Annabelle: Part 2

If you haven't already, read Part 1 before you read this.

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"Annabelle?" I shouted again. I couldn't believe I'd remembered her name. I hadn't actually read it off the flyer, but my subconscious must have jotted it down just in case this hero-making moment presented itself. 

I looked back at my friends. 

"Justine, I think it's that lady. The one who's missing," I said in a loud whisper. She looked confused. It didn't register. "The one I told you about on the phone. The old lady!"

"Oh yeah. Oh my god!" Justine said, remembering our brief conversation a half hour earlier. 

The three of us ran up to the bushes, peering through the tangles of leaves and branches. 

We saw her. Frail. On all fours. Crawling through the mud. 

She wore a long, beige trench coat and had a pale blue kerchief tied around her head. As she moved, she dug her bony fingers into the soil, pulling her withered body forward through the sticker bushes.

"Annabelle," I said for a third time. 

She looked up at us, her cheeks hollow and wrinkles deep and dirty like a dry riverbed. Slivers of sunlight pierced through the branches, casting sharp, sinister shadows across her gaunt expression. 

"Hello," she croaked. 

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Image via Wikimedia Commons

There was no way this 90-year-old, 90-pound woman would make it up those stairs. So, we split up. Justine and I would go get neighbour-man. Connie would stay with Annabelle. Poor Connie—always getting the raw deal. Explaining to the neighbour that, as a matter of fact, I did know where his missing mother-in-law was—that would be awkward. But sitting in a forest cabana with the Wrinkled Witch of West Kenmore? That was worse. 

As expected, pulling up in Justine's Ford Probe, pounding on neighbour-man's door and telling him that we'd found his wife's lost long mother was awkward. It had been less than an hour since he was on my porch asking me to keep an eye out for her. This just seemed too convenient—like I'd kidnapped her and kept her hidden until the 'Missing Mother-in-Law | Reward: $1million' flyers went up. 

The man seemed surprised by our quick discovery, but said he and his wife would follow us in their car back to Connie's. 

Walking down all those steps with the two of them was agony. What were we supposed to talk about? "So, does the old bat escape often?" "Have you heard that the Kenmore Premix is going to be torn down and replaced with a movie theatre?" No—smalltalk didn't seem appropriate. We opted for silence. 

When we finally arrived at the bottom, Connie and Annabelle were sipping bottled waters and chatting. They'd become fast friends. But when Annabelle spotted her daughter and son-in-law, she flipped out. 

"No! No! Don't send me back there!" she pleaded with us. "I won't let that man tell me what to do! Don't make me go!"

With each refusal and accusation, the atmosphere got more and more uncomfortable. I remembered my Mom telling me that people with dementia often lash out and even lie about their loved ones. I decided to believe that was the case with Annabelle. What other choice did I have?

Over Annabelle's squawks, Connie suggested that she ask her neighbours if we could use their electric tram to get the frail old bird back up the hill. It was either that or we tie her to an inflatable pool lounger and drag her up the stairs. Annabelle's middle-aged carers weren't offering up any suggestions either. They just stood there being utterly unhelpful.

While we waited for Connie to call us on the cabana landline with the go-ahead, things got more awkward. Out of nowhere, neighbour-man looked at me and said, "Call 911 to let them know we found her!"

"What?"

"Call 911 and tell them that we found her. We filed a missing persons report earlier," he said. 

"Oh, ok," I said, too disarmed by his sudden command to question it. I pressed 9-1-1 on the keypad and started speaking to the operator. 

"Uhh. Hi, my name is Margaret and I found an old lady who is a missing person. So, yeah, umm, I just wanted to let you know we found her..." I trailed off. Did neighbour-man realise I was just a 19-year-old idiot? Why was he making me do this? And was calling 911 really necessary?

Eventually, as my "ummms" and "I'm not sures" became more frequent, neighbour-man gestured for me to hand him the phone. He started explaining things to the operator and I tuned him out. I had done what the situation had asked of me, and now I was finished. 

I hightailed it home. The whole thing was too weird. Too tense. I'd never liked meeting new people, and this just confirmed it. 

Annabelle: Part 1

It was a beautiful morning. Bright, warm sunlight filled the house. Through the window, between the tall evergreens, you could spot Lake Washington sparkling like sequins in the distance. 

I had just finished my freshman year in college and was back in Kenmore for the summer. My parents were out running errands and I had the house to myself. The plan was to spend all day on my friend Connie's dock—swimming, sunbathing, inhaling Otter Pops and pretending we were back in high school.

Image by Shindigs Girl via Flickr

I thew on my swimsuit and grimaced at what two semester's of daily Dominoes orders had done to my beach bod. Just as I was squeezing into my American Eagle shorts, there was a knock at the front door.

Normally I wouldn't have dreamt of answering it. Too risky. Whatever awaited me behind that slab of wood, it wasn't going to be good. A Jehovah's Witness, a kid selling coupon books, the stalker that I didn't know, but assumed, I had. 

But the summer spirit got to me. I scurried down the stairs and swung open the door. A man in his 50s—tall, white hair, with Costco jeans and a typical middle-aged man belly—stood in front of me. He explained that he was my neighbour from across the street. 

We'd spied on that house from our living room window, trying to figure out the family dynamic. For a while one of their grown children, with a blue pickup and a Siberian Husky, appeared to have moved back in. Occasionally they'd pull weeds in the front flowerbeds. Every December, they would put up a string of blue, icicle Christmas lights. Other than that, we didn't have a clue who they were.  

The man seemed nervous and like he was ashamed to be bothering me. He explained that his mother-in-law, who lived with them, had been missing since 3pm the previous day. He said she had dementia and had wandered off before, but never for this long. He gave me a flyer with her photo and told me to keep an eye out. 

I assured him I would. 

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As I walked back upstairs, the flyer already crumpling in my hand, my phone started buzzing on the kitchen table.

"Hey Justine"

"Hey—have you left for Connie's yet?"

"No, I was just getting ready."

"Oh, well I'm leaving now if you want me to pick you up."

"Sure, that sounds great."

And that's where the conversation almost ended. Even though my encounter with the neighbour man hadn't left much of an impression on me, something compelled me to bring it up. 

"Alright I'll be there in, like—

"A weird thing just happened before you called."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, my neighbour from across the street came over and asked if I'd seen his mother-in-law who has Alzheimer's and has gone missing."

"Weird!"

"Yeah. So weird. Anyway, see you soon!"

"OK, bye"

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Connie greeted us in her driveway and, towels in hand, we started the trek down to the lake. Her house is technically 'on the lake', but you have to navigate your way down at least 300 steps until you're there. It's a good seven-minute walk. 

The meandering wooden staircase is surrounded by giant fir trees, blackberry bushes and your general, unruly Pacific Northwest greenery. Permanently in the shade, the stairs are damp and slippery. A couple years earlier, my flipflop hit a mossy patch and I fell hard. It left a bruise the size, shape and colour of an eggplant on my right thigh. 

On the journey down, we gossiped about high school people and kept our new, college lives tucked away like a secret lover. We'd done this walk so many times. We'd done this day—the lake, the gossiping, the Otter Pops—so many times. The familiarity was intoxicating. 

Finally, the trees began to open up. We passed the gazebo and walked down the final four steps to the grassy ground below. But as we crossed the lawn to the dock, Justine gasped. 

"Something's over there! I saw something move over there!" she said under her breath, pointing to the thick bushes. 

We paused. Whatever it was, it was now obscured by vegetation. We couldn't see anything, but we heard it moving about it in the bramble. It sounded big. Not a cat or even a raccoon. Bigger. 

My heart started to thump. A bear? A mountain lion? Unlikely, but not impossible. 

Justine and Connie ran back to the bottom of the stairs. I started to follow, but then it dawned on me. Suddenly, I knew exactly what I had to do. 

Turning back around, I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted toward the bushes:

"Annabelle?"