Hope

Michael stares at his phone.

He pulls the brightness slider all the way up, it feels more real when his corneas ache.

He sighs, his weary face trembles like pudding.

Salt crystals cling to the hairs on his face: gullies and gulches. They are as dead river beds, winding down his cheeks, where his tears have evaporated.

He touches the screen.

It’s warm, electric.

But it is also cold because it’s wrong.

This image, this warmth…. Neither are her.

She is gone.

His daughter is dead.

He closes his eyes, they’ve been open for so long that it is painful now to close them.

His eyelids scrape along his sclera, sandpaper dragged across cardboard.

He shudders and all of a sudden the tears are back. He feels them behind his nose first: that deep and distant sort of sting, like the wind that rises before a storm.

And then the brine-water is flowing again, from his tears ducts all the way down to his lips.

He opens his eyes and it is as though he is swimming in his own sea. He paws his way through the shimmer to navigate his phone.

He taps the blurry green icon, swipes to his voice mails.

And he plays her voice, just to hear it again.

It’s the last call she ever placed to his phone.

It wasn’t anything special.

Mundane, really.

Just his baby girl asking permission to walk to the corner store a couple blocks over— her friends had invited her for ice cream.

She’d walked that route before.

A bunch of times.

She knew to stay with the group, she knew to keep her phone charged, she knew to check in once she got there, then again before she left, and once more when she got home.

Just a regular call.

Nothing special.

Not just mundane, actually routine.

But then, this was her last call.

Which made it everything.

And he hadn’t called back!

She was getting bigger.

No.

She’d been getting bigger.

Eleven years old.

They said that was the age where you were supposed to trust kids more. Give them some leeway.

She had walked with those friends before!

A bunch of times….

And she’d always been okay.

He’d let down his guard.

God! Damn him!

Why hadn’t he just called?

That might have changed everything.

Or it might have changed nothing.

But one thing was sure: it had been his last chance to speak to her.

And he had missed it!

He’s spent the months since fantasizing about all the things he wishes he could have told her.

That poor, desperate thought dominates his mind even now, hours into another gray morning.

His body is weary from so many sleepless nights.

Every limb is lead, his very joints ache from long hours of wakeful stillness.

Sleeping bodies move and shift. But silent mourning is its own paralysis.

It’s not natural, or atleast not healthy to be so still for so long.

His mind is damp and wilted too. He can’t think straight.

But what’s the point of thinking anyway?

And still— his mind is a blur of fatigued compulsions: hypotheticals.

If he had called back….

He would have told her he was proud of her.

He would have told her he loved her.

He would have asked how her day was.

He would have asked what flavor of ice cream she would choose.

He would have told her not to go!

He would have begged her to stay home…

Because even if she did everything right, all it would take to take her away forever would be some drunk asshole driver hopping over the curb.

But even as his insomniac mind whirs and churns, the cold reality gnaws at the forefront of his wishful what-ifs.

Because no. He didn’t call her back.

The past is done, and it cannot be argued or denied.

The truth is:

He only fucking texted.

The letters are branded— scars— in his memory.

“K, be safe :) Call ya later”

Why didn’t he call that last time?

His face is a grimace in the half-light.

Why?

To give her more trust.

He texted, to let her test her wings a bit.

To give her that big-kid leeway.

To be less overbearing.

That’s what he tells himself.

But that lie is a brittle crust.

Even now he feels it crumble.

So he tells himself he texted because he was busy with work.

And beneath that lie he feels a slimy truth which he cannot bear to lay hold of.

Work was dead.

He certainly could have called.

Ah! Here is the rancid marrow of honesty.

Even now Michael can taste that bitterness on his tongue:

He texted because he didn’t want to bother with a call.

Yeah he trusted her, but more than that? He just hadn’t wanted to do the dad thing right then and there.

Hell, right then?

He’d been playing a stupid Tetris game on his phone and he felt like his daughter was an interruption…

And a chore.

A fucking chore.

The tears well up behind his nose once more, but he forbids them to fall.

He forbids them release.

They press with such insistence that his sinuses hurt and still he bites them back with a cough.

He does not deserve catharsis.

No relief could ever be enough, but most grieving parents deserve what little comfort a tear may allow.

Not him.

He should have called her back.

But he didn’t.

Because he just didn’t fucking want to.

He gazes at her smile, though he does not deserve it.

He pretends to call her back.

He tells her he loves her.

His voice is a rattle and a croak in the sterile dawn.

He tells her that he hates himself for not calling back.

For being too lazy— for throwing away their very last chance to speak.

She does not reply, of course.

Even here in his sleep-deprived delirium his daughter remains silent.

His tears press harder.

He shakes his head, he tries to refuse them once more, but he cannot fight their mercy.

And when these tears arrive they drown his last waking agonies and finally he falls into sleep.

His phone rings, pulling him up from that empty.

Now his eyelids weigh ten pounds a piece, but he mounts the effort and courage to pry them open on a new day.

Miseries curl all around his psyche, each memory a snake in the peripheries, ready to strike.

His phone rings again. He blinks hard.

An unknown caller.

Snoring with his eyes opened, he makes to decline the call, but something in his soul— some stupid, desperate part of him hesitates.

It rings again and the dreaming part of him knows it is her.

He brings the phone close to better hear her voice.

He answers, “Hope? Honey? Is that you?”

Her voice shocks and soothes him in equal measure and that holy jolt flies beyond all comprehension to land straight in his core: “Daddy? Oh thank God! Daddy it’s me! It’s Hope.”

Sobs burst from his chest with explosive force. He stutters and gasps and tries to quiet himself, but a question tumbles out of his mouth: “how is this possible? They said you were dead!”

Her voice hitches, with a weight he cannot bear: urgency and panic. She takes a breath then she says “They were in on it Daddy. The cops! You can’t tell them I called you. They’ll kill me if you do.”

A confusion and a doubt buzzes beyond his mind, it tries to gain entry, but he shoulders it away.

All he can do is repeat her own words, “they’re in on it…?”

She sighs. “Yes daddy it’s true. They faked the accident. They claimed I was dead, I know they even showed you a cadaver— made it to look like me and everything. They did it all to kidnap me. They’ve had me locked up, for months.”

“Why?” But even as he asks this question he recoils in horror from the answer he anticipates.

His heart plummets right down into his bowls.

His daughter’s voice cracks. He can hear the pain, the tears, the memory in her voice. She begins to answer him: “they wanted to… make me do things. daddy, they locked me up and used me for… for…” when her sobs break forth, he cannot breath.

Not this! Not after everything else!

He cries out all his hurt and all his fury.

He has never felt so powerless and broken.

How could he have let his little girl suffer this? He was the one who was supposed to protect her.

A powerful nausea wells up in his stomach, he feels he is going to hurl.

But through his clenched jaw he manages these words:

“Just… just tell me how to get you out of there! Where are you? I’ll kill every single one of those fucking bastards!”

Through her tears she says “Daddy I just want to come home! This is hell here, I can’t take it anymore!”

“How Hope? how do I get you home!? Where are you? I’ll come get you right now!”

“I… I don’t know. There aren’t any windows. They’ve never let me look outside. But… I was able to call because one of the men, the only one who was ever nice to me, he slipped me a phone and told me to call you.”

Michael holds his tongue. He’s amped up on rage, but he has nowhere to send it. So he waits.

She continues “he told me if you call the cops, the others will find out that he’s trying to help, then they’ll kill me and probably him too!”

He feels despair creeping back up. To know she’s alive, to hear her voice, but to have no way to rescue her? It’s torture beyond anything he’s ever known. “So what the hell am I supposed to do!? I have to do something!”

Hope is whispering now. “I know daddy. But I hear one of the bad men right outside my door.”

“No!”

“Daddy, listen I don’t have much time! The nice man said he’s willing to help me escape and get me home, but it’s risky for him. He says he’ll need to bribe the others. And he just can’t do it without some help from you. He said all you have to do is drop off some cash to help him finalize things then he can rescue me and get me back home and away from these monsters! Please daddy you’re my only chance!”

“Oh my God, Hope! If this man will help us get you safe no amount is too much! Give me the details! Quick!”

Michael was there, waiting when his bank opened.

According to Hope, the guard on the inside needed 30 thousand dollars cash to get this done.

The teller told him the maximum he could withdraw without advanced notice was 10 grand— any withdrawal beyond that limit would take a few days to process.

He fumes on the inside— this was life or death!

But he couldn’t say so, Hope made it clear that this all had to be discrete.

If the cops or the feds caught wind of this, the scum bags who abducted her— who’ve been torturing her— would not hesitate to do the worst.

He went and sold his car for cash on hand another 15 thousand dollars, in pocket.

He dug put some gold jewelry, heirloom stuff and managed to squeeze another 3 thousand from a pawn shop.

He begged the guy behind the counter for just 2 more, and the guy offered him a cash loan.

Michael knew it was a shitty contract, but he didn’t have time to worry about the fine print he just needed to get Hope away from that hell they had her in!

He needed to get his girl home.

He rode ride-share to the drop, with 30 thousand dollars in cash.

That was mostly in hundreds and fifties, so the little baggy he carried weighed less than 5 pounds.

But it felt like he was carrying the whole world in his palm.

And in a way he was: that was his daughter’s life, in paper bills.

A lot of money! Far more than he had ever held at one time…. But nothing, nothing at all, compared to her chance at freedom!

Still, he gripped it like her life depended on it.

Because it did!

He left the cash exactly where he was told to leave it, he did everything exactly as he was instructed.

Then he waited to hear from Hope or the man who was risking his life to save her.

And he waited.

And he waited.

And every day that went past, his fear grew: deeper and wider and deadlier.

He began to know in his soul that something was terribly wrong.

Either the crew that set up her abduction found out one of their guards was trying to free her.

Or he met some obstacle that stopped him from breaking her out as quickly as they had dared to believe.

Maybe that kind soul was in trouble now too!

But Michael couldn’t go to the police for help.

That could be the final nail in her coffin.

He agonized by the phone, staring at her picture, and listening to her voicemail.

Only, as the days crawled by, her voicemail began to feel less and less real.

He knew it was her— but that was from a time now distant. The present was the only thing real now, his daughter was alive somewhere. She was alive and scared and she needed him! Michael had heard her voice! He had heard her sobs!

He had to help her!

But the cops could not be trusted.

He went and took another 10 thousand from his bank.

He hired a private investigator, told them everything.

He knew it was a risk, that PI could have connections with the crooked cops, that was a risk.

But he couldn’t sit by in idle silence any longer, not while his poor, sweet, and innocent daughter was held at the mercy of those devils who erased her just to enslave her.

Michael told the PI everything— every word he could recall of that life changing phone call.

Then he told of the scramble to get the money together, and the place where he dropped it off.

This is their third meeting.

The PI has only been on the job for a couple weeks.

Now the investigator stares at Michael and frowns.

He tents his fingers, his frown seems only to deepen.

But his eyes are soft: sad and concerned.

“Michael, I can’t take your money. Im returning your payment. I’m sorry.”

Michael slides the envelope back across the man’s desk. “No! You have to! You have to stay on the job. You can’t give up! You’re my daughter’s only chance. I need you. She needs you.”

“No, Michael. I’m…. Listen, I’m going to tell you something, and it’s going to be hard for me to say. But I know it’s going to be even harder for you to hear.”

Michael recoils. “You’re giving up because they got to you. That’s it, right? Whoever abducted Hope. They threatened you?”

“Listen, I can’t take your money, Michael and it’s not because I’m afraid to help. It’s because there is literally no way to help. Nobody threatened me.”

“Then why won’t you help?! Why are you acting so scared if they didn’t get to you?”

“I’m scared because I don’t know how to say this without making things worse for you.”

Michael makes no effort to hide his tears. “Worse for me?! I don’t care! I don’t care if things get worse for me— they can fucking kill me for all I care! They can literally torture me! I don’t care. I don’t matter! My little girl is being held by those fucking monsters. Held and abused. And it’s my fault! I’d trade places with her in a heartbeat if it meant getting her safe. I can’t expect you to understand, but I need to get her safe— no amount of danger can scare me off this case!”

The investigator sighs and shakes his head.

His own eyes water.

“No, Michael. I can’t help, because that’s literally impossible. Hope is… Hope is not alive, I—“

“The hell she isn’t! I heard her voice— clear as yours right now! She’s alive and she needs help!”

“No Michael, listen. You got scammed.”

Michael shrieks now, his rage is hot and indignant: “Impossible! I heard her fucking voice!”

“No, my friend. You did not. You heard an approximation. A facsimile. You’re not the first to get hit with this scam. It’s heartless, but it’s making the rounds. They use AI. They trawl the socials of kids who have passed and… do you want to hear this?”

Michael swallows. His tears are falling free now.

He shakes his head. “No I don’t want to hear this. I know what I heard. It sounded exactly like her, it couldn’t be fake.”

The PI reaches out to hold Michael’s palm— one tentative grasp on reality, even as his whole world swirls and crumbles around him.

The investigators voice filters down, as through a soft snowfall: “they feed their machine with whatever they can scrounge from instagram reels, Facebook posts, anything at all, they get the kids voices and even their word choice near perfect, then they inject some “bad reception” to hide the tells. All to target grieving parents— give them a false sense of hope against all odds. The stories they spin are always the same. Kids being tortured, raped, and eventually executed… if parents down drain their savings to save ‘em.”

A silent moment passes.

The investigators does not let go of Michael’s hand.

His stare has lost focus.

His expression has gone slack.

“Michael?”