Chapter 38 ~ Ticker
September 8, 2010
While Bella sat at the table spooning milk-soaked cereal into her mouth – dropping most of it on the table, milk dripping down onto the expensive carpet – I watched CNN.
Stared into the space just in front of the television and thought about my parents. About Ivvy. About my little girl; my Bella.
Footage of war; exploded bodies, chaos in a market square, a car bomb in passionate pursuit of some cause, a child carried aloft, the final indignity of becoming symbolic effigy.
My eyes blurring with tears again.
Blurring.
Child missing in New Jersey, Mother dead
Cut to a talking head, some war correspondent or ex-General, explaining how it would all be so much easier if the US just got out of there and here was his three-step plan to remove troops without leaving chaos in our wake. He nodded, smiled and frowned, emphasizing all the key points, as coached and air-brushed as any presidential candidate.
All for his thirty seconds of fame.
The anchor nodded as if he truly understood.
CNN. Vacuous at best.
Police hunt for father
The phone trilled.
“Phone!” Bella laughed from the table. The egg on her forehead had subsided somewhat, though it was already beginning to bruise.
I jumped to my feet, crossed the room and answered.
There was silence at the other end of the line.
Silence.
And I realized what I had just read on the ticker at the bottom of the screen.
Silence.
And I hoped it was another child they were talking about. Another child. Another mother.
Silence.
I looked at the back of Bella’s head, tears flirting with my eyes.
“Hello?” my voice choking on the words.
“Great,” Ivvy laughed out of the phone’s earpiece, “that’s all you’ve got? Hello?”
“Ivvy, I…”
I stared at the screen but the words had disappeared, scrolling off to reveal some stats relating to the war; body count and dead young soldiers, multiply by a factor of 100 to get the number of civilians; piles of bodies rendered meaningless by repetition and objectification.
The talking head was still talking.
The anchor was still nodding.
Bella was still working her way through the cereal, dropping most of her breakfast on the table and floor.
Like a light switch, I made my decision.
The charade was in place. Like a war nobody wanted that had become a fixture of the daily news.
I was too far down the path to turn back now.
“… Thought you’d be sleeping?” I said.
“Couldn’t,” she said, “I had a long night and… Uh… It didn’t go so well.”
“What do you mean?”
“It… Oh nothing. You wouldn’t understand. It’s just… Just…”
Child missing in New Jersey, mother dead
It scrolled across the screen again; a pointing finger.
“Are you OK?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. I just… Look, did you mean it that you and Bella are coming to stay here?”
The anger of her answering machine message was gone. There was almost a note of hope to her voice.
“Yes.”
“That’ll be good. What time do you think you’ll be down here?”
“I don’t know. Later today. Why?”
“Well, I need to clean up a bit and get some food. What does she like to eat?”
“At the moment? Cheerios.”
“Very clever. I’ll figure something out.”
Police hunt for father
“I’ve got to go. See you later.”
I put the phone down before she could respond, crossed to the television and turned up the volume. I sat on the floor, cross-legged, watching as the anchor turned to his second camera.
“Coming up after the break, a tragic story from New Jersey. A young mother taking her own life after her child is abducted. Police are hunting the father. More on this, and other developing stories, when we come back.”
