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Somewhere a door clicked and Eoin knew that she was sneaking out. He sighed and picked up his eight month old daughter Ella off the floor, who responded with an indignant squeal.
“Here,” he said, handing Ella the teething ring she had been chewing on so fretfully. “You can bring it with you.”
As Eoin sat her on his hip he looked through the side window just in time to see Victoria striding towards a dark blue Mercedes with blacked out windows. The front passenger window was down and Eoin caught sight of a heavily tattooed arm resting on the door. Through a thin haze of smoke drifting through the open window he spotted a hand casually flicking a cigarette butt to the ground.
Somehow he had to stop her from getting in that car. He ran to the door and flung it open in a panic.
“Victoria!” he yelled. But it was too late. Her mini skirted backside and long bronzed legs had already disappeared inside the blacked out Mercedes and with a screech of tyres she was gone. “Shit!” he roared and kicked an empty beer can he’d left lying on the front porch.
The stink of burning rubber filled the street and Eoin aimed a scowl at the neighbour’s Pitbull as it snarled viciously and ran the full length of its chain, again and again. He hoped it never managed to get loose, because that was one fucking mean dog.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket, then hit speed dial for Victoria. It went straight to voicemail. He cursed inwardly. By now Ella was distraught and she bawled lustily in his ear, so he carried her into the house where she would be out of sight of the rabid Pitbull.
Eventually she settled down enough so that he could put her in the playpen over in the corner of the room. Eoin plumped himself down on the battered sofa and tried to phone Victoria again. He listened intently, praying that she would pick up the phone, even if it was only to tell him she was alright. He rolled his eyes as the automated message kicked in asking him to leave a message after the beep.
“Call me as soon as you get this message Vicky,” he said. Laying down his phone on a small side table he reached out and picked up a small silver photo frame. He held the picture of the beautiful young woman to his lips and closed his eyes.
“I wish you hadn’t gone,” he said under his breath. There was that awful sensation again, so intense that it felt like a physical pain; as if someone had just tried to rip out his heart. If anything happened to Vicky he didn’t think he could go on.
Ella gurgled in her playpen. “It’s ok,” he said with a wobbly smile. “Daddy will keep it together, don’t you worry.”
She grinned at him and he could see that her third front tooth was almost through. If only Vicky hadn’t gotten hooked on cocaine, he thought.
Four months ago, that was when it had all started and they’d been on a downward spiral ever since. If only he had known how much their lives would change after moving to Detroit.
Hour after hour went by in tortuous slow motion. Every car that drove by, every slamming door fanned a dwindling glimmer of hope that she might return before nightfall.
At half past seven he put Ella down for the night and went downstairs to tackle the sink full of dirty dishes. On the table sat Vicky’s plate of spaghetti and meatballs, completely untouched. He thought about whether or not he should keep it warm.
She’d probably be doped up to the eyeballs even if she did return before morning, so he allowed it to cool and covered it in cling film before putting it in the refrigerator.
When he had done, Eoin wearily lowered himself into a chair and held his head in his hands despairingly.
Destructive thoughts of where she could be or what she might be doing whirled through his mind, chasing each other like the maniacal dance of a Chinese dragon. He toyed with the idea of phoning the police. But he knew what they would say. It was way too early to file a missing persons report. Wait until tomorrow, they’d tell him.
Eoin groaned. He knew it was going to be a long night. If only he could reach out to her somehow through sheer force of will and make her aware of just how much she was making them both suffer.
“Come home!” he thought, squeezing his eyes shut.
He spent the next several hours in the grips of another internal conflict. Should he try to get some sleep or not? Once again he decided to call her phone and to his immense surprise someone picked up.
“Hello?”
“Who is this? Where’s Vicky?” he demanded.
There was a long silence.
Eoin gripped the phone tightly. “Don’t hang up, please!” he begged, pacing the floor.
“Are you Victoria’s father?” said the woman.
“Yes. Yes I am. What’s happened?”
That question almost choked him.
“You need to come to the Beaumont Royal Oaks hospital immediately Sir. My name is nurse Beverly Carmichael. Ask for me when you arrive at the ER.”
“Is she ok?” Eoin said, looking at the ceiling and swallowing hard.
“She OD’d sometime this evening and was dumped at the front door. She’s stable for now, but you need to get here as soon as possible. She keeps asking for her mother.”
“Ok,” croaked Eoin. “But it will be just me… Her mother died in a car accident last year.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that Mr Yorke.”
“I’m sure you understand that I can’t promise you anything regarding your daughter Victoria,” she said, after a pause. “But rest assured she’s in good hands with us. We’re just waiting for her bloodwork to come back from the lab, so until then we’re taking it as a good sign she’s awake and talking a little already.”
“But she’s only fifteen,” he whispered. “Just a child.”
“She has plenty of time left to turn her life around then,” said the nurse gently. “With the right help that is. But we can discuss all that when you get here.”
“Thanks for your help,” sniffed Eoin. “Just look after her until I get there.”
“Of course,” she said. “I’ll go and tell her that you’re on your way.”
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