Aftermath by Tracy Brown

from the nonstop worrying she’d been doing since Octavia’s disappearance. She felt so alone. Octavia’s father was not an active part of her life, never had been. Stationed overseas as an army sergeant, he supported his only child with monthly checks, but never visited or sent for Octavia. Dominique sent him a school picture of their daughter each year as a courtesy, but she suspected that he couldn’t care less about them. She hadn’t even bothered to contact him to inform him that Octavia had been missing for the past few days. He wouldn’t be of any help to her. The person she wanted to cling to the most—her father Bill Storms—had died only a couple of months ago. Bill would have known what to do, where to look for Octavia. Without him, she felt so alone even with her friends’ support.
    â€œBaby, I’m gonna hang up and call right back so we can talk about this,” Jamel said, his tone at once calming and reassuring.
    Dominique didn’t feel reassured, though. Still she managed to say, “Okay.”
    She hung up and hated that this was the closest she could get to being comforted at a time like this. So many thoughts had gone through her head all night. Octavia was only fourteen years old. What if she had trusted some stranger and was in peril? Dominique hadn’t slept a wink all night and now she wanted nothing more than to fall into some strong arms and be held. She wanted to be hugged and kissed and told that everything was going to be all right. But with Jamel still in prison, she had to settle for the ringing phone and his words of comfort through the receiver.
    â€œI have a collect call from … Jamel … an inmate at…”
    Instinctively, she pressed 3 to skip the monotonous recording.
    â€œBaby?”
    â€œYeah.” Dominique lay across Octavia’s bed, feeling drained and anxious at the same time. She ran her fingers across the soft brown fur of Octavia’s favorite teddy bear and sighed, tears pouring forth involuntarily. She imagined poor little Octavia being raped, beaten, and left for dead somewhere and a sob escaped her lips.
    Jamel leaned against the wall as he spoke into the receiver, picturing Dominique’s pretty face in his mind. He could imagine how she must look right now, so scared and worried about her only child. He wished, more than ever, that he could somehow escape the confines of the prison walls that held him.
    â€œI can’t imagine how you must feel right now,” he said honestly. “But I bet you’re probably thinking the worst.”
    She was. Dominique squeezed her eyes shut to block out the horrible thoughts going through her mind.
    â€œYou can’t think like that,” Jamel said. “Octavia’s a smart girl. She’s probably staying with a friend of hers until she can get up the nerve to call you. She’s gonna come back home soon, ma. You gotta believe that.”
    Looking around Octavia’s room, Dominique did believe that. She’d called the police that morning after Camille and Toya had left, and filed a missing persons report. The officers who had come out to her home and taken her statement had collected pictures of Octavia and searched her room for clues as to what may have caused her to run away. They’d indicated it was likely that a child who had grown up as sheltered and as privileged as Octavia would come back to the luxuries she’d miss on the streets. That is, one officer suggested, unless she was on drugs. Either way, they’d said, she hadn’t packed much of her clothes and shoes. She would be more likely to come back for those things (if nothing else) in the coming days.
    Dominique had never had any indication that her daughter might be using drugs. She hadn’t noticed any drop in her grades or any overly rebellious behavior. There was no drug paraphernalia in her room and Dominique hated to think that was the case. But