“You knew I was going to say something to you, right?” Emma and her mom Carol live together on Gentle Avenue “it’s just the two of us” says Emma. “ My mom has set rules in place for me to be able to maintain a schedule and get good grades and for her to trust me. My mom wants me to be home tonight and every night by ten o’clock. However, one night my friends want me to go to this party which is going to start when I have to be home. I know if I ask my mom she will say that I could be out maybe an extra half hour or an hour later or that I can’t go. I then just decided that I should just go to the party and not tell my mom and just get home when I get home.”
Meanwhile at Emma and Carol’s house her mom who was home alone that night while her daughter went to the party. “I was so mad that Emma had not come home I kept checking my phone, checking to see if she had messaged me and also checking the time and at the time it was midnight.” “l knew that Emma knew the rules that I set in place to keep her safe and maintain a schedule, I also knew that if she wanted to be out with her friends any night that she just had to let me know and I would try and extend her time the best I could depending on the circumstances”. Since it was so late I decided to just go to bed and let Emma come home after she was done hanging out with her friends. Sense there was not much more I could do because she wasn’t answering me.
The next morning when I woke up to find that Emma’s car was not in the yard, I still went to check her room because I thought maybe she got dropped off. When I went to Emma’s room and saw that she was not there I began to panic about where my daughter could be. I then decided to call her and texted her no response, I then called her best friends no response, I called her grandparents, aunts and uncles they had not seen nor heard from her. Then I could only think of calling the police because my daughter had not come home.
When I called the police I told them that yesterday my daughter Emma went to school. Emma attends school at Clear Lake Academy which is just down the road from our house. I knew that she had gotten to school because I had to bring her lunch yesterday and had spoken with her when I brought it. I then told them that was the last time I had heard from her, I also told the policeman that when I called her friends none of them answered, her relatives had not heard from her, causing me to be conquered.The policemen then told me that they would let me know if they knew any more information on my daughter Emma.
Later that day after talking to the police I heard the door open and then shut. I was wondering who it could be when I looked up from my phone to see my daughter Emma. I didn’t know what to say. Should I be relieved? Should I yell at her? Instead after a few minutes I said where have you been? Why did you not respond to my texts and calls?