What Sarah Said
1
It had been, for the record, one of the longest phone conversations I had ever logged in my entire life. Starting at 4pm, it went straight until 3 in the morning, covering all of the talking points including some I’d rather not get into with someone just looking for a casual read. When I was done sweating, the phone resting against my pillow, the soft, feminine voice pouring from the other end, I closed my eyes. It had been three years since I saw the body the voice belonged to, but nights like this closed the gap considerably. The gap would usually return the next morning when I woke up tomorrow to the empty bed, the cold space, and the picture on the night-stand looking back at me.
The phone might as well have been sweating for all it was doing on my pillow. Sarah’s voice cooed out of the other end, seductive and quiet, asking if I was okay. Hell, I was more than okay, but at the same time, I was exhausted. I was tapped out. My ear was sore, my arm was sore, my eyes were stinging with sweat from my fore-head, and my leg was twitching. She knew I was okay, I could hear it in her voice. Back before Europe, back when she lived with me, she would trace her finger along my jaw after, nesting her head on my shoulder, and coo into my ear until I was asleep.
Of course, it was a huge chunk of change if I fell asleep with the phone off the hook, so we would pretend. I couldn’t afford to cover that kind of bill, and she was more than accommodating. I would stay awake as long as I could while she whispered to me, but instead of falling asleep, I would hang up at the last possible second. Not abrupt, she promised me, no, it was “pleasant, as if you were here with me. I only wish I could hear you breathe.”
It was a deeper connection. Her family didn’t believe in marriage, she didn’t believe in spending money on something her family didn’t believe in, my family was dead… For all intents and purposes, we were at the stage, “Until death do us part,” but without the fancy ceremony, which bothered me none. I had complete faith in her, she had complete faith in me, and that’s what kept us together. Well, until she left.
Sarah had been a member of a volunteer nurses program for a few years. She would head out to under-developed areas around the city and administer first aid with the support of the local militia and other nurses, and the state provided her with a fair stipend for her work. I taught at the local high-school, which didn’t bring in nearly enough for a salary, but combined, we had enough to live our lives fairly well.
The nurses program, “Help Now,” had received critical praise in several national newspapers. A couple of third-page stories about the program, and how it was spreading to other areas and cities around the nation, bringing the light of help to people that needed it. Eventually, it was receiving such praise that the President, in all of his infinitesimal majesty, decided that it would be a wonderful idea to adopt the program and interfere (excuse me, “help”) with the rest of the world and their problems. Who better to send to under-developed portions of Europe than my beautiful Sarah? No one. And off she went.
One of the only rows that had ever transpired in our house had been about her leaving. Eventually, it came down to the fact that we needed the money, we couldn’t live without the money, and that would be that until her mother died. Sarah couldn’t go to her parents, she was far too proud, to even consider it. The night she left, I dropped her off at the airport, went to a bar, got drunk and totaled the car.
I ride my bike to work now.
Our latest bout, her gentle voice coming through the line, my eyes shutting, was coming to a slow, peaceful end. Static began to grow over the line, a light crackle infiltrating the silent revelry, and I grew upset. I considered hanging up the phone then and there, but her breathing became shallow, more rapid. Sarah stopped speaking, her breath turning into a panicked hyperventilation. In the back, I heard the splintering of wood and a quick scream coming from Sarah. There was a sound like the covers being pulled back, and another scream.
I was no longer close to sleep, Sleep Ville USA was the furthest destination from my mind. I was right outside the Oh-You’re-****ing-Awake-Now City, ready to drive in and take up permanent residence. I kicked the sheets up, ignoring the slight pain in my ear as I pushed the receiver closer.
“Sarah? SARAH?”
Something being knocked down, something glass breaking, another scream. And finally, words. I didn’t need to right them down, Jesus, they would forever be ingrained in my mind as the most cryptic and puzzling thing that had ever left her sweet mouth. My face went white and I dropped the phone, my eyes rolling back in my head. God, this couldn’t be happening.
I replayed the final thing she said before the line went dead.
“They’re after me, Jeremy.”
It wasn’t someone breaking into her abode, it wasn’t her being dragged away. It was the pure force I heard exerted over the line, the absolute power of the door splintering, and so help me God, it sounded like she knew who They were. And she sounded scared. Not, “Jeremy, help me kill this spider,” scared, that I had heard before. Pure terror, unadulterated.
Hello, City Limits.
-
Without a definite location, and without a certified area, they American Embassy could do little to help find her. The police, useless as they are, directed me to the Embassy, who turned out to be even more useless than the police. I tried contacting the government, eventually trying the White House number only to get the President’s message line. It was his program, I was hoping he would be keeping exact tabs on “Help Now” but I was growing weary of the run-around.
There were viable options, of course. I could try the Embassy back. I knew she was staying somewhere along the Alps (not like that’s a ****ing huge grid), and that they could possibly devote some help to find her, but the more I thought about it, the more my mind began to delegate how they would delegate, and without a specific town (or country, even) it would be even more fruitless.
I could hit up the bottle of Wild Turkey I keep in the cabinet, behind the sugar. But, that would have entailed breaking out the foot-stool, going into the kitchen, and staring down an old demon… Something I wasn’t too keen on doing.
Sleep hit me first. As my head hit the pillow (no, it didn’t hit, I was just falling, falling) I began to see her in my mind, her smile, her blue sweater, her eyes, I began to hear her voice. Tranquility is a nomad; it was all replaced with her terror-struck eyes, the negligee she had been wearing, her being pulled from silk sheets (did she have silk sheets where she was? Where was she?) the door, off the hinges, being pulled with her before being shaken loose. Her fingers clawing against the hard-wood, peeling varnish and splinters up, hardened coils like ribbon splaying from every which way.
And then silence.
The sunlight crept into my eyes, drying my forehead. The kitchen floor, tiled, messy, had been my mattress. The spot on the table reserved for my old war-bird was empty. No, it looks like I had just passed out.
“Jeremy, I have good news.”
That had been the first talking point of the evening.
“What is it?”
“My mother, she has freed up funds and I can come home!”
Not that I didn’t trust her, but her mother had never done something so selfless before in all of her life. It put me on edge, but that’s okay; if I fell, there was always a catch.
“Really? What’s the –“
“There is no catch. I sent you a letter that should explain it all; I don’t want to spoil the surprise!”
“I do love surprises…”
“Of course you do,” she said. “But this mattress is so cold.”
Black wasn’t my color, but it would have to do; the rest of my clothes were grungy as hell. I didn’t bother with shoes; it was a quick run to the mailbox, something my feet could take. In the years of my youth, they would have been able to take a fair-shake more, my brother and I navigating the woods behind my parent’s house
Now look at that fire!
to the tree house. Very, very rarely did we bother with shoes. By the time school came around, our feet were leather, cured and ready for action, anticipating a year of being softened up in the schoolhouse.
I hadn’t spoken to Ben in forever. Once I got Sarah sorted out, I would have to give him a call. Ben wasn’t the worst brother, nor the best brother, but he was reliable. I could turn to him in a time of crisis (but this didn’t qualify, no, no, she would be back soon) monetary or other.
There were rocks, tiny rocks which lined the footpath to the mailbox that stung my feet every other step. I was a far stretch from being fourteen and the ground wouldn’t let me forget it. The hinges squeaked as I dropped the lid, and pulled the single letter out. I had been expecting this, but at the same time, it came as a shock.
No return addresses, but my name, her hand-writing.
The envelope fluttered to the ground, turning over five or six times before it came to a rest at my feet.
“Jeremy,
I didn’t want to seem morbid, but I suspect you already know. The only way she would ever give us money is if it was left in her will, and it was. Among other things, she’s given us a considerable amount of money; enough for me to come home, enough to do anything we could ever want.
She’s also left a few small pieces of real-estate, but the locations are kept in her safety deposit box. Father has already given permission to get the money and the information from the bank. I’m telling the program tomorrow that I’m finished. We’ll pick it up together; who knows… Maybe with the money we can make this official.
Sarah.”
Her “S” was eloquent, a fine snake trailing from the bottom of the note to the last line, looping near the end. Elegant.
”They’re after me, Jeremy!”
It became very real. Could someone other than me know about her money?
The bottle piped up when I walked back into the house.
“You know, she’s probably planning to steal the money and run-away. She’s probably master-minding her own kidnapping, and you’re never going to see her again. You’re never going to see her again, and she’s going to get all that money, and you’ll just be left on the curb, sitting, counting your fingers because you’re lucky to have those, and she’ll be in Aruba sipping cocktails with Fernando.”
“Shut up.”
“Oh, buddy, you know the way to shut me up, don’t you? There’s only one way. You just gotta get that stepping-stool out from the pantry, and climb up here. I know you want this, hell, if you didn’t, you would have gotten rid of me a long time ago. But what are you going to do? I mean, you’re wife – No, she’s not even your wife – is going to run away with some other guy and take all of the money. She’s just too chicken to do it legitimate, and this way, it can’t be taxed.
“My logic, Jeremy, is infallible.”
There was an audible squeal as I pulled the step-stairs out. The bottle felt right at home in my hand, heavy but not quite. It smiled back up at me. It saw the glimmer in my eye.
My grip loosened, and from the top step, the bottle fell. It hit the bottom step, spinning rapidly, before smashing against the tile, sending out that poison in every direction.
I’d clean it up when I get back from the bank. That’d work.
There was another squeal as the garage door opened. I didn’t bother waiting until it was up all the way; I pedaled out into the street, ducking under the bottom edge and pulling out in front of a car. They sounded their horn, I gave them the finger, and rounded the corner.
I was a mess by the time I was at the bank.
This was the first step to finding Sarah.
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