I thank him and go back to my car with a racing heart and mind, wondering where he could possibly be.
“Where’s Blue?” I ask Acorn as we drive through town, and he perks his ears up. Blue doesn’t refer to himself as Daddy as most pet owners do. Maybe he’s too cool for that. Or maybe he can’t deal with the underlying responsibility of the title. We drive to the park, and I take Acorn with me to walk up and down the paths, past my bench, and our picnic table, and down to the old bridge. The only things greeting us are memories.
Fear and frustration send tears to my eyes, and I brush them away as I drive over to the shed. Maybe he got a bad headache and went there to rest, knowing I would go there to look for him. I should have looked there first, instead of wasting time rambling through the park. Acorn’s tail starts to wag as I pull in front of the old house, and I assume he thinks he’s home or he knows Blue is here.
“Come on, pup,” I say, letting him out of the car. He immediately jumps out and trots to the backyard with me not far behind. I fully expect to find Blue sleeping in the shed, but when I pull the rusty latch and open the door, he’s not there.
And neither is anything else.
Acorn stands beside me, not wagging his tail, blinking up at me with a blank expression on his face that I’m sure looks just like my own.
The silence is thick as mud. I can almost feel the emptiness, take hold of it in my hand and squeeze it through my fingers. My breathing becomes unnatural and forced in my lungs, and a deep pain throbs in my chest and down into my gut. Acorn nudges my hand with his wet nose and I pat his head absently as I stare around in disbelief at the empty space.
Maybe he got robbed. Maybe someone came here and took everything. Or maybe the cops came, arrested him, and cleaned the place out.
Yes. That’s exactly what happened. One of the neighbors must have caught on and reported us and now he’s probably sitting in a jail cell waiting for me to come bail him ou—
As I spin to leave, I notice the white piece of notepaper stuck to the back of the door with an old nail. With a trembling hand I tear it off the door.
Ladybug,
It was time for me to keep walking.
Take care of Acorn for me.
If you can, try to leave a space for me in your heart.
I’m sorry.
I love you like no tomorrow, little slayer. Don’t ever forget that.
~ Blue
Tremors rock through my body so hard my teeth are gnashing against each other. Fury and heartache rages inside me like a tsunami, and I want to scream and tear the shed apart, to somehow destroy this scene around me and bring it all back to how it was yesterday. But I’m unable to move or cry or blink or even breathe because the man who meant everything in the world to me has just shattered every little piece of my heart and soul.
Why? How could he do this to me?
He just walked away. From me, and his dog, and our little life, and our love. I stare at his uniquely perfect writing, wishing it to morph into words I want to read like the notes he’s left in the past. Words like I miss you and come back. Big wet, hot tears fall from my eyes like the beginnings of a rainstorm. At the thought of the rain, my fragile heart cracks and disintegrates, and I wail and shriek like a wild animal caught in a trap, mentally unhinged from the pain with no way to escape and on the verge of chewing out my own heart to get away from it all.
Falling to the dirty floor, I sob uncontrollably, digging my nails into my palms until the soft flesh breaks open and bleeds.
It hurts. Everything hurts more than I ever thought possible. The stabbing pain is so deep, burning in my heart and in my soul, searing into every part of my physical and emotional being. I’m sure it will kill me. Nobody can live through a pain like this.
Acorn whimpers and lies next to me with his head on my leg, always the caretaker, and I bow down and hug him to me like he’s a lifeline. I cry into his fur until it’s soaked and curly, until I have no more tears left.
Hours must pass, and it’s brutally clear Blue isn’t going to come back, no matter how long I sit here and picture him walking through that door, it’s not happening. I don’t have special manifestation powers at all. What I have is a terribly broken heart and lost faith in love and trust. When I can’t sit there for a moment longer, I fold the note up and put it into my back pocket, and Acorn and I close the door of the shed behind us for the last time.
In a daze I walk past the house, and I almost don’t even notice that the door of the four-season porch is ajar. I honestly can’t remember if it’s always been that way, but curiosity draws me like a magnet to pull the door open and cautiously step inside and take a look around. The air inside is stale and musty, penetrating through my stuffy nose. Whoever lived here at one time obviously loved birds, because several old bird cages hang from the ceiling, and quite a few rest on the floor. At the other end of the porch are two huge cages, the kind a big parrot would live in. Even though they all appear to have been cleaned, there are still random feathers of different sizes and colors scattered on the floor. Stepping farther inside, my eyes are drawn to three piles of sketchbooks, each pile approximately three feet high. I grab one of the books and flip through it, but its pages are empty. My brow creases as I pull one from the bottom of the pile, letting the rest tumble to the floor. This one is also empty. I check another from a different pile—and it’s also void of any writing.
A shiver sprinkles up my spine as I realize these are the same notebooks Blue was always scribbling in when he was having a bad day. There must be two hundred of them here.
Why?
Putting the notebooks back on the disheveled stack, I slowly walk over to the corner, where a sheet is thrown over a pile of...something. My heart races as I lift the sheet, and I’m not at all prepared to uncover all the objects that were in the shed. Everything—the air mattress, the candles, the curtain, the throw rug, Acorn’s bed. Next to this pile are two large garbage bins filled with empty bottles of assorted alcohol, matchbooks, and empty cigarette boxes.
Confusion mixed with nausea waves over me. Did he break in here to hide all this stuff? Or was he able to get in here all along? There’s no way he had all those notebooks in the tiny shed, so they must have been hidden in here. But why? And for God’s sake, why so many?
With careful, quiet steps, I walk over to the door that leads to the main house and attempt to turn the brass knob, but it doesn’t turn. Peering through the dirty pane window of the door, there are no signs of life in the large kitchen; nothing left on the table or counter tops.
I bang on the door. “Blue? Are you in there?” My voice cracks with hope and despair. “Evan? It’s me. If you’re here, please come out and talk to me.” I press my ear to the glass. “Please?”
There’s no sound, no creepy feeling of being watched or listened to. I’m alone standing on a dirty porch, becoming more heartbroken and confused with each passing second. With the last tiny glimmer of hope snuffed out, I reluctantly give up and leave, grabbing Acorn’s bed from the pile on my way out. I don’t want any of that other stuff, but this poor dog deserves to have his own bed.
“Come on, Acorn.” I head toward the car but the dog keeps stopping and looking back at the house, hesitating. “Come on, sweetie. I’m going to take you home.”
It takes me twenty minutes to persuade Acorn to leave the property, even though he’s left with me several times in the past weeks with no problem. Somehow, he knows Blue has abandoned him, and, like me, he seems to be in shocked disbelief, waiting for him to come swaggering down the walkway.