Chapter 15

                                             30th June, 2010

Dear .......,

Whoever I actually address this letter to, please don't think much into it. I just want a place to rant, a place to express my anger because I am really overwhelmed and I need someone to listen. I need someone to know about my suffering. Even as I write this letter, I know I may end up tearing it into a million pieces and throwing them in the nearest trash bin. If by any miraculous chance, this  letter manages to reach the police or any other concerned authority, I will deny everything I have written in this letter.

It's been two weeks since my best friend, Elaine Barker vanished from my own birthday party. I have not yet come to grips with the fact that I may never see Elaine again. By the time you are twenty years old, you already know what happens to girls who disappear more especially girls who disappear for two weeks. Everyone tells you that it gets better but no, it doesn't. It never gets better. You cry and cry until you have no choice but to muffle your cries with your own pillow. What's the use anyway? Crying will not bring Elaine back.

The entire town of Mattapan has searched for Elaine for the past two weeks but even the police are now losing hope. Craig and Gertrude Barker have been fervent in their efforts to find their daughter. They have appeared in all sorts of TV interviews, they have cooperated with the police and they have even created a Facebook page which is updated almost every hour with pictures of Elaine to convince Elaine's abductor that she is human –a loved daughter and a friend –my friend. My favorite picture on that Facebook page is the one where our faces are smeared with ice cream from one of our High-school parties.

I know they are not going to find Elaine anyway because my parents are protecting her abductors. My parents pretend that they support the efforts to find Elaine but in reality they don't want Elaine found because deep down, they know who's done it and they are protecting him. They are protecting their son.

I am so stupid. I was so busy dreaming about finally having a normal life that I did not see how much danger I was putting my best friend in.  I pushed her into having fun at the party even when I could tell that she was tense. Her eyes were darting everywhere like a frightened bird.

The Houghton family is your normal, if not quintessential family. We are your typical next door neighbors. We participate in big charity events and help the struggling families in Mattapan. We are the first to attend church service on Sundays and we are at every social gathering there is. We will even bring you a pie or a casserole when your daughter is missing even though we are protecting her abductor.

The interior of this house has an ominous feel to it. The pale green walls of this house sag in protest. They want to burst into song and sing the atrocities of my parents. The wood paneled floors also creak in protest. They are equally tired of being accomplices to my family's dastardly deeds.

My family is very good at keeping appearances. Everyone envies our family. Alex, my naive but money minded boyfriend believes that he will be marrying into money but our money only serves to hide the deepest secrets. A secret so dark that my parents, Albert and Victoria Barker don't care that my best friend might be dead. I can't fault them though they are just fulfilling their role as parents.

The Houghton family built Mattapan. Maybe that was how my  grandparents had initially planned it out to be. Jacob and Estephania Houghton did a great job building the town —not physically like by constructing buildings but economically. Before, it was just known for it's rampant gang activity hence earning it the nickname "murder-pan". It was highly ranked among the most dangerous neighborhoods in Boston. When they moved here ,they started the Mattapan Cathedral project and soon Mattapan became a source of low cost housing. In less than five years, Mattapan became highly populated with a mix of races; blacks, Caucasians, Asians and Haitians you name it.

My grandparents soon became very rich and unintentionally spoilt their son, Albert. Albert grew into a young man with big dreams and an even bigger ego. Small town Mattapan life was never going to be enough for him so he moved to Los Angeles and that's how he met his love, Victoria Houghton, my mother and namesake. They met through a nasty court battle where a teenage girl had accused Albert of raping her. Victoria was Albert's defense attorney and after a media frenzy that tore up Los Angeles and a three hour jury deliberation, Albert was declared not guilty. They returned to Mattapan, a married couple soon after that, much to the shock of my grand parents. From what I have read about the case and my personal investigations into that matter, I believe that my father was guilty of the crime. After all nobody refused my father and got away with it.

Recently, I found out that I had an aunt. Turns out, Jacob was not so perfect after all. She is called Margaret McGarret. I saw her for the first time on my twentieth birthday. She has the build of a woman who has worked on the farm and her brown shoulder length hair looks stunning. She was impeccably dressed in a checkered black and white sweater-dress and beautiful diamond earrings. My parents were not particularly happy to see her. She has the air of a person who has fought battles and won. I want to be like her when I am her age. Margaret gifted me a gold pendant. She also gave Walter a gift because it was his birthday too but Walter doesn't deserve anything. Walter just needs to be taken to a mental institute. Fucking Walter just needs to die.

Walter has always been the difficult child right from when we were young. He has always been in this kind of bubble. Isolated from the real world and in this sort of fantasy world. Only his action figures kept him company and believe me he had many of them. I didn't think much of it at the time because most children go through such a phase.

When we were ten, Walter did something wrong. I don't remember exactly what but mom punished him by taking away one of the superhero action figures from his collection and Walter threw a huge tantrum for the rest of that day. He did not come out of his room and he did not eat. We all thought that it would be over the next day but Walter would not be placated. He slit his wrists the next morning. I found him bleeding out on the floor of his own bedroom.  Walter was rushed to the hospital and after dealing with his cut which was not that deep by the way. He was put on a  forty eight hour suicide watch.

A female psychologist with distractingly multi–coloured hair and a slender build diagnosed Walter with an obsessive disease. I forgot the exact name of the disease because I was just ten at the time. But basically, Walter had a picture in his mind about how his life was supposed to look like and if anything deviated from that even slightly, he went crazy. The doctor also revealed that he was bipolar and therefore his moods needed to be monitored.

My parents were wild with accusations against the poor doctor for making a false diagnosis but the doctor stood firm with her conclusions and advised that he either get admitted to an institute or is closely monitored by a qualified psychologist.

However, it was not long before, my parents whisked their son away from the hospital with it's stained cream walls, tiled floors and crowded rooms which smelled like disinfectant. To them, their son was not sick, he was just different. My parents made a wrong decision that would haunt them even up to today. They literally put a smoldering ember onto a pile of dry grass and now a fire is raging. The fire that is Walter Gregory Houghton cannot and will not be tamed. It will rage on until someone strong enough to stop him does so because I am not strong enough. I don't know if I will ever be strong enough in the future but I do hope and pray, if not for my sake but for the sake of everyone in Mattapan, that someone stops him.

Walter has recently developed a passion for music –church hymns most especially. He has even joined the church choir and is now learning the guitar. I laughed when I learnt of this because I know this is just one more of his elaborate pretenses. He must be obsessed with someone new and doing everything in his power to get what he wants. I cannot begin to think what this might mean for Elaine. If Walter has found a new obsession, then Elaine might be lying dead in a ditch somewhere or she might be at the bottom of a lake. No, I am not going there.

Evan and Walter have become very close friends after Elaine's disappearance. They meet at my house often and talk into the night. They make plans. I have tried to eavesdrop but they are hyper-vigilant. They stop talking at every small noise but one day, I will find out what they talk about. Call me meddlesome, I don't care but I know that you cannot be friends with Walter unless you are as twisted as him. The fantasies that his mind conjures up are dark blob swirling over all our heads, swirling over all of Mattapan.

I choose to end this letter here because Walter and Evan have returned. I need to hear what they are talking about and I hope I will be able to take the stand that my parents were never able to take when they refused to get Walter help but most of all I need to find Elaine. I need to save her from the mess I got her into.

                                              Yours,

                                              Victoria .H