LEX

I f*cking hate my mom. 

Was written in thick, bold letters on the page, the date reading February 13th, 2003. Exactly three months before. Exactly three months before the girls packed their favorite t-shirts, their most worn in sneakers, and the CDs they couldn’t live without, Alanis Morissette’s “Jagged Little Pill” for Amy (granted, she probably wasn’t allowed to own), Green Day’s “Dookie” for Juno, and none other than The Goo Goo Dolls “Dizzy Up The Girl” for Lex. The girls took one walkman with them. It was Lex’s. 

“If they left, they didn’t go far.” Laura said, holding an iced tea. “I mean, come on, they’re three fifteen year old girls.” 

Wrong. Elizabeth thought. Amy is fifteen. 

The three mothers were sitting in the Edward family living room. The sun was stark gold and peaking through the curtains.  

Awful decor. Emmaline thought. No wonder Amy ran. 

The Edwards’ house on the outside looked identical to the same suburb houses of Greenburgh. On the inside, the house was even more insufferable. The walls were beige, with the exception of the baby blue bathrooms, and Amy’s room. Amy’s room was a pale pink.

“They left in the middle of the night.” Elizabeth said, not looking up.  

“Lex took her baby blanket.” Emmaline said. 

Emmaline knew this because she had torn apart her room. Searching–pleading for any sign of discomfort with Lex that she was unaware of. Her Lex. The Lex that was once little that she held in her arms until sleep overcame her. The same Lex she made breakfast every morning. The same Lex that was soft spoken, and careful with her words. 

“It’s a comfort thing.” Laura spoke again. “They’ll be back by dinner, trust me. I know my daughter. She’s going to make a big fuss for a day or two, but she’ll come back.” Laura seemed so sure. “She always does.”  

“Why should we?” Elizabeth uttered. “They left, with your daughter, might I add.” She asserted. She did not meet Laura’s eyes. 

“Why?” Laura said brashly. “Why blame Juno? Because she doesn’t live in a stuffy house with a priss for a mother?” 

“Alright,” Emmaline started. “Lets not–”

“If any girl were to stray Amy away, it would be Juno.” Elizabeth said with fire. “I knew from the moment I met her she was troubled. You let her do anything, anything she wanted! For all we know she orchestrated the whole thing!” 

“How dare you–” Laura started, but Elizabeth would not let a word in. 

“Amy was good. Amy is good.” Elizabeth stood up. “Amy was fine until she met Juno and Lex! She was happy! She was still reading Nancy Drew before she met your girls!” 

“I’m not listening to this bullsh*t.” Laura stood up to leave, but looked Elizabeth dead in the eyes, almost as if she was looking into her soul. “You know, you preach all this acceptance and love and then go on a bullshit tangent about how your Amy was so perfect,” she says the word perfect as if it’s foreign to her. “Have you ever thought about how you affected Amy? Maybe you turned her against yourself. Not my daughter.”

Emmaline was holding her head and crying. Like a child. 

“Have you ever thought that you didn’t know your daughter at all?” 

The room went silent. 

“Get out.” Elizabeth spoke with an army behind her voice. 

“Gladly.” Before the wind could change, Laura was out the door. 

Elizabeth looked at Emmaline and did not see a mother, but a child. “Emmaline–” she started.

“I will not defend you to yourself.” Emmaline wept. I will not sit here and let you believe that my Lex is the reason your Amy disappeared.  

Emmaline remembered last night. Upon the destruction of her room, her mother found small signs of agony. She found Lex’s doodles inside her closet of boys’ names. She found notes behind Lex’s books on her shelves. But that was it. Her mother screamed and cried for more. Her mother screamed at the destruction she caused in her daughter’s room. She spent all night putting everything back exactly how it was. Every pillow, every note, every piece of clothing that she never saw Lex wore. Never had the chance to see Lex wear. 

Before Elizabeth could catch her, Emmaline raced out the front door. She watched the sun slowly set from the sky as she drove home. She smelled the summer air and listened to children’s voices outside. Not my Lex. She thought to herself. 

Emmaline soon approached 17 Bridger Street and opened the garage door. It was dusk now as she watched as the garage door closed behind her in the rearview mirror. 

She thought about Lex’s scent. A faint smell of a child. Children have a special scent. She thought. The best scent in the world. Emmaline cried–and prayed for her daughter. Be good, my child. She thought. You are my moon and my stars. 

And with the rest of Greenburogh, Emmaline faded into sleep. The engine was still running. 

AMY

Amy’s mom received an anonymous hotel postcard in the mail four days after the girls disappeared. 

To: Elizabeth Edwards the postcard read below the address, printed in small, neat, little-girl handwriting, I love you. There was no name signing it at the end, nor a return address. But Elizabeth knew, embraced, and right now, lived through the small printed handwriting, for it was her daughter’s. 

Like Emmaline, Elizabeth had begun searching her daughter’s room for answers. Amy’s room was meticulous, with everything in place. Elizabeth instilled that in her daughter. “A clean room makes a clean life” she always told Amy, and Amy had followed suit. Even after her disappearance, the room was spotless. The bed was made, the shades were drawn, and every piece of clothing was folded neatly in her dresser. Almost like she wanted her room to remain tidy, even in times of chaos. 

Elizabeth, upon entering her daughter’s room, tripped over an out of place floorboard peaking from underneath her lavender colored carpet. Skeptical and ambivalent, she carefully picked up the floorboard and placed it beside her. Trinkets filled the enclosed space. She forcefully reached into the underbelly of the floor, and found an empty pack of Menthols and a small lighter. Curious and cautious, Elizabeth kept reaching and found tens, if not hundreds of finished off cigarette buds. This is not Amy, she thought to herself. This is not my daughter. 

Frantic, Elizabeth rummaged through her missing daughters’ room for more. More evidence. More indication that she, like the other women, did not know her daughter. She found three more secret floorboards. One filled with various types of underwear that Elizabeth did not approve of. Underwear that she did not remember buying for Amy. Underwear that she never saw Amy wear. Another was filled to the brim with secret journals and notes. 

Drank myself to oblivion tonight, one journal read. Hooked up with Jeremy tonight. Underwhelming. Not worth the drop from my window. 

Elizabeth gasped and swifty closed the journal. “I did not know my daughter,” she said to herself, “Who was she?” she repeated over and over and over again, this time, unfolding and reading and rereading torn notes passed between Amy and her friends. 

I feel f*cking suffocated by my control freak of a mother, one read in blue ink. I’m going to kill myself, if my mother doesn’t get to me first. 

Why don’t you leave? Was printed in small red-inked letters under Amy’s discretion. It was not her handwriting. 

I wish, Amy’s writing read. I wish I could leave this hellhole of a town and never come back. I wish that I could drive off the end of the Earth. 

So why don’t we? The red ink red. 

Elizabeth cried and cried.

JUNO

Juno left no trace for her mother to find. Laura noticed, upon her daughter’s leaving, that a bottle of vodka was missing. 

Clever little f*cker. Laura thought. 

“Motherf*cker.” Laura swore. “The b*tch took my cigarettes.”