One Million Steps

“Good morning, miss. I was hoping you could tell me where I can find uh-” stammered the police officer standing before me, slowly opening the notebook in his hands. Flipping to a page with writing scrawled with a bright red ball point pen, he resumed his sentence, “Uh…Maryanne Way?” he asked, finally looking up to face me.

He had, I noticed, dark rings under his eyes and coffee stains on the front of his uniform and nicotine stains on his fingers. His ebony black hair was ruffled and his clothes were crinkled. The strong aftershave he wore had mixed with a disturbing coffee and smoke mixture, causing to nose to wrinkle, giving me a disgusted look on my face.

Realising he was still waiting for my answer, I looked up at him once again, my face returning to its original tired state. “Oh. Rianne, please. No Maryanne. Yep, I’m Maryanne Way,” I shot back quickly, eager to return to bed.

“Oh, sorry miss. I’m Officer Reed and I have some information to share with you. May I come in? It’s quite a lot to take in,” the man in front of me softly waved the notebook in the air, indicating whatever I needed to know was inside.

Too sleepy to think it through, I stepped aside to create a small passageway to enter the house. “C’mon in,” I gestured towards the living room, rubbing at my left eye with the back of my hand.

Officer Reed thanked me as he sat himself down on the old couch sitting in the middle of the living room facing the television. I watched as he observed his surroundings, flipping the pages of his notebook. He stopped at the same page as before and moved his eyes to me as I slowly sat myself down on the armchair on his left. His smell blew past me every time he flipped a new page. Unable to tolerate it, I decided to breathe using my mouth. Ugh! It’s even worse. I can taste it now.

Unsure what to say, I remained quiet and still in my seat. I saw him look from his notes to my face. He seemed as though he was waiting for me to speak. We sat in the silence for several minutes before I felt uncomfortable.

“Uhm…officer? It is 8am in the morning on Saturday and I only intend to wake up in several hours.And I am quite sleepy. If there is no purpose for your visit, I would gladly like to return to sleep,” I asked impatiently, yawning as I did. My rudeness definitely uncalled for.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, miss. It’s just that-never mind. And I do have a purpose for my visit. I have information concerning…” he paused to glance at the page of his notebook, “your mother.” My eyes widened.

My mother, Claire Shayne, had not been heard from for almost twelve years. She left my father and I when I was only two years old, with my baby sister just three months old at that time. For the many years of my life, I had no mother, just a father. And, let’s face it; fathers are rubbish at being mothers. All I had were pictures of her, seeing as I was too young then to remember enough.

My father suffered the most. The first year of her disappearance, he sat in the same armchair I was in now and stared out the window, hoping he would witness his wife running back with suitcases in hand, a smile on her face and tears of joy streaming down her face. It never happened. My sister, Tiffany, had no memories of her and she hated that. She often blamed herself for our mother’s disappearance and spent many months of her ten-year-old life hiding away and shunning herself from her friends and family. Therapy does not work as effectively on children than with adults.

My mother had been reported missing a year after her disappearance and the case was closed. Her death was never announced because nobody believed that she had and nobody really gave up looking for her.

My mind returned to the man facing me, waiting for my response. I felt my eyes widen as I sat there listening to what he had to say. I realized he was waiting for a reply again. “And?” I asked impatiently.

“Yes. Claire Shayne?” he looked at me as I nodded, waiting for him to continue, “We’ve traced her.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I had thought the worst and assumed he would have said, “We found her body” or something around those lines. My eyes opened wider.

At that moment, I didn’t bother about anything around me. Not even the 12-year-old girl trudging down the stairs, rubbing her eyes, asking what had happened. Or the aging 49-year-old man rushing down the stairs behind her tugging to tighten the robe he wore with one hand, and clutching a shiny new golf club in the other. I ignored all the queries and questions that flew from their mouths to my ears. I didn’t care. Because this officer opposite me had just told me the news I never thought I would hear.

My mouth opened to answer but I didn’t know what to say. I closed my mouth, trying to think what to say. When I knew, I opened my mouth again. “You’ve found…my mother?” I choked out, a single tear forming in my right eye and slowly trickling down my cheek.