Look at me, updating two days in a row. I'm expecting the writer's block wall to hit me very soon so don't expect this often.
My neighborhood is a shitshow.
The Garcia's house—Carlos's house—is two doors down from us, so our street is blocked off. I stop at the corner and show the policemen who I am, pull out my ID with unsteady hands as I try to look down the street to see what's happening. I've dreamed about this day plenty of times, but in my version, Carlos was standing outside on his porch—waiting for me like I've been waiting for him all these years. My version didn't look like this.
I receive an escort to my driveway and a couple of officers hold back the reporters while another walks me to my front door, smiles, and makes sure I'm safely inside before heading back down the porch steps.
The house is quiet and calm, the antithesis of the clicking shutters and shouted questions and hum of too many people on the other side of the door. I breathe in the silence.
"Mom?" I call out.
But I know she's not here. She works part-time in the research department of the library and today is her late day. Dad won't be home for another half hour, either. And I don't know what to do with myself, so I sit on the couch with my coat buttoned up to the neck and I wait.
Exactly thirty minutes later, I hear the slow crank of the garage door, my father's car pulling in, the creak of the door as it shudders to the ground. Then I hear his urgent footsteps, the flipping of light switches as he navigates his way through the dark house looking for me.
"In here," I say when he rushes past the living room doorway.
He loops back down the hallway and into the room, stands in front of me while he scratches the back of his head. "Did you get my messages? Mom and I both called you a few times."
His eyes are slightly dazed, his silver tie with teeny black polka dots askew. I gave him that tie for Father's Day last year. He uses everything I give him. Even the misshapen ceramic pencil cup I made in third-grade art class sits on the desk at his accounting firm in the city.
"Oh, yeah." I looked at my phone once, I think, to check the time. I don't remember hearing it ring or seeing the missed calls. "Sorry. I got distracted." I gesture toward the commotion on the other side of the curtains.
He smiles a bit. "Right. It's kind of a zoo out there. But what do you say we brave the paparazzi and go out to dinner when your mother gets home? We should celebrate."
"I already ate," I say, digging my fingers into the empty cushions on either side of me.
I don't realize this is a lie until I think about the cup of lentil soup that never came to the table. I wonder if Jana ever brought out our food, if she was pissed that we left without canceling our order.
"Could I stay here instead?" I twist my hands in my lap as I look at him. "I want to watch the news."
Dad has too much energy. He wants to get out. He can't stop fiddling with his collar and glancing toward the windows. But he smiles again, bigger this time. He says, "Of course, babygirl. You're right. It's probably best if we all stay in."
So that's how Mom finds us, side by side on the sofa in the den, watching the same story play out on different channels. She settles on the other side of me, and when our eyes meet, I have to look away because I see the happy tears in hers and if she starts crying, mine will spill over again. She puts her hand on top of mine as I turn back to the television.
Carlos Garcia, 17, returned to his home in Minnesota after four years in captivity
Breaking News: Minneapolis teen rescued from years-long abduction
Locals call missing teen's return a miracle
The news is the type of nonstop coverage that makes people turn away after a while, say they no longer care. I absorb it all, find a little pocket to store each new piece of information. The reports are vague. Every news anchor alludes to the abuse, brings up old long-term abduction cases and some that were never solved. They talk about where Carlos was found: a Las Vegas breakfast buffet, with the person they believe had him all these years. A few minutes past nine, the thick-haired anchor with the tired eyes says.
I was in second period. Chem. My throat tightens as I try to remember if I felt anything during class. But no. I was zoning out, same as any other day of the week.
Some of the channels show timelines to illustrate his life. They use fancy graphs and bold colors, but it all adds up to the same conclusion: thirteen years as a normal kid in Ashland Hills, four years at the mercy of a stranger. I wait and I wait, but they haven't revealed the identity of the abductor. All we know is there's a suspect in custody.
"You should get ready for bed," my mother says gently, around eleven.
The coverage has slowed except for the major cable news channels. There's nothing new to be learned at this point, but I'm afraid I'll miss something if I go to bed. I want to know who took him. What they did to him.
"He'll still be here in the morning," my mother says, as if she can read my mind.
Somehow I float up to my room and then I'm under the covers. But I can't sleep. How can someone be here every day for years, then disappear? How can they be gone so long and just come back on a Thursday, like that was the plan the whole time? I won't believe he's really here until I see him.
Carlos was brave. In a speak-first-think-later sort of way, but there was always truth behind his words. Like that day during our sixth-grade history lesson. I'd been dreading it all week because we were studying the Civil War and there's nothing worse than being the only black kid in class on the day your teacher talks about slavery.
Most days I don't think too much about being a novelty in this town. Minneapolis is really segregated, and my suburb is almost all white, but people don't treat me like there's a big divide or anything. We've been in school together for so long, it's like they forget my skin is darker until someone or something reminds them. And the slavery discussion is one of those instances. It goes one of two ways: either the teacher calls on you because you much be the expert, or they avoid you and look all around the room at your blonde-haired, blue-eyed classmates.
Mr. Hammond was old-school, so he jumped right in. Something about the modern-day effects of Jim Crow laws, and as soon as he finished his question, he looked right at me and said, "Abbi, maybe you have an example of how Jim Crow laws have affected you or your family so many decades later."
I felt eyes on me and I felt eyes trying not to be on me. The room was so silent I heard Macy Wilkins's stomach growling in the next row. And no matter how hard I wished it, Mr. Hammond did not get swallowed up by the floor and whisked away to a hell built for insensitive teachers.
While I was just sitting there, trying to figure out how to answer him without being exceptionally rude, I could tell Carlos, who sat on the other side of the room, was seething.
But I didn't expect him to say anything.
Before I could open my mouth, Carlos spoke for me. "Why did you call on Abbi, Mr. Hammond?"
Our teacher looked away from me, confused. "Excuse me, Carlos?"
I peeked at him. He was sitting straight up in his chair, forearms placed calmly on the desk in front of him, palms flat. His brown eyes were narrowed and his chin pointed out so far, it nearly pointed at the whiteboard.
"I said, why did you call on Abbi? Her hand wasn't up." Carlos's voice was calm but his eyes were shooting poison.
"Well, Carlos," he said slowly, as his neck then jowls then forehead burned an intriguing shade of red. "I'm asking because perhaps she could offer a…unique perspective, as her ancestors were so closely involved."
That's when Carlos lost his cool. "That's bull. Why don't you ask Joey or Leo or anyone else in this class about their perspective?" He was leaning forward over his desk then, his fingers gripping the edge like it was the only thing holding him back from a full-on fit of rage. "Last time I checked, their ancestors were closely involved. Yours, too!"
He was sent to the principal's office for talking back but the smirk he shot me on the way out of the room told me it was all worth it. I blinked a quick thank you back at him. Mr. Hammond never called on me again during the Civil War lessons.
Carlos was brave, but you can only be brave for so long, and as I lie under the covers staring up at the ceiling, I can't stop wondering if four years was long enough to break him.
I had a hard time sleeping after the abduction. I would slip into my parents' room in the middle of the night and ask if I could stay with them.
"What's wrong, honey?" Mom would ask as she sat up in bed, the silk headscarf she slept in wrapped tightly around her hair.
I was thirteen; much too old to run to my parents' bed for comfort. I couldn't tell them that in the back of my mind, I thought that if this could happen to someone as good and kind as Carlos, it could happen to me, too.
But they never made me feel bad about it. Dad would say, "Can't shut off your brain?" and I'd nod and crawl into bed between them, instantly soothed by the rhythmic patterns of their breathing, the familiar smell of their room, the warmth of their sheets.
But that was four years ago, and Carlos is back. There's no reason to be scared unless I think about who took him, and still, it doesn't matter because that person is in custody. I've thought about that person often over the years. Man or woman? Black like me? Latino like Carlos? Or white like most everyone else in this town? I think about the pages and pages of sex offenders registered online in Minneapolis, how most of them have nothing in common except their desire to hurt people.
I fall asleep for a bit but I wake around two in the morning. I have to pee. I sit on the toilet for a while, wondering if the last few hours were a dream. Maybe I sat in the back booth at Casablanca's and finished my chemistry homework while Logan studied for trig and Camille worked on her poem for English. Maybe I ate that cup of mushy lentil soup and maybe Carlos isn't just two houses away from me after all.
My mother is in the hallway when I come out.
"Mama." I haven't called her that since I was a little girl. "Mama, did they really find him?"
She reaches out to me and we mold into each other. My nose is pressed into the crease of her armpit. She rests her cheek on top of my head.
"Yes," she says into my ear. Her voice is tinged with sleep, but most of all, it is content. "He's home."