly pulled down at the sides. There was almost no trace of the jovial man I had married. The man who had laughed at my first attempt at ice skating on a trip to New York at Christmas the year before we were married. The man whose eyes had sparkled when I came into the room those first few years of our marriage. The smile he only had when the kids were around. It was a smile just for them. Even when our marriage had been good and he still smiled when he saw me, his smile for our children was different. Not better, just different. I had been getting my smile less and less over the years, until my presence had seemed more of a hindrance, an obligation. But his smile for Alex and Anna, that never waned.

But even now, with both his children right in front of him, that smile was absent.

My siblings looked small. Alecia, like Anna, had cried off and on. So had Emily, who had been asking me about pregnancy things, baby names, parenting advice, things sisters in law discussed when they got along. She missed me. I missed her. I’m sad I won’t meet my niece or nephew. I won’t get to see him or her grow up. I won’t get to spoil them rotten.

Kieran, like Matthew, held his mouth in a straight line as well.

Everyone jumped when Alex’s phone rang. He grabbed it, looked at the display and rolled his eyes.

“Hey, Justin,” he said, defeat in his voice. He listened as his friend talked to him. Everyone else went back to their solitary contemplation.

“No,” Alex said. “Nothing. Not yet anyway.”

Alex listened for another few minutes.

“I’m gonna pass, man. I need to be here,” he said.

“Because she’s my mom, Justin!” He said angrily. He hung up the phone and dropped it onto the table. He sat forward and put his face in his hands. His shoulders shook. I wanted to hold him so badly.

Oh, Alex. I’m so sorry.

“Alex?” Anna asked.

“I’m fine,” he muttered into his hands. “f*****g Justin.”

Alex pushed back from the table, grabbed his phone and went outside to the backyard and stood by the pool. I followed him outside. I didn’t want him to be alone.

“Alex?” Anna said, coming outside. “What happened? What did Justin say?”

“He asked if we wanted to come to a party tonight,” Alex frowned. “I told him I need to be here. I assumed I could answer for you, too.”

Anna nodded.

“But then he asked why I needed to be here when no one knows where Mom is anyway.”

“Oh,” Anna said quietly. “Yeah. You definitely could answer that for me. I’m not going anywhere.”

“He said with how much I complained about Mom when we were at Masterson, he didn’t think I’d care this much that she was gone. How can I not, Anna? She’s our mom!”

Anna wrapped her arms around her brother. I smiled as I saw that. No matter what happens in this world, my children will always have each other. That was really all I could ask for. That my children knew they had each other.

“We weren’t very nice to her,” Anna said. “Sometimes, we were really mean. Why? I was reading my texts with her. She would send paragraphs of text telling us everything she was doing while we were away. I barely gave them a second glance and hardly answered her.

Did you know she took a painting class?”

“Yeah. She sent me a picture of one of her paintings,” Alex said.

I smiled as he pulled the picture up on his phone. It was a watercolour I had done. A bright beach scene with the ocean in the background and two similar small figures in the distance playing in the sand. Both crouched down in front of a sand castle. One girl, one boy. It wasn’t a masterpiece, but I thought it was pretty good for an amateur artist. I smiled still. He’d kept the photo.

“She was, she is, pretty good,” Anna said.

I smiled at her optimism that I would be found and I would be fine. I wished that that was the outcome they would have. But we already know, it isn’t.

The kids stood near the pool, showing each other the photos and texts I had sent them while they’d been away at school. They smiled a little and that made me happy to see. That they could find a reason to smile during a difficult time.

“Alex, Anna,” Matthew called from the doorway, gesturing for them to come inside.

The twins looked up at him. I looked over as well. He looked nervous. Worried.

“Dad? Is everything okay? Is it Mom?” Anna asked.

“The police want to talk to us,” Matthew said simply.

Anna and Alex looked at each other and hurried inside. A police officer was standing in the dining room where Matthew, Kieran, Emily, Alecia and my in-laws were all sitting. Everyone looked concerned, but also hopeful. Anna and Alex resumed their seats at the table.

“As you know, there was a brush fire near the Almeda exit of the 410 last week. You might have heard that they found a car?”

“We did. We’d heard it was destroyed in the fire. But they were able to find the VIN,” Matthew nodded.

“Correct. The VIN came back registered to Davenport Industries, in the name of Matthew Davenport. It matches the registration for a late model indigo Miata,” the officer said.

“That’s Mom’s car!” Alex said.

Anna’s eyes filled with tears.

“Was she in the car?”

Matthew’s eyes filled with fear and worry. Emily and Alecia broke into sobs. Even my mother in law looked concerned. My father in law looked at my husband with a look that was mixed with anger and sympathy.

“So far there’s no indication that anyone was in the car when it caught fire. There were no human remains found, though there was some glass in the sunroof that looked like it may have had blood on it. We can’t be sure yet.”

“So, what does that mean? If Amelia wasn’t in the car, how did it wind up at the bottom of the embankment?” Matthew asked.

“We are investigating every possibility we can from every angle we can think of. You said, Mr. Davenport, that the last time you heard from your wife was sometime in the evening last Sunday. During the Founder’s Day fireworks?”

“Yes. Amelia called my phone but I didn’t really let her speak,” Matthew said, his voice shaking and guilt playing with his features. “I was annoyed that she hadn’t come to the display and that she’d forgotten to get something the kids asked for.”

Alex and Anna both looked down at their laps.

“What time was her phone call to you?” The officer asked.

“I don’t know,” Matthew frowned, taking out his phone and looking at his call log. He scrolled through every recent call.

The last incoming call from me was at 10:13 Sunday night. A half an hour before the end of the fireworks.

“Okay. That gives us a timeline. We’ll check with area hospitals as well as trauma centres a little further out to see if anyone reported a Jane Doe, or if your wife was admitted somewhere.”

“I called around to our local hospitals. They said she wasn’t there,” Matthew said.

“We’re going to double check anyway,” The officer said.

“Could Mom be wandering around somewhere lost and confused?” Anna asked. “If she wasn’t in the car when it caught on fire, could she have gotten out and could she have hit her head or something? Could she have amnesia or something?”

“It’s possible, and we’re going to look into that possibility as well. What I can tell you definitively is that we did find the remnants of a purse. Forensics going through it to see what ID might be salvaged or if we can confirm the identity of the driver.”

“So, Amelia is out there somewhere?” Kieran asked.

“It’s possible,” the officer said. He didn’t elaborate. Because the reality is, the possibility that I’m not ‘out there somewhere’ is also just as possible.

Anna and Alex looked at each other with hope in their eyes. It saddened me to know that their hopefulness was going to be relatively short lived.

“So, we check the area around the embankment,” Kieran said. “We canvass the neighborhood. Someone must have seen something.”

“That’s where our guys are going first, and we’ll get the volunteers out there as well. We’re also going to sweep the land around the embankment and up and down the stream bed to see if we can find any further clues. I don’t want to give you false hope, because we haven’t found a body, so the chances she survived the crash and is wandering around somewhere aren’t zero, but that’s a pretty steep embankment and the car was pretty smashed up before the fire got to it.”

“But if you didn’t find a body in the car?” My father-in-law asked.

“It could mean she survived the initial crash. But we don’t know what state she might have been in. We don’t know the extent of her injuries, and there is no way she got out of that car without some significant injuries. We’ll be looking for anything that could give us any clues as to her whereabouts and status,” the officer said.

I liked him. He seemed to think I probably hadn’t survived very long outside the car, but he wasn’t letting my family think there was no hope. I appreciated that he wasn’t letting them jump to conclusions either way. But I’d heard the radio chatter when he was approaching the house. The extent of the damage to the car, the broken glass, there was chatter that if I had survived the crash and managed to get myself out of the car, that I probably didn’t get very far, and I probably didn’t last very long.

And they were right, but they hadn’t looked much beyond the wreckage.

And then, of course, the fire department had doused the area in water while fighting the fire. My remains were no longer the two or three meters away from my car they had been on Sunday night and Monday morning.

“We’re going to find you, Amelia,” Matthew said to my photo on the flyer in front of him on the table. “One way or the other, we’ll find you, sweetheart.”