| Innocence Lost |
| Speaker is a young woman, late teens, who has an air of maturity beyond her years which comes from experiencing much loss at a young age. What happened to innocence? Twelve didn't used to be too old for pigtails or one-piece swimsuits. I don't remember ten being too cool for bicycles or board games. What's the minimum age for adults now? Five? I have two younger sisters. Amy was ten and Maggie was twelve. And Amy was always trying to act like Maggie, and Maggie was always trying to act like me. So ensued their endless fascination, or at least copycat fascination, with clothes, make-up, boys, and all things froofy-smelling. And going out by themselves. I was always opposed to that one. I mean, I didn't go to the mall with my friends practically until we were driving ourselves there, and here were my kid sisters asking to be dropped off so they could go buy tank tops, platform sandals, miniskirts and lipstick with their allowance. (Quietly.) I guess I was right about that one. See, one night last summer, I went to pick up my sisters at the mall, but they weren't there. Now, they're late a lot, they'll get hung up trying on clothes or talking to their friends or whatever, and hey, I do that, so I cut them some slack. But after about fifteen minutes, I was getting worried, so I parked and practically ran inside. I looked around the entranceway. No little sisters. So I went to customer service and had them paged, knowing they'd be absolutely mortified, but I wanted to get home for supper. I waited... They didn't come. Security and I started running through, looking for them. I ran from store to store, just frantically looking for them--I mean, I had taken my kid sisters shopping enough times to know where they should be, right? But they weren't there. We looked everywhere, but we could't find them. We called Mom and Dad and then the police to file them missing. I was so scared. I couldn't breathe. What if something had happened to them? I called the cell phone Mom had sent with the girls over and over as I searched the perimeter of the mall for the girls. Nothing. Over and over again every time, just voice mail picking up. Finally, I heard a ringing not coming from the earpiece. I looked up, but there was no one there. I followed the sound. And there, in the flowerbeds, boy band face plate staring up at me, was their phone. It had been thrown there, but not by either of my two sisters. My eyes coursed across the ground from the phone to the road. Just next to the curb on the sidewalk, lay a blue, heartshaped puse. Maggies's. I screamed. By the next morning, there was a full-blown search on for the girls... And a full-blown nightmare for my family. Everyone for miles was looking everywhere for them. I had to talk to all the reporters because my parents couldn't pull themselves together long enough to. I still remember the descriptions that ran for them. Amy, ten, long brown hair, blue eyes, 4' 10", las seen wearing a blue jean skirt, purple t-shirt, and brown leather sandals. Maggie, 12, chin-length blond hair, brown eyes, 5' 1", khaki shorts, red tank top, red socks and blue and white tennis shoes. Their photographs that ran in every newspaper or TV broadcast, were from their last school pictures. We were always looking for them. Always thinking, Where are they? ARe they okay? Always praying, Please God let them be alive. Let them be safe. Three days the search went on, until finally we got the call we had been waiting for, and yet dreading, on Friday. Someone had found the girls a few miles from an out-of-the-way roadside. Murdered. And raped. (Pause. In tears.) When did they get old enough, grown up enough, to be thought of as women? When did some stranger get the right to determine their future, to decide that they wouldn't have a future? When did a stranger get the right to destroy the lives of my sisters, my family... and me? |