Of Things Unseen Read online

  “MOM, EVERYTHING LOOKS so good,” I said as I spooned candied yams onto my plate. I was trying my best to head off the inevitable.

  “You think so? I let the sweet potatoes go too long and I think the greens need some salt.” Everyone at the table snickered. Classic Sheila.

  “I have a question,” said Erica from the other end, next to Andre of course, her long locs framing her pretty face. She didn’t wear makeup either, but unlike me, she didn’t aim her bare face at my mother like a spite grenade. “What’s the deal with you cooking on Mother’s Day?”

  Sheila took a sip of wine, which struck me as strange because she almost never drank. “I just felt like it. We can go out next year. Take me to Ray’s on the River or Bones. Somewhere fancy.”

  “You mean expensive,” said Andre.

  Sheila seemed embarrassed. “It was just a suggestion. We don’t have to.”

  “No, if that’s what you want, that’s what we’ll do,” I said pointedly. Andre was nobody’s mama so as far as I was concerned, he had no say in the matter. His money troubles and inability to treat his mother to a nice dinner were his own fault.

  He didn’t look at me. “I mean yeah, cool, if that’s what Mama wants to do then I’m good with it. Just let me know in advance so I can plan for it. It’s not a problem, I just have a lot coming up with the car. And the boys are gonna need stuff for the summer and then, also, when school starts back up,” he said, over-explaining like someone who had been a liar all his life.

  I raised my eyebrows. “We’re telling you now, right? I think that counts as ‘in advance.’”

  Andre and Erica exchanged looks and an awkward silence followed. Thankfully Xavier, three years old and clumsy, knocked a piece of yam on the floor and I quickly turned my attention to it. There was some chatter among the other members of the family but I tuned out until I heard Val speak.

  “So, guess what we’re having?” asked Val.

  “Me?” I asked.

  “Yes you, silly. Everybody else already knows.”

  That was odd. “Wait, why do they know and I don’t?”

  “We had dinner at Erica’s the day I had my ultrasound.”

  Of course they did. I was used to being excluded from the Erica and Andre Show but being on the outside with Val hurt a little. I looked at Tony and he shrugged.

  “Another boy?” I asked hopefully.

  “Nope, we’re finally getting our girl!” Val’s excitement was sweet, and I was genuinely glad she would finally have the girl she always wanted, but I wondered what the baby would look like. Worried, actually. Andre had been colorstruck all his life and anybody who paid attention could see he favored Xavier over Corey. Zay had gotten his mother’s coloring and Andre wasn’t shy about fawning over him. I shuddered to think about how he would react if that little girl came out looking like her brown-skinned brother.

  Val searched my face for a reaction so I gave her what she wanted. “Oh my God Val, I’m so happy for you! She’s gonna be beautiful.”

  DRE, ERICA, AND TONY took the boys out to the backyard to play while we sat at the table eating Sheila’s German chocolate cake. My favorite. My mother rarely said ‘I love you’ but she could be motherly in other ways.

  “I notice you didn’t say much to your sister,” said Sheila.

  I knew that was coming. “I didn’t really have anything to say. She didn’t talk to me either.”

  She shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. I just noticed that’s all. Both of you could stand to make more of an effort with each other.”

  “How come Sky didn’t come?” I asked her. I knew I hit a nerve when I saw her jaw tighten. I was glad about that.

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask your sister?”

  I didn’t need to ask. Everybody knew. Sky was Erica’s girlfriend and Sheila didn’t approve. She had never approved, and she hadn’t been very welcoming the last time Sky came to a family gathering. I’ll admit it, I liked to needle her about it. Nobody else would say anything, not even Erica.

  My mother’s lips pursed, which was my signal to leave it alone, so I turned my attention toward Val instead. “So Val, what’s the deal with school?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Well Dre’s home and Xavier’s starting school soon, right?”

  “Right. But I’m pregnant.”

  “I know, but you’re not sick this time. You’re halfway through the pregnancy now so you could at least be applying to some programs. Go ahead and get all your ducks in a row.”

  She looked at Sheila who was busy eating and not making eye contact. She wouldn’t say it but I knew my mother agreed with me. “Maybe. I’m not sure,” Val said.

  Unable to stop myself, I kept pushing. “Not sure about what?”

  “There’s some things I need to work out before I go back.”

  “Well is it something I can help with?”

  Val squirmed in her seat. “I’ll think about it and let you know.”

  “Okay, but if you tell me now I can—”

  “Oh my God, Tam, just leave the girl alone!” Sheila said, dropping her fork onto her plate.

  “What? I’m just trying to help her.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you that you can’t want more for this child than she wants for herself? Let her be.”

  “But she wants to go back to school. She told me herself.”

  “She probably just tells you what you wanna hear so you’ll get off her back. You ever consider that? If she wanted to do something with her life she would have done it by now. She’s fine. Leave it alone.” She punctuated her statement with a long swig of wine and as I watched her, I realized she was drinking because all of us were there.

  Val’s head swiveled back and forth as if she were watching the world’s worst tennis match. She was half smiling, her eyebrows scrunched toward each other. Sheila was on her side, but she was also putting her down. That was my mother. Salty and sweet. Nice and nasty.

  I shook my head in frustration. Watching Val’s life was like watching someone standing on train tracks and knowing there’s a train coming. I needed to stop the train. I knew how to do it, but I wasn’t ready to take that step. Not yet.

  Chapter 5

  “Tiffany Michelle Scott was 20 years old when she disappeared. She is described as a dark-skinned black female, approximately 5 feet 6 inches tall and 140 pounds.

  She was born in Minnesota to Mark and Elaine Scott and was the youngest of four siblings. The family moved to Atlanta when Tiffany was six because her father, an engineer, secured a teaching job at Georgia Institute of Technology. Tiffany’s mother became a stay-at-home mom and something of a socialite in her community.

  The family settled on Atlanta’s east side where Tiffany and her siblings thrived, both academically and socially. Tiffany’s school friends described her as a sweet girl who appeared shy to strangers but was outgoing and fun with people whom she knew well. Tiffany loved to sing and was always the go-to when the school needed someone to sing Lift Every Voice and Sing. She also sang at every talent show and was a crowd favorite every year. She was even voted Most Talented for the senior superlatives, and the nickname under her senior yearbook picture was “Songbird.”

  After high school, Tiffany attended LSU, majoring in criminal justice. By all accounts, she did well there. She joined the chorus and got along well with her roommates. For spring break, she came home to spend time with her family and she picked up some hours at Forever 21, her regular part-time job at the mall.

  In the weeks leading up to her disappearance, friends reported that Tiffany seemed down. She was never the most bubbly person, but she could typically muster up a smile for her friends. She was also usually very optimistic. To that end, the change in her demeanor was very noticeable. One friend speculated that Tiffany was upset about her grades that semester, but Tiffany’s parents believed she was still doing well. It was later determined that she had failed one of her classes. It was very much u
nlike her.

  Six days before she disappeared, Tiffany’s mother bought tickets to the upcoming Girls Three concert, which she knew would cheer Tiffany up. She was right, Tiffany was ecstatic when she opened the gift-wrapped box containing the tickets. Her family and friends point to this enthusiasm as proof that Tiffany would have never run off or disappeared of her own volition.

  Three days before she disappeared, Tiffany seemed to sink deeper into her funk. Her family hesitated to say she was depressed, as she had not been diagnosed by a mental health professional. It is likely that they also refused to use the word depression because they didn’t want to lend any credence to the idea that she may have run off, or even committed suicide. But everyone in her life seemed to agree that she had been afflicted with a profound sadness that nobody could penetrate.

  Two days prior to her disappearance, Tiffany told her father that she needed to talk to him about something. Mr. Thomas was a busy man, having taken on a position in-residence with the department of defense. He was still teaching part-time at Georgia Tech and was rarely available to his family. He was preparing for a presentation when Tiffany approached him, and he assured her that he would clear some time in his schedule that weekend for their talk. She didn’t know it yet, but he planned to take her to her favorite restaurant for lunch. He could tell she had something weighing heavily on her mind, but he just assumed it was related to college and her future. Tiffany disappeared on that Thursday, leaving her father and family in the dark about what was on her mind.

  On the day she disappeared, Tiffany began her day as she normally did when she was home. She cooked breakfast for herself and left afterward, arriving on time at the mall and getting to her station by 8:30 am. Her coworkers didn’t notice anything strange with Tiffany’s demeanor, although her manager noted that she returned from lunch approximately 15 minutes late. That was also unlike her. The manager decided to let it go since Tiffany was always punctual, but Tiffany showed up to her office and apologized. She didn’t offer an explanation, but the manager noted that she seemed jittery and upset.

  Tiffany clocked out at 4:45 pm (her shift was over at 4:30 but she apparently took it upon herself to make up the 15 minutes). Surveillance video of the parking lot showed her getting into her car without incident, then pulling out of her parking space and driving in the direction of the interstate that would take her back to her parents’ house.

  Tiffany never made it home.

  Since Tiffany was an adult, her parents did not grow alarmed when she didn’t come straight home from work. They assumed she had met up with friends and were glad she was taking time to be social. When she didn’t call or return home by the time they usually went to bed (10 pm), they got concerned. Repeated calls to her phone went straight to voicemail and none of her friends had seen or talked to her that day.

  Mr. And Mrs. Scott called police around midnight, and police advised them to give her until the next day to come home. Mr. Scott got into his vehicle and drove to the mall where he found her car in the mall parking lot, not near the entrance she used to get to work, but all the way on the northern side of the mall, in the very back row.

  The car was empty.

  Mr. Scott called the police and upon their arrival, unlocked the doors and the trunk. Nothing was found. The police dusted for fingerprints and vacuumed for hair and fibers. No blood was visible in or outside the vehicle.

  There was some hope when police secured the surveillance footage of the parking lot. The video showed Tiffany’s car arriving at its final location in the back row. A person could be seen exiting the driver’s side, then leaning back inside the car for several seconds. Police later surmised that the person, who was estimated to be around 5’11, was putting the driver’s side seat back into the position it would have been in if Tiffany had been driving.

  The person was assumed to be male, but no other identifying information could be gleaned from the video. He wore a dark sweatshirt with a hood pulled over his head, dark pants, and dark shoes, and he never faced the direction of the camera so his face could not be seen. After he closed the door, he simply walked out of frame. He was not spotted on any other surveillance camera at the mall or in the surrounding area.

  At present, police have no suspects and no leads and have been unable to locate a single witness who saw Tiffany or her car after she pulled out of the mall parking lot. The case is still open but it is considered a cold case.”

  I GRABBED A SMALL YELLOW notepad and a pen so I could take notes. I was supposed to be focusing on the larger narrative but I found myself getting sucked into the mystery of it all. The first thing I noted on my pad was the change in Tiffany’s demeanor. Something had been bothering her. Had she broken up with a boyfriend? Recently found out she was pregnant? Had she been ill? There are a million reasons a young woman might be upset, and it didn’t sound like police dug too deep to find any. Yes, she had failed a class but that wasn’t the end of the world. What had she wanted to talk to her father about? And why her father instead of her mother or any of her siblings?

  Renee Washington had also been down before her disappearance, so that was one similarity between the cases. Then again, if I disappeared tomorrow, everyone in my life would say the exact same thing. Tamara seemed down. She seemed sad about something. There was something weighing on her. She wasn’t acting like herself. But all those things described me perfectly. I was always weighed down, and almost always sad about something. I just didn’t talk about it.

  There were several hundred comments under the posting. I scrolled through, skimming, looking for anything that stood out. There were conspiracies, all of them ridiculous. One poster, despite the fact that Tiffany was listed as 5’4, was certain that it was actually she who left her car in the parking lot. He theorized that she had run off in order to get away from the pressures of life. Not likely, not for a black woman. We don’t know how to put ourselves first.

  Another poster presented the idea that she had been murdered by a ring of human organ thieves. Yet another argued that it had to be human traffickers, and Tiffany was likely being held as a sex-slave somewhere. A little more believable, but not by much. Sometimes the simplest explanation was the right one.

  The aspirin bottle sat on the desk near the mouse, taunting me. It had only been two hours since I popped a trio of the little round helpers. What was the harm in taking three more? My Oxycodone prescription hadn’t been filled yet, and for a brief moment I considered calling it in to the pharmacy but I thought the better of it. The pain wasn’t that bad. I didn’t need it.

  I took a long sip from my water bottle. Songbird was the second case I had read and this one had been easier than the last. Maybe I was getting over my stupid fears. Perhaps I was slowly disentangling myself from the mess of lies and secrets and fear that had plagued me for so long. Maybe immersing myself in these cases was purging that summer out of my soul.

  I closed out of the page and put the notepad in Tony’s desk drawer. It was lunchtime.

  THE PEACHTREE WAS PACKED and we were lucky to get a table. I think the hostess took pity on us thanks to Val’s giant pregnant belly. She looked more like nine months than six.

  I called the meeting to get her approval on the shower details. The only thing that I hadn’t decided on was the location. My mother suggested we use the clubhouse in her neighborhood but I vetoed that immediately. Too many bad memories. I wasn’t opposed to hosting at my house but I really didn’t want Val’s family in my home. The last resort was my mother’s house but I wasn’t sure she had the space. It would depend on the size of the guest list, which Val hadn’t given me yet. But before we could even begin discussing the shower, I noticed she was sitting quietly, staring at her plate. Something was wrong.

  “You okay? Do you not like the food? You usually like salmon,” I said. I always tried a variety of restaurants when I went out with Val because the poor girl was almost as pedestrian as Tony. I had yet to be successful in getting her to try anything other th
an chicken or fish.

  “I’m fine. The food is good.” She tapped the top of her fork handle with her fingernail. Tap, tap, tap.

  I put my own fork down on my plate. “Alright, what is it? There’s obviously something on your mind so just tell me. Maybe I can help.” I spoke with the confidence of someone who had all of the answers and knew that none of the questions were about me.

  We sat there for what seemed like hours. Val finally spoke without looking at me and she said it so quietly that I almost didn’t hear it.

  “Why are you always trying to fix me?”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Fix you? What does that mean?”

  “Fix me, like make me better,” said Val, still staring at her uneaten salmon. A steaming plate of something caught my eye as it made its way past me in the hands of a harried waiter, the crackling sound and billowing smoke setting the mood for a delicious meal to come. Some lucky patron was going to dig into that entree while I sat there being insulted.

  “Well, first of all, I don’t think that’s true. But even if it was, why wouldn’t you want to be better? We should all strive to be better. Right?” I mean, it was true. Stagnating in one miserable spot in your life would never get you to where you want to be.

  She shook her head and finally looked up, tears rimming her large hazel eyes. “Maybe I’m happy the way I am. Have you ever thought about that?”

  “That’s my brother talking.”

  “No, that’s me talking.”

  “Nope. That’s Dre, all the way.”

  “NO, IT ISN’T!” Then came the tears, unable to stay contained under the pressure of her outburst. I was embarrassed that she had yelled out, especially when several people turned to look in our direction. Everyone loves a show.

  “Calm down,” I told her. “Look, I’m sorry if you feel—“

  “Don’t apologize if I feel. This isn’t about what I feel, it’s about what you do to me.”