THE DARK PARENT

THE DARK PARENT, by Victor Bravo.  Carol, a woman whose daughter has disappeared.

CAROL.  It’s been six weeks since I last talked to my daughter.  She’s still the foremost part of my life, and for that, she’ll forever hold power over me.  I teach children piano and drama every day and often see her face in one of their faces, or hear her voice in one of their voices.  Maybe I’m naïve, but I refuse to accept the end of her.  I refuse to accept the arbitrariness of a violent world.  So strongly do I feel her alive, that the telephone, an otherwise inanimate object that I’ve always hated, has become the center of my world at home.  No matter what I’m doing, it always seems to draw my attention.  I wait for it to ring.  Periods between rings are transitional, unreal times.  And when the person on the other end is not her I chat amiably, set the receiver down, and wait for it to ring again. In very weak moments I pray to the phone.  The phone has become my god.  (pause)  My husband stayed in New Orleans another week after I returned to Texas.  He called Detective Sorenson everyday to see if anyone had made an attempt to claim the car.  No one had.  He made the rounds of clubs and restaurants, believing intensely with each new morning that this was going to be the day he found her.  That was his way of exhausting all possibilities.  He doesn’t understand the possibilities are endless.  He wants to believe she’s alive, but darkness has always won with him.  So, he’s returning to the French Quarter next weekend to ask people his heartfelt questions and show them her picture.  (pause)  I can’t do that.  Now, I do what he used to.  I stare out the window into the driveway at three in the morning, waiting for her to pull up.  I stare dreamily, until her car, blurry, creeps alongside the front garden, and her face, tired but glorious, catches the porch light as she climbs out and walks toward the house.  And I don’t think it’s silly at all.