Author's note: I wrote this piece as an exercise in performance, so while reading keep in mind that it is meant to be read aloud. It is not typed in a strict script or prose format.
(A woman, crying uncontrollably with head down, then lifts head, acting as if it never happened)
MOTHER: Elizabeth is 10 and Lilly is eight. They are the most beautiful girls a mother could ask for. Elizabeth has deep, red hair and bright, sparkling, blue eyes - just like her father. Lilly, on the other hand, looks like me, with thick, brown hair and long legs.They are my life. And my little lights of joy.
(Pause)
Their Father, Louis, was the best husband a woman could ask for, he was elated when we had Elizabeth, and he couldn’t wait to love his future daughter as well.We were so happy together, but while I was pregnant with Lilly he had a…pain in his chest. At first he ignored it, thinking maybe it was a pulled muscle or some sort of injury, but it wasn’t. Within hours my beloved husband lay on a gurney with a sheet over his sickly, pale face. My poor daughter and future baby were going to be fatherless, and I was terrified.
I was an only child, and my father left us when I was young. My mother died right after I met Louis. Louis’s family was distant - to say the least - and didn’t approve of our marriage anyway, so they weren’t around.
Things were hard for a while, especially when I had Lilly, but I was determined to give them a good chance at life. With the loss of Louis went his pay check, and I had to adapt quickly to keep us afloat.
I worked two jobs, one as a secretary in an office, and as a waitress in a local diner. There are some long hours, but it’s worth it for the girls. Because of my work they can do almost anything they wish in life.
Elizabeth loves school: she obsessed with music, and every year her school does a spring play with a couple of the grades. This year she made the lead. She was so excited….Lilly, she likes science and math. All her teachers say she tests one of the highest in her grade, and she even gets extra assignments from the teachers on the side. They loved…Love, love to go to the park. We would gallop over and they would screech, play, and jump with delight, the warm, golden sun dancing on their open faces…
The night before….we went to Elizabeth’s play. She kept urging me to drive faster the whole way to the school. When we got there, Elizabeth went with the rest of the children performing while Lilly and I found a seat. When it started, Elizabeth took the stage, the brilliant white lights shining on her shimmering costume. She didn’t forget one line and was much louder and clearer than the other children. Lilly couldn’t sit still the entire time; she kept saying how she couldn’t wait to be up there with her big sister next year.
When it was all over, we drove home where I made them milkshakes in celebration and sent them to bed.
The next morning they had a birthday party to go to at a house only a block away, so I…woke them up early, got them dressed. I didn’t have time, though, to make them breakfast, so I just laid out some cereal and sent them out the door. I stood in the doorway waving goodbye as they walked down the sidewalk. It was only a block away you know?And Elizabeth was Ten now, right? They stopped at the corner, turned, and waved goodbye back, the sunlight making golden rings around their heads, and…they walked away. I never saw them again.
A few minutes later, I called the parent in charge of the party to see if they made it, and he hadn’t seen them. I started to get nervous, so I walked, thinking maybe Lilly had skinned her knee and delayed them, or maybe they got lost.They were nowhere to be seen, so I jumped in the car and drove down every street I could think of. Then I stopped and made the hardest call of my life- to the Police.
“Dear, God, please! My children - they're gone! I don’t know where they are!” and he responded so calmly.
“Ma'am, please calm down, the police will be right with you.”
And they were. They swarmed my house for weeks, asked me probing questions, and searched everywhere, but to no avail. After a time evidence was found and went cold, and everyone left, no hope they said, but they were wrong. I am their mother and I won’t lose hope. I can’t.
Every morning I wake up, jump in the car, and drive as far as I can, looking. Then, when I come home, I eat a small meal and go walking – everywhere -- the streets, alleys, and wood of my neighborhood, everyday a different path. With every step, I can feel them coming closer to me. The guilt fuels me, and the possible outcomes, if only…
If only I walked them, if only I’d called sooner, if only I’d woken them up earlier, if only they hadn’t left…
I can see them from my kitchen window, at the corner, waving,…Before I go to bed each night, I walk out there, and I can see them so clearly, but when I reach to grasp them, to pull them to me they fade away to nothing.
You know when you get a picture taken and the camera flashes, and you see the residue of the flash - that orange-red light that takes up all of your vision so you can’t see anything else. That’s what it’s like, except no matter what I do it never goes away, when I wake, when I eat,when I bathe, when I drive, always I can see their images seared into my mind. Every moment, every day for 30 years…I can see them, never wavering, never fading, always smiling, but (laughing) I don’t want them to go away!I don’t want them to leave me.
(Crying uncontrollably with head down, then lifts head, acting as if it never happened)
Elizabeth is 10 and Lilly is eight. They are the most beautiful girls a mother could ask for…
