There's something wrong with Phoebe

2 - Mother

Phoebe went missing on the 16th December, 2005. It was snowing that day, heavily. She was walking home from school with her friends and at just past four, she had to take her own path through the forest to get home. She never came out the other end, shown by CCTV, but the cameras on the other side had been covered by the snow. This had infuriated Rob as this could have been a key clue, and he had demanded compensation a few years ago for not having the cameras clear. We’d been given several million pounds, and the case had been highly publicised.

The fact that we’d gone to court seemed to signal to the public we’d given up searching for our girl and wanted to screw the court for as much as possible. It hadn’t reflected us in a positive light at all. The reason we went to court was so the police would re-open the case as they’d decided, after just six months, it was not worth continuing. The campaign for Phoebe had been larger than any other in the world, and her face was known in every country. Her school photo was printed on huge billboards and featured in every shop window. I smiled as I thought of how angry Phoebe would be to know that picture of her had been shown everywhere. Her teacher had made her take off most of her makeup before the picture. Phoebe had been such a funny girl, and stroppy at times, but in a way that always made me laugh. She had the most amazing laugh too. It was carefree and loud like her. I missed that sound in the house.

But Phoebe was behind us now, I thought as I passed by her bedroom door on the way to clean my bathroom. Rob still insisted on continuing the case, using the money won to generate disfigured looking images of what Phoebe may look like now. They were ugly and inhumane looking, and nothing like what Phoebe would have been like were she still with us. A part of me would always believe Phoebe was still out there, but I doubted that we would ever see her again. I also knew I’d be disappointed with anything less than my blonde, smiling, thirteen year old daughter. This year was the first time we hadn’t bought a cake to celebrate her birthday. It had just been too painful, and it brought back the memories for Kayla and Thomas of their sister. Kayla’s older sister was forever younger than her in her mind.

We never took family photos anymore. Rob insisted we didn’t. He didn’t want Phoebe to feel left out when she came back. Rob is the one driving the case still, handing out leaflets at shopping centres. Even Kayla and Thomas have moaned at him about doing it, which has led to some pretty heated arguments meaning the subject of giving up on Phoebe was never brought up again.

People must think I’m an awful mother. I smile now, and laugh, and tell people I have two children, not three. A lot of people recognise me from all the press photos taken of us during the first few months from when Phoebe went missing. They frown slightly when they first see my face, trying to remember where they have seen it before, but then dismiss these thoughts until I tell them my surname, and realisation dawns on their face. They then say nothing on the subject of Phoebe though I notice them giving me strange looks when I’m not looking. They don’t understand how I can be so normal when I’m missing such a big part of my life. My first child.

I’ve often wondered if there’s something wrong with me, but I’ve always been good at hiding my feelings, though it doesn’t feel like I’m hiding them anymore. I’ve pushed the thoughts of missing Phoebe to the darkest corners of my mind so much that I no longer feel those feelings. Six years is a long time. I was going to move on at some point, though Rob probably wouldn’t. He would go to the ends of the Earth to find his first born. In fact, he had. Every time he received a sighting, anywhere in the world, even if it was as valid as a six year old saying she’d seen the tooth fairy, he would follow it up. Luckily for our family, the money from the court case meant he could properly quit work to go on his wild goose chases so we were no longer dependent on him.

Phoebe’s abduction had ruined our lives for several years, but the rest of us had gradually, as harsh as it sounded, moved on. We still glanced at the pictures of her hung on the walls and felt a sick feeling in our stomach, and didn’t dare go inside her bedroom, wanting to leave things just the way they had been, but we were realistic. Phoebe went missing when it was snowing and freezing cold. She was a loud girl and likely to cause her abductor trouble. The campaign to find her was worldwide. It would be much easier to get rid of her than risk a lifelong prison sentence.

As much as I longed for the police to call me up and tell me Phoebe had been found, my heart no longer skipped a beat when I got a phone call like it had that first year after Phoebe went missing as I prayed that the police would tell me where she was, I was almost one hundred percent sure that wasn’t going to happen. I’d loved Phoebe for thirteen years, and would continue to remember my daughter, and ponder what life would have been like if she hadn’t gone missing, but you can’t waste your already too short life.

That’s what I was thinking as I sprayed the mirror and rubbed it with my cloth, making sure it was immaculate. Then, the phone rang. I sighed emphatically as I ran to grab it, shouting, “Coming!” though I knew the person on the other end could not hear me. It was a strange habit I had. I picked it up and answered. “Hello? This is Annie Gold speaking?”

“Annie, this is the police. We found your daughter. We found Phoebe.”