Melissa was cute from the moment she was born. We named her after my wife’s beloved second-grade teacher. Her blue eyes, cherub cheeks, and a dollop of blonde hair made her seem like the Greek Gods had come down from Mt. Olympus to bless me with the most perfect creation in the mortal world. The nurses and doctor did their best to maintain their mask of professional indifference but they couldn’t hide their admiration of Melissa from me. Melissa was undeniable from the moment she left the womb.
Melissa’s mother read a lot of books about parenting. She watched a lot of new mothers at public parks. Somehow reading the Dog Whisperer had inspired Melissa’s mother to observe moms like how Cesar Milan would observe packs of wild dogs to understand their natural energy. All of the people-watching and self-help reading made Melissa’s mother expect the worst. Unpredictable temper tantrums, sulphuric dirty diapers, messes everywhere, constant brushes with death. Every disaster imaginable was something that entered Melissa’s mother’s head, and when something came into her head, it left out of her mouth, straight into my ears. I would listen for ten minutes, then tell her that our perfect little creation would be the best thing that ever happened to us. That wheel of neuroses would keep spinning until she fell asleep. It would build up while I was away at the office and commence spinning the moment I walked through the front door in the afternoon.
When Dr. Andretti delivered Melissa, I could see all of the worry, all of the dread that came from imagining every possible avenue of infant mortality, instantly vanishing from her face. With Melissa finally with us, the world was just possibilities. Before Melissa, her mother, and I were like European settlers fighting the world of Native Americans with gunpowder and swords. The moment that Melissa came to us, we were fighting with chicken pox, and cannons. Our world was what we wanted it to be. Sacajawea was ours if we wanted her. The best-case scenario was the only scenario.
We all left the hospital knowing with every ounce of our bodies that today and every day that followed would just be a new pinnacle. A new summit that we climbed. A new high of human happiness and enlightenment. Every other freshly-minted parent walked out of the hospital with a screaming bundle of blankets and a weary facial expression. Pretending to be happy and trying to hide the suspicion that the little human they were now responsible for would wreck the rest of their lives. Destined to years of sleepless nights, random screaming, and skull-crushing drudgery that would have them ruing their narcissistic attempt to live forever by passing their genes to a new generation. Melissa’s mother and I weren’t those phonies. We were the real deal. I knew after two seconds with Melissa’s mother that I wanted to have a family with her, and after our third date where I had to throw up after too much vodka and she kissed my vomit-filled mouth, I knew we had a chance to be a forever-couple. The kind of relationship that would make me believe that I was king of the world. Her voice went into different parts of my brain. The vibrations echoed through my head long after she stopped speaking. Our child would be a child of love, and Melissa was that.
Our augmented family walked out of Sutter Memorial Hospital with ugly smiles, and the panacea of infant laughter. Melissa’s screaming stopped not ten minutes after her divine life started.
I drove us home at two-thirty in the afternoon. Even at birth, Melissa was too considerate to drag out the delivery and make us go through rush-hour traffic.
It took Melissa seven months to start walking. After two years, she was talking in a communicative way. Everything came fast and easy to our little beacon of heaven. On our maiden voyage to the public playground, the other children stopped what they were doing and looked at Melissa. Games of tic-tac-toe, tag, and hot lava monster would pause and time would momentarily stop while everyone appreciated the corpulent vessel of perfection in their presence. At the age of three, Melissa was pacifying the chaos of children’s playgrounds. Before her first day of kindergarten, she was reading and writing. It seemed like we could just put a children’s book in front of her and by some divine magic, she would teach herself how all of the letters fit together to form words, how those words fit together to make sentences, and how those sentences followed each other to convey ideas. On Melissa’s fifth birthday I taught her the memory game where you flip over tiles trying to flip over matching pairs of images. She picked up the concept after ten minutes. After thirty minutes, she was routinely beating me. When it was clear that she would never lose to me again, I sicked her on her unknowing mother. It took Melissa’s mother three games to give up and vow to never play Melissa again. Melissa was always exceptional.
Melissa’s mother and I had always been tragic loners. Never quite comfortable around other people we weren’t having sex with or at least trying to. Dear Melissa changed that too. All of a sudden, other parents were asking us if we wanted to attend their toddler parties where the kids bounced off each other while the parents got a reprieve from baby-talk and got to hobnob about the things that interested them before their lives became dominated by their miniature facsimiles. Not only was Melissa an unshakeable source of happiness, but she was the skeleton key to fun peer relationships that I always thought double-dates would be. In the early days of Melissa’s mother’s and my relationship, there was always this swingers' energy that accompanied the impromptu four-person dinners and the random hikes through nature that made everything uncomfortable. That, and there was usually some instability in our fellow couple’s relationship. Random arguing and feelings that things were one word away from devolving into frenzied arguments. With other parents, there was control. These were people who were able to create a family and not separate after one year. With the parents of Melissa’s friends, there was an ability to remain civil and joyful for more than one hour while in public.
Every parent we met spoke in reverence of Melissa. Nothing that she did was too trivial to amaze each and every couple that stood in front of us, yearning to know every little detail of our little ball of perfection.
School started and Melissa continued her involuntary galvanization of everyone that came in contact with her. Her teacher Ms. Livingston held us in her classroom after Back To School Night ended. She needed to talk to the parents of the girl who inspired her classmates to nap peacefully and sit quietly while Ms. Livingston read to everyone. We told her that we didn’t know how it happened. How Melissa always slept through the night from the moment she arrived home. How her peers always seemed to stop what they were doing to fully appreciate Melissa’s presence. How milestone achievements were inevitably reached months, if not years before they were expected.
Ms. Livingston stood in rapt attention as all of her suspicions were confirmed. That this little girl who she considered a gift from God, really, truly, was perfect. Something that she had never seen before in her seventeen years of teaching.
At the next Back To School Night, it was Mr. Michaels who gave us the same post-presentation interview with irrepressible admiration flooding his fastidious face.
“Melissa is the most talented reader I have had in ten years of teaching. I have to ask. What have you done to get her to read at such a precocious level?”
He continued, “As a class, we have math operation competitions, and I have to give everyone facing Melissa less problems so that it’s a fair competition. Has she taken special math courses over the summer?”
One particular exclamation from Mr. Michaels made Melissa’s mother and I smile and laugh.
“On the first Friday of the school year, there was a student sitting next to Melissa who was sobbing uncontrollably. Melissa took ten seconds of their high-pitched moaning before saying, “stop your caterwauling!” The student immediately stopped crying, sat up straight, and quietly sat in their seat as the rest of the class silently listened to me continue reading Treasure Island aloud! Not only that, but now whenever a student throws the slightest tantrum, another student will repeat Melissa’s original demand word-for-word. I’ve never experienced anything like that in all my years of teaching. Just absolutely incredible!”
The following year was the same experience, and the one after that too. Melissa never showed any signs of letting everyone’s admiration for her inflate her ego. It was as if she was utterly incapable of registering other people’s deep admiration of her.
Elementary school came and went. With perfect marks in every class, numerous stable friendships, and an uninterrupted life of familial bliss. Melissa’s mother and I were never happier. We were living a fairy tale with our only child. Seventh grade came and Melissa started her first day of middle school at Rockefeller, just half a mile away from our house. Melissa insisted on walking to school and we acquiesced to her demand for control and independence over her commute. Melissa had multiple offers from neighboring families to shuttle her to and from school, but their offers were declined. Melissa wanted to walk alone, where ideas could spring from her glorious mind without the clacking of some frustrated housewife or pubescent young woman.
During most afternoons, Melissa’s mother would be shuttling to and from each gym where she taught Pilates classes, and I usually got home from my law office at five-thirty. Usually, I would have about an hour of quality time with Melissa before her mother got back from her last class.
We would play chess. One game, in total silence. The two of us would be busy putting all of our mental energy and focus into winning this faux-war played out on white and black squares. Melissa usually lost but the rare victory for her was worth the routine defeat. Melissa embraced failure. Just another thing that was perfect about her. Unlike the memory game that she mastered as a preschooler, chess was something that didn’t fall into the category of games that Melissa was omnipotent. I had no doubt that my daughter would overtake me in chess eventually, but now she would have to struggle along with her ten percent win rate.
It was a rainy Friday afternoon when I came home to an empty house. Not something alarming on its own, but definitely outside the typical routine. Rain was one of those things that inspired my daughter to hitch a ride with a neighborhood housewife. When the house was empty, however, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Between the deluge of uppity attorneys at my office and the family at home, alone time was a rare gift. With no one around me to appease, I lay down on the couch. Fully prone, stomach-side down, and closed my eyes.
Sometime later, Melissa’s mother came through. At the sound of the door opening, I sat up and grabbed a book that I had intended to read, and reconfigured my body to make it appear that I was reading. Even after years of marriage, I was still reticent to let Melissa’s mother see me splay out on the couch doing nothing. She wasn’t as maniacal as a lot of other women I witnessed, but if I could help it, I always presented an orderly appearance to my wife. Marriage took work and this was part of it in my opinion. Not exposing your partner to the unmitigated sloth you would be in the absence of their presence.
“Hi honey.” Melissa’s mother was still an objectively beautiful woman, even after our two decades of being together. Certainly, time apart during my intermittent business trips contributed to keeping the romance alive, but her toned arms, firm chest, cutting cheekbones, and shoulder-length bleached blonde hair also did their fair share to keep my interest alive.
I still loved her in that overwhelming, passionate way that I did before Melissa. Especially when she came home all sweaty in her skin-tight workout instructor gear.
“Babe, come here.”
She smiled and giddily did what I asked. We shared a real kiss. Eyes closed. Lips gently locked.
“Where’s Melissa?”
This was definitely atypical. Melissa was always home by the time her mother got back.
“I’m not sure.”
We looked at each other with an instantaneous feeling of unimaginable fear and anguish. Something outside my life’s experience of emotions. Suddenly, the erotic buzz in the air evaporated. Everything else in the world that didn’t involve our daughter was nothing. There was only the absence of Melissa and my single-minded objective to locate her.
Nothing was said for a moment. The only sound was our heartbeats cracking our sternums.
Melissa’s mother was the first one to speak. Her voice was soft, her tone moribund. Every word was clearly enunciated.
“I’m calling the police.”
The three separate dial tones reverberated throughout the whole house and kept buzzing inside my skull long after they ended. It felt like the whole neighborhood could hear my wife make the call that no parent thinks they will have to.
I listened. That was all I could do. The feelings of helplessness were growing disconcertingly less novel.
“Nine, one, one, what’s your emergency?”
Melissa’s mother was still speaking with the quiet determination that she had before.
“My daughter is missing. I need someone to find my daughter.”
“Mmmhm, OK. What’s your name ma’am?”
The conversation took less than a minute. The operator was a very professional woman. She spoke with a subdued determination that made its best effort not to escalate our heightened emotions.
Melissa’s mother put the phone down.
“They’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”
We waited outside the front door. Maybe Melissa would walk up to the house and this would all be over.
It was seven o’clock when we stepped outside. Life now existed in hours, followed by minutes. Every second that ticked away was another nail in our coffin of despair.
Melissa didn’t walk up to the door.
The police arrived at seven-thirteen. It was one car. One driver and one passenger. The driver was a short, Hispanic male in his early forties and the passenger was a tall, red-headed woman. Even in this moment of complete panic, the oddity of their physical contrast registered in my brain.
The four of us went inside. The man asked most of the questions. We answered them while the woman calmly appraised us. The whole exchange took fifteen minutes. Assurances were made but nothing was promised. We didn’t want them in our home, but we also didn’t want them to leave us alone. Everything was unsettling and insufficient.
The interview ended at seven-thirty and they drove away at seven-thirty-two.
Melissa’s mother and I wanted to search the world for our daughter but we also wanted to stay home in case Melissa showed up. In the end, Melissa’s mother decided to drive around to all of Melissa’s preferred hangouts while I stayed home in case she miraculously came back.
Melissa’s mother left at seven-forty-five. She came back at ten. Melissa wasn’t with her.
We sat on the living room couch in silence as one minute after another ticked away.
The front door opened at eleven-thirty-eight. My daughter walked into our home. There was a detached look in her eyes that I had never seen before. Her body was ramrod straight. The easy grace that radiated off of her body for her entire life was gone. Her clothes seemed disheveled, frumpy, and uneven. Her hair was frazzled.
Melissa’s mother screamed. It was an involuntary scream. A scream that she herself probably didn’t even hear.
We both enveloped our only daughter. Where she once felt bursting with vitality, she now felt hollow. The change overwhelmed me.
Once everything settled down, I asked her what happened. She looked at each one of us, her mother first, then me. The vacant look in her eyes that she had walked in with remained. The vacuum emanating from her pupils sucked out all of my happy relief at having her back.
That look in her eyes was a cruel prelude to the words that came out of her mouth in a way that made me sure I would never feel happiness again.
There was something vague about meeting up with friends after school to go bowling and eventually going out to eat a late dinner at a twenty-four-hour diner. Melissa’s mother and I just stood there. Saying nothing. Too grateful for the presence of our daughter to coherently cross-examine her story or probe for more details.
Melissa went to bed. Neither her mother nor I, even attempted that nightly routine. We both subconsciously knew that something irrevocably destructive had happened to our only child and that nothing would ever be the same.
Silently, we sat back on the living room couch. Saying nothing as the wall clock ticked away the seconds of our new, portentous existence.
Seven o’clock came and Melissa was still in her room. Usually, Melissa would be ready for the day and out the door by seven-fifteen. I knocked on her door. No answer. I knocked again. Melissa’s mother was standing next to me. We looked at each other and telepathically agreed to open the door.
Melissa was still in bed, fully ensconced below her comforter. Melissa’s mother screamed. It was one of those blood-curdling shrieks that you only hear in the most dire events that life has to offer. Unlike the involuntary screech that followed Melissa’s return, this one had zero chance of being forgotten by anyone.
In the midst of that awful sound, I saw it. The deep stream of dried blood running down Melissa’s bed. My body was thrust into action. The comforter came flying off her bed.
Melissa didn’t move. She looked unconscious. The blood trail emanated from her wrists. I could see the cuts without having to meticulously inspect my daughter’s body. There was no time to call the police for help. Melissa needed to be in the Emergency Room hours ago, and the delayed response of paramedics wasn’t a risk worth considering.
“Get the car.”
Melissa’s mother didn’t need to hear anything more. She ran to get the keys and the car ready. I grabbed our unconscious daughter.
We got to the hospital in eight minutes. Five miles of ignoring stop signs and red lights. There weren’t any sonorous explosions that detonated in our wake so I don’t think we caused any accidents with our reckless driving. A small miracle considering how Melissa’s mother treated the streets like a Formula One driver.
Three minutes after pulling into the hospital loading zone, we ran through the swinging doors of the Emergency Room. Our dire energy was understood by the staff. Melissa was immediately taken into the operating room. Our nonfictional nightmare continued in the hospital waiting room after Melissa was wheeled away in a standard-issue stretcher.
At twelve-fifteen in the afternoon, a doctor came to see us. She said that Melissa would make a full recovery. That her wounds were consistent with most attempted suicides and that we were heroes because if we had brought her to the hospital an hour later, she would not be alive right now. Melissa’s mother instantly broke down in tears at the mention of Melissa’s possible death.
It was the most difficult thing in my life not to do the same. The doctor remained professional and continued with her heartbreaking debriefing. Due to Melissa’s wounds suggesting a suicide attempt, there was a full panel of tests completed to look for any possible explanations. Evidently, vestibule bruising and other bodily scratch marks suggesting sexual assault were discovered. At this revelation, further tests revealed that foreign semen was found. The doctor stood in front of us and told us that it was very likely that our daughter was sexually assaulted.
Her mouth kept moving after she uttered that statement, but the world had gone mute. I could see her face and she looked legitimately concerned. Politely, I stood next to Melissa’s mother and waited for the spigot of soul-crushing news to be shut off so that I could lock myself in a dark room, curl up in a ball and cry my eyes out. Alone.
The doctor’s mouth stopped moving and she handed both of us a card. I put mine in my pocket.
When she was gone I found an empty meeting room, closed the door, turned off the lights, and died inside.
We stayed at the hospital overnight. Melissa’s mother and I must have looked like we didn’t want anyone to interact with us because no one did. Sitting in those hospital chairs, we might have slept for two hours.
Morning came, and the same doctor walked up to us.
“Melissa is doing well and is ready for discharge.”
If I was capable of any positive emotions, I would have been appreciative of her brevity.
“Follow me.”
We followed her. Melissa was sitting on an exam table in a little room past the barrier between the waiting room and the working habitat of the medical professionals.
She was a different person from the shining beacon of perfection that had buoyed everything surrounding her before yesterday. Her face was pale, her eyes were dead, her hair frayed and tangled, her posture slumping.
Melissa’s mother was the one who spoke first.
“Melissa, honey, never forget that your father and I love you.”
She stopped there. Neither she nor I, had the stomach to say the next thing. The part about how if Melissa left us, we couldn’t go on living.
Melissa didn’t respond to her mother. She didn’t even look up. She just sat there in the same pose that we witnessed when we first walked in. We hugged her. We willed our love to flow out of our bodies and into the living corpse that used to be our daughter but was now something completely foreign to us.
“Let’s go.” I wanted to pick her up and carry her back to the car in my arms like I used to do when she was five but I knew that her mother would need to have some physical bond to her on the way out of the hospital.
We walked out together. Each of us settling for holding one of our daughter’s hands. Mellisa’s grip was ghostly. On the walk out of the hospital, I wondered if I would ever see my daughter again.
I turned on the car with no one in the front passenger seat. Melissa’s mother was in the back holding Melissa who was sitting directly behind me. The emotional scars from thinking she was gone were too fresh to not hold Melissa in her arms every second that she could. Even for me, it was difficult driving. I just wanted to hold my daughter.
The car was parked in an emergency parking space right in front of the hospital. Exiting the parking lot required a few minor turns and small accelerations. At nine in the morning, only a few ailing patients were walking from their car to the hospital. I drove to the main street connecting the hospital parking lot to the rest of the world. I looked left, no one in sight. I looked right and it was the same story. My foot pressed down on the accelerator and now I was driving my family through the city streets, towards our home and the comfort that our lives afforded us. No one was driving in our vicinity. The streets were never so empty in my entire experience of driving through the cramped quarters and bustling energy that defined the area surrounding the hospital. The light at the first intersection after leaving the hospital was green. Driving under the speed limit, I cleared the pedestrian path before the light turned yellow. I was the only car crossing the intersection until I wasn’t. It was more of a sense. Something in the animal part of my brain told me to look to my left. Awaiting my eyes was a speeding truck that had decided that traffic lights were optional with no one on the road. Seeing that truck speed toward the side of my car which seated my daughter and me, I knew that I would never see Melissa again.