Chapter 1: 14 Years Later
Spencer POV
When I got home from work, I heard clanking of dishes coming from the kitchen.
"Mom," I called out. The noise stopped a moment but resumed just as quickly. I walked through the dining room, depositing my back pack on the table as I passed it, and rounded the corner into the kitchen. My mother had all of the cupboards open, throwing all of our dishes - which were plastic for this exact reason - onto the tile floor. This wasn't the first time I'd entered to find this scene, so her mumblings of 'where is it' and 'gotta find it' were not alarming. My mother stopped her actions when she saw me watching her. In a flash, she was across the room and nose to nose with me, a hand clenching the front of my shirt. There was a fire - one I was all too familiar with - blazing in her eyes.
"Where. Is. It?" she hissed. I took a deep breath and tried to remain calm.
"Where is what mom?" I responded smoothly, keeping my voice as level as I could.
"Don't call me that, you thieving bitch! I know you took it!"
"Took wha-" Her fist connected with my jaw and she threw me back into the wall before retuning to her search. Tears pricked my eyes but I blinked them back and ran upstairs, following the too familiar path that I could run with my eyes shut. I stopped in the upstairs hallway, just under the pull down stairs to the attic. I pulled the red chord in the ceiling and the stairs dropped down. I climbed them carefully, making sure to pull them back up behind me. I had started this routine about six weeks ago, after a particularly violent outburst. Prior to that day, the attic had been a place that I had never been brave enough to venture into, the dark and dingy state of it being enough to keep me away. Still, in an effort to escape my mother – who had turned her attention away from what she was looking for in favor of chasing me through the house – I took refuge in the dust, finding the space full of boxes. Over the past few weeks, I had sifted thorough all but four. I sat on my knees in front of a small stack of the four boxes, set apart from a larger stack which I had already sifted through. I opened the first box in the small stack and found it to be filled with pictures and the next two were the same. The images were of dark haired and deeply tanned people that I didn't recognize, but who looked like me. I pushed them aside and set my attention on the last box in front of me. When I'd started my search, I wasn't sure what I was looking for. I only knew that it seemed as though something was calling out to me. Now, I felt as though I was just in reach of whatever it was. I held my breath as I pealed back the tape that was sealing the final brown box and flipped it open. On top was a soft, pink blanket and a green bag with yellow, smiling ducks on the side. I pulled them out and laid them to the side and continued to peek through the shallow box. I found maps from every state between Georgia and Washington, receipts, and pictures. At the very bottom of the box was a dusty birth certificate. Confusion filled me, as my mother had – in her more clear moments – always told me that my birth certificate had been lost in a fire. Still, I pulled it out hurriedly, my stomach churning with nerves and excitement. I blew away the dust and read closely. On the name line, Mikayla Katalina Black was scrawled neatly in what appeared to be my mother's handwriting. My heart sped up. My name was Spencer, and I as far as I was aware, it had always been Spencer. But my birthday was printed clearly on the certificate and my mother's name was written on the "mother's name" line. My eyes jumped to the 'father's name' line. It read Michael A. Black. The piece of paper was exactly what I'd been looking for. It said I was born in a hospital in a place called Forks, Washington. I folded the paper and put in in my pocket and quickly returned everything else to its proper place. I left the attic the same way I had entered and continued quietly down the hall to my bedroom. After shutting the door behind me, I sat at my desk and booted up my laptop, opening internet explorer as soon as it was ready. When my search engine loaded, I typed the name on the birth certificate, slowly so I was sure to spell it right and after the name, I typed 'Forks, Washington.' I hit enter and hundreds of news videos and articles sat before me. I clicked on a link titled 'La Push father pleads for safe return of abducted daughter' and a video of a man speaking into a microphone opened on my computer screen. I found myself startled by the striking resemblance I shared with the man on my computer screen. He looked quite young – late twenties, maybe – and he had tears flowing down his face as he spoke.
"It's been years since my baby was taken from me," he choked out, "I will never stop searching for you. Please call if you have any information that could be of importance. Mikayla, if you are watching this, I love you and I want you home. Please call me." A phone number flashed across the bottom of the screen and I paused the video to write down the number. The name next to the phone number said 'Michael Black,' the same as the birth certificate. A split screen image showed an artists rendering of what I would have looked like around the time the video was posted – which was only four years ago – and I was shocked to be looking at a near perfect sketch of myself. My stomach lurched. Could this man be my father? I knew that my father was young, as my parents had both been sixteen when I came along. That would make my father thirty-three, just like my mom. She had always told he was no longer living, but always got defensive if I ever asked any more questions on the topic. Is it possible my own mother kidnap me and my father was still alive, searching for me? The intensity of her schizophrenia erased any doubt I would have usually held. I shut down my computer and plopped onto my bed. If he was my father, wouldn't calling he be the next logical step? Being only nine months away from eighteen, would it even matter anymore? Would it be worth it to take a chance on getting out of this hell, just to find out that I was too old for my father to care about finding me? This could very well be the escape I had been longing for. Would I be able to live with myself if I just let the opportunity slip away? My mother burst through the door. She was seething and I sat up quickly.
"Where's my dinner?" she bellowed. I glanced towards my alarm clock and realized I had been searching and fighting with my emotions long enough to make myself late in preparing dinner. I began to apologize when her fist, again, connected with my face.
"You heathen bitch," she screamed, continuing to punch my already bruised body. "you are trying to kill me! After all I've done for you, you are going to let me starve!" She pulled me off the bed by my hair and threw me on the floor.
"Mom," I began.
"You are evil," she hissed and spat on me before leaving my room and slamming the door. I lay crumbled on the floor, sobbing quietly. Will my father really still want to hear from me, after all this time? Will he want me and love me when he realizes how broken I am? An even louder question rang in my mind, asking if I really wanted to keep living like this? The answers seemed simple as a sharp pain in my rib cage reminded me of the severity of mother's mental disturbance. The clock on my bedside table read 8:36. That meant in Washington it was 5:36. I got up slowly and walked softly to my bed, where my phone still lay. Michael Black's phone number was on a small, folded piece of paper underneath the device. I dialed the number and leaned against my headboard. The ringing seemed so loud, then it stopped.
"Hello?" a deep voice answered on the other end. My heart lurched. Something clicked inside me and all doubt I had escaped me.
"Hello?" the man asked again.
"I think you've been looking for me."