The Truth Behind a Smile

Stephen woke the following morning feeling well rested and energetic enough to take a morning walk around the yard. After his brief walk, Stephen got started on breakfast, only to be interrupted by a knocking at the front door. Stephen walked over opening the door and was greeted by a uniformed Officer and a man in a suit.

“Hello is this the residence of a Mr. Stephen Clark?” The man in the suit asked.

“Yes, this is my home.”

“Hello sir, I am agent Garcia, and this is Officer Anderson. May we step inside for a moment? I’m afraid we have some troubling news Mr. Clark.”

“What, what is this about?” Stephen asked with a growing panic.

“It is about your daughter, a miss Emily Clark, sir.”

“Emily? What is it about her? Did she get there safely? Is it a problem with her card, does she need some money?”

“No, no, no sir. It’s nothing like that.” The officer said, interrupting Stephen. “I we may, I think it’d be best if we went inside and took a seat.”

“Oh…okay, come on in then.” Stephen said welcoming the two men into his home and leading them to the living room. “What, what is it then?” The panic in his voice becoming noticeable.

“Your daughter, Emily, she was found murdered this morning just outside her resort.”

“What? N-no that can’t be true.” Stephen’s panic slowly turning into denial.

“She’s been murdered, sir,” Agent Garcia said impassively. He paused to allow the severity of his words set in. “Police in the area found her body as well as two other young ladies that we’ve identified to be her companions on this trip. They were discovered in a dumpster behind the resort where they were staying.”

Stephen froze. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“H-how do you know for certain it’s her? Surely it could be any other girl that looks like her, no?”

“Officers on the scene discovered a wallet that held her state issued ID. Once they had your daughters ID, they ran her name through the resorts registry and found what room her and her friends had been staying in and found your daughters fourth companion, a Ms. Melanie Fernandes. Officers pulled her in for questioning and had her identify the bodies that we found confirming their identities.”

“Oh my god…how could this have happened? What happened?” Stephen asked the agent as his voice began to shake.

“We are led to believe that your daughter and her two friends who we found with her where abducted sometime after their dinner between 9:30pm and 11:00pm. Ms. Fernandes informed us that they had planned to go out that night to a party that their airport driver had told them about. Apparently, it was a just outside of the resort and the driver was a handsome young man that your daughter and her friends felt could be trusted, he offered to pick them up later that night. Ms. Fernandes decided to head back to their room instead of going out as the local cuisine did not agree with her. Resort cameras then recorded your daughter and her two friends entering a white van at 9:32 pm at the resort entrance. Approximately 8 hours later at 5:16 in the morning, resort cameras caught what appeared to be the same van with two masked men dumping their bodies into the dumpster. Police are working to find the men behind these murders but unfortunately the plates on the van where stolen and they have not had any luck with any of the fingerprints they have found on the girls. They have found several different traces of semen on each one of the girls and will be running –”

Stephen ears began to ring drowning out the words from Agent Garcia. Stephen didn’t move, he just stayed, sat on the couch and the toast, he was making began to burn filling the air with its pungent aromatic sting. Officer Anderson smelling the burnt bread jumped up and rushed over to the kitchen before a potential fire broke out while Agent Garcia continued to explain the details of Emily’s death to Stephen.

“Mr. Clark?” Agent Garcia called out, realizing that Stephen’s attention had been lost.

Stephen’s eyes snapped back up, locking with the cold dark eyes of the agent.

“The local law enforcement in Punta Cana are working on sending your daughter’s body back to Texas as we speak. We’d like for you to come to the morgue and certify that she is your daughter. Her plane should arrive early tomorrow morning and we can arrange for someone to come and pick you up around 8 am, if you would like?”

Stephen did not reply verbally to the agent but instead nodded his head in agreement softly as a concerned look burned itself onto his face. Agent Garcia and Officer Anderson displayed concerned looks of their own upon seeing Stephen’s calm reaction and after some time walked themselves out.

Stephen sat there on his couch for the remainder of the day, and even through the night, just sitting there staring into the emptiness he now felt in his home. All the details he usually would have noticed fell into the darkness never to be seen or spoken of. It all slowly became bleaker and grew dull as all the colors that once decorated his life with meaning, faded away like an old shirt left out in the sun for years.

Eventually the morning came and with it the car and officer that the agent had promised arrived as well to take Stephen to the morgue. It was a very bland interaction as the officer knocked on the door and Stephen simply got up from the couch and walked out of the house and to the rear seat of his transport. Not even bothering to acknowledge the officer as he walked past him at the door and still in the same clothes from the day before. It was a quiet drive, although interrupted by periodic messages transmitted over the police cruiser radio, it felt deathly silent. They eventually made it to the morgue and once their Stephen was greeted by Agent Garcia who escorted him to the room, they had placed Emily in.

There was a single table at the center of the room with a white cloth covering it, surrounded by trays and miscellaneous medical equipment and a buzzing bright light that hung right above. Stephen and the agent walked up to the table and as the agent grabbed the white sheet and pulled it back Stephen simply said, “That’s her.”

* * *

“Her funeral was nice. I didn’t go so that might be the reason why, but at least it was a sunny day. A few people, I’m not really sure who they were, but they came by my house that day and knocked on my door asking me if I was okay. I didn’t answer the door but each time I got up and locked the door just loud enough so that they could hear it and get the message. Nobody really came by after that. Even Hugo who would call me a few times every month stopped after a while of me not returning his calls.” Stephen rolled his lips forming an awkward smile and looked at the table, his eyes darting around just scanning it aimlessly.

“Mr. Clark…I know it must be painful to lose so many people close to you.”

“You do?” Stephen interjected quickly cutting me off before I could finish my thought.

I sighed, knowing full well I had never felt the agony of losing a child, or even of my significant other or parents for that matter. I had been blessed that my husband and parents where still a part of my life, and although I did not have children yet, I had not attempted to have them yet either thus, not even knowing the pain of a failed pregnancy at that. Although I had not experienced loss as severe as Stephen had, I began to feel remnants of the pain he felt with each story that he told me. Each one adding a murky background to each wrinkle and expression he shared with me during our time together.

A few seconds had passed since either of us had spoken, and in an attempt to fill the void of silence Stephen let out a more natural smile as he squinted his eyes and told me, “People can’t leave you, if you are the one that pushes them away first.”