This isn't my day. Moreover this day is longer, than usual. Maybe it's because I woke up too early and didn't even sleep something well at night. Otherwise it have been a normal day, full with usual work, taking hard and easy decisions. But this day was harder, than usual. I try to get Vanessa out of my head, but my mind is full with the memories of the little Vanessa, and the worries about the big one. I miss her, and I behave like a real parent sending off his child to the university. Missing her would be normal, but I can't contact her. I mustn't contact her. Any contact is forbidden, to save her life. So it is much more harder, that being a normal send off. While I have been working it seemed a little bit easier, but now all I have to do is going home, where probably I spent the evening and the night alone. Somehow I don't feel like I would enjoy this loneliness now. So I'm really happy when the phone rings. Finally, another patient! I don't have to think about Vanessa and worst case scenarios for a while.
Life is cruel. The call is from a foreign colleague, and he informs me that Vanessa has an acute appendicitis, and asks information about her allergies. I tell him, that she has none, and officially informs him, that she was under my treatment because of depression. Dr. Johnson thanks for the information, and when I ask him to send the bill to me, he says it is unnecessary. My heart skipped a beat from fright. Why? Dr. Johnson tells me, that her expenses are covered by her husband's insurance, and he promise me, that Tyler Moore will call me at the end of the operation.
What did Vanessa climb into? She couldn't marry the Harris boy, I saw he and his peers after lunch. Dr. Johnson and the name of Ravenshilltown rings a bell in my brain. Maybe my daugther-in-heart is in the mountains, where my son and niece spent the summer holiday. Unfortunately I can't check her whereabouts, she is sleeping now. All I could do is waiting. The time is crawling. When you want to speed it up, it slows down. It is not me, who makes the operation, but I know it last too long. If it's just plain appendectomy, it should be long over. Oh, my God, let it be no complication!
The telephone is ringing. I pick it up as if I'm waiting for the lottery prize.
"She is over the operation." Tyler Moore says.
"Is there a problem?"
"Yes. The doctors decided to operate her in the traditional way."
I'm a little reassured. She was only too inflamed in the appendix when colleagues had to opt for open surgery. It really takes longer than with modern techniques.
"That's not too serious. Her recovery will lasts longer. Poor girl. She wore that six weeks in plaster, and and it tormented her greatly."
"It is said, the recovery will last for six more weeks."
His emphasis suggests that there are one or two more things in the background, so I am waiting. My heart is beating in my throat.
"She had a nervous breakdown. Now she is sleeping. The doctors didn't wake her up after the operation."
"Damn." It is not a good news, but it could be expected after the events of the summer. "She's been under a lot of stress lately."
"She is now in the hospital in Ravenshilltown." sighs Tyler Moore.
He also knows that's what I'm wondering why.
"What does she do there?" I ask, because there is a big silence on the other side of the line.
"Well, I offered her a job, and a chance to train to be an MMA fighter."
"I suppose she accepted, since you are there."
"Yes."
"And?"
"I have helped her to change her name."
"How?"
"We have married in the afternoon."
I couldn't say a word. I thought my colleague was joking when he mentioned my daughter's husband. Tyler Moore understands my silence, and tells everything about the circumstances, leading to this decision.
"Don't worry, this marriage only exist on paper. But it has become useful too soon. Her new name is Jasmine Moore. As you know, we haven't got telephone in the mountains, if you want to get any news about her condition, she is now Jasmine Moore."
I still squeeze a thank you out of myself, we discuss a few little things, and my daughter's husband says goodbye. He and his family have to go back to their home, work is waiting for them.
When I hang up the phone, a barrier inside me suddenly breaks and I start sobbing. A little bit of helplessness, a little bit of relief. Vanessa is in hospital, she is sick, but she has caring people around her, who are looking after her. It is the maximum, that I could have wished for her, so I decide to visit a church, when I will have a little free time, and say thanks to the gods.
When I arrive home, I see four school bags in the hall. The bag is the part of the kids' uniform, so the bags are the same. The kids are allowed to decorate the bags with straps, so they are a bit different, which make them recognizable. Two of them belong to my kids, one of them is Vanessa's, and the fourth is probably belong to Taylor Moore. It is a new one, with the same strap, that is on Yvonne's bag. The number of shoes are also indicates, that we have guests. The Moore sisters.
I can't stand them. I don't want them to be here, but my kids adore them. That's why I have to be polite. Plus I have to act like everything is all right, I shouldn't speak about a word, that could betray me knowing anything about Vanessa Carpenter and her disappear. In fact, I shouldn't even know that Vanessa is missing. I open the door of the living room. The Moore sisters, and my kids are chatting as usual, but there is a certain tension in the air. When I enter the room, all of them stop speaking, and looking at me.
"Hello! As I see it, you just managed to make friends!" I say them as cheerfully, as I could manage.
None of them speaks, just staring at me.
"What's the matter? Do I disturb the pleasant conversation?" I ask them in a slightly sharp voice.
"No, not at all, just we were waiting for someone else." replies Savannah Moore.
"Oh. Did you manage to sort things out with Vanessa?" I ask my kids.
They don't answer, just staring at me.
"It was a simple question, so please answer. Yes or no?"
"No." Ivo says finally, and he turns his gaze away.
"Perfect!" I murmur angrily and walk into the closet to get a bottle of drink. "Where is Vanessa?" I ask them with a bottle of whiskey in my hand.
"We don't know." Yvonne says, and it sounds like she wouldn't care about her former friend's whereabouts. I think a little education is worth it. Friends are not as disposable as a used paper towel.
"What did you do to her?" I ask them sternly, and look directly to the Moore sisters.
"They didn't do anything!" Yvonne immediately gets up to protect her new friends.
"So what did YOU do?" I don't suppress my anger.
"I also didn't do anything!" She cries back.
"Well, that's what you are good at! Doing nothing. That's what you have learned form you new friends! Congratulation!"
"Don't offend them! They are far more better, than Vanessa!" cries my son.
"Then spit out who did what to her because I see her bag, but Vanessa is not here!" I am also crying.
Silence. They all looking at each other, but none of them speak a word.
"No one has seen her since yesterday morning." The younger Moore tells me in the end.
"What do you mean?"
"Vanessa is nowhere to find." says Yvonne. "We were helping her mother to prepare her birthday party yesterday, but she didn't go home. She called her parents in the afternoon, that she would spend the night here."
"Well, she didn't spend it here!" I say and storm back to the hall.
I run around the house, calling Vanessa, and she is not here, of course. I return to the living room with her bag, pour the contents to the couch, and toss the books and exercise books to the kids.
"Examine them!" I tell them, while I search further in Vanessa's bag.
I have to find her medicines, on a natural way. I am tapping along the inside of the bag, when I touch something under the lining of the bag. I'm not refining, I'm tearing up the material to get the box. It is a small medicine box, with Vanessa's name is written on the label. I pour the tablets to the table, and start to count them.