Alice in Wonderland

Chapter 22 Part 2

Chapter 22

Some bread is set in front of us, but I don't touch it. I still feel sick to my stomach by all this pain and misery none of us deserved.

"I started to realize you were taken, but you weren't supposed to be. I was imagining what you would look like at that age -I think you would have been two or three by this time. I was thinking every little girl I saw at the park or at the mall was you. I would yell your name, hoping it was you and you'd come running back to us. One time in elementary school, I had a new girl named Alice in my class. It couldn't have been you because we're six years apart, but my brain was so confused that I thought it was you and I hugged her and started crying. The teacher had to pull me off of her and drag me to the nurses office because I was so upset."

"That's when Mom and Dad realized I was also affected by you being gone. I had to go to therapy and tell them I was seeing you everywhere and hearing your name. It helped, a lot, I suppose. I stopped calling your name in public places, I stopped thinking everyone was you. I sort of forced myself to accept that you were gone and you weren't coming back. And I did okay, it took me years to be able to accept that you had a different life. But even after all this time, every time I still hear someone say Alice, I stop in my tracks and get goosebumps."

The thought makes me physically ill. I can't imagine spending almost your whole life searching for someone who you don't even know is still alive. The what ifs are endless. "I'm so sorry."

Silas shakes his head quickly, "Alice- shit, I mean Lily, please don't apologize. You were the victim, I just didn't heal properly. It took Mom and Dad a long time to accept that you were gone, too, and I think that's why it took me longer. They were so focused on the case and finding you, they forgot that I was affected as well. They weren't bad parents, they struggled so much, but still gave me everything I needed. The second they noticed the way I was reacting to your disappearance, they dropped everything for me. Mom took some time off of work and they both told me what they could. They thought leaving me in the dark would be better, but it only messed me up. Telling me about your case is what really helped me start to heal."

"What did they say about my case?" I ask. I was never told anything about the investigation. I want to know how my parents got away with it.

"Well, they simplified everything because I was so young. But what I know now is that the police started with investigating everyone who stepped foot in the hospital in the month you were born. They talked to patients, nurses, doctors, the EMT. They didn't have cameras back then in the hospital and no one saw anything and the people who said they did, were either heavily medicated or crazy. They did a background check on everyone, even investigated family, my parents friends and any enemies they had, which they didn't have any. Everyone got cleared and somehow your-"

Silas stops himself and I understand why. He doesn't know whether to call her my mom or not. It'd be like a slap in the face to his -our- mother. "Just call her Jessica. I don't want to call them my parents anymore."

It's all so complicated. I don't want to disrespect my biological parents by not referring to them as my own, but it feels wrong. I've never even met them, they didn't raise me like they raised Silas. They're his parents, not mine.

"Right, well," Silas clears his throat and gulps down most of his water. "Jessica somehow checked out. She was a nurse there, but I think on a different unit, so they didn't really suspect her. They were interested in the nurses on the maternity unit and I guess they were so focused on catching one of them, they let Jessica slip through their fingers."

It pains me how they could be so close, but yet so far away. I don't know how Jessica did it, I don't understand how she got away with taking me from what's supposed to be one of the safest places on the planet. I was innocent and defenseless and it was her job to keep me safe.