Studying. She was studying, wasn’t she?

The thought was poisonous in the mind, taking over my entire mind.

I wanted to trust that she was… but I needed to see for myself. I slowly walked over to her door--to the room that my husband and I had provided for her.

The door swung open.

It was as if I had seen a crime scene.

The window was wide open, the curtains gently blowing inward with the wind. A moderate amount of dead leaves spanned the floor immediately under the window. The desk that I had bought for my daughter was trashed. Binders were open with their pages inside torn. Her bed wasn’t made.

There was an item left purposefully on the top of her desk. In the center was a pair of scissors.

The edge of the scissors was a deep dark red.

It was dried blood.

All I could think was, ‘Who hurt my daughter?’

I ran over to the window, poking my head through it, looking either way at the space immediately beside my house. I looked up and then down. I went back into the room’s confined space and grabbed the torn sheets of paper.

They were school notes.

I looked closer. I could see the remnants of neat notes, color-coded with the pens that I had the kindness to reluctantly buy her.

I couldn’t understand why an aggressor would need to tear these kinds of things.

I didn’t understand.

It was as if a droplet of water splashed onto my mind; an instant epiphany.

‘How could she do this to me!?’

With the realization came anger. I stormed out of the room and toward the master bedroom, where my husband was. He was asleep at this time of day.

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I entered the bedroom with a confident poise, ready to spill all the trouble that his daughter had caused us. If he was sleeping, I would wake him up; my trouble--pardon, our trouble--was far too important for him to sleep through.

He was already awake. In his hand was an entire bottle of wine.

I froze. My husband was not an alcoholic.

“It was the only alcohol in the house,” he explained, without saying much else.

“I thought you were better,” I muttered, my eyes wavering slightly.

“I thought so too.”

About our daughter… he already knew.

“I got a call from the father of one of her friends,” my husband said, “She’s staying over there.”

…what?

My anger redoubled.

“Why haven’t you gone to get her!?” I shrieked at my husband, admonishing his idiotic idleness. He knew where she was… and yet he was here? Was I the only person in the house that loved our daughter?

“I want the address of the place she’s staying at,” I barked at my husband.

He was silent, just putting the lips of the bottle to his own. I watched his throat gurgle as the wine travelled down his throat. His neck hair hadn’t been shaved.

Unsightly.

“Tell me!” I tried again, getting closer to my sitting husband, standing over him.

He clicked his tongue, “I should have listened to ma when she said not to marry a woman like you.”

I was speechless. How could he say such a thing?

Hurt me. He wanted to hurt me. That’s why he said that. There could be no other reason.

Relationships were about compromise. Why couldn’t he do what I wanted him to? Even standing above him, I felt like he was the one standing over me. Even when I looked down at him, he seemed larger than life… threatening even.

“Stop bothering me,” my husband said, “Before I do something reckless.”

He took another drink of the wine.

“We’re not qualified,” he whispered to himself.

My daughter had gone and disappeared.

My husband might as well be gone.

I was at a loss for words at the audacity of both of them.

They were lost. They wouldn’t even let me help them find the right path.

I retreated from the master bedroom and sunk into the cushions of one of our couches. The room was neat. The room was minimalist. The room was empty. A TV atop a stand and the couch from which to view it. The only other thing in the room was a large picture.

A picture of a happy, whole family.