MY 67-YEAR-OLD SICK MOTHER WAS Missing FOR THREE DAYS AND POINTED AT MY HUSBAND WHEN SHE CAME BACK.
Three days. My Alzheimer’s-stricken mom was missing for that long. The police and I looked everywhere, but we couldn’t find any leads. It was like she was gone. Really, I thought I was done with her for good.
Then, after three days and nights of not being able to sleep, I looked out the window and saw my mom getting out of a police car. I noticed that my husband didn’t look at all relieved when I looked at him, which made me feel uneasy right away.
But what really shocked me was when the police brought my mom inside. The first thing she did was point at my husband and say, “You need to arrest him!” He did it three days ago.
“You need to put him in jail!” He tried to kill me three days ago!” My mom spoke in a shaky but clear way, and her words echoed like thunder. The whole room went cold. It was hard for me to believe what I was hearing. After being missing for so long, my mom was messy and tired, and she was now accusing my husband of something crazy.
Alex, my husband, looked shocked. “What?” “That’s silly!” he stuttered, his face white. “She’s confused, she doesn’t know what she’s saying.” He tried to stay calm as he looked at the police officers. “She has Alzheimer’s.” “She’s been seeing things since months ago.”
That didn’t stop my mom, though. Her eyes were narrowed and filled with a clarity I hadn’t seen in a long time. She kept her finger pointed straight at him. “No, I remember,” she said quickly. “I know what I saw.”
When the police looked at me, I could tell they weren’t sure what to do. They were confused about this. I thought I was going to drown in my own confusion. “Mom, what are you talking about?” My voice was barely above a whisper as I asked. “Where have you been?”
When she looked at me, her face softened for a moment. She said, “I was hiding,” as if it were the most silly thing in the world. “I had to hide because he was trying to get rid of me.”
I looked at Alex and told my mom, “That doesn’t make any sense.” He seemed tense, but who wouldn’t in this situation? Still, the way he avoided my eyes made my stomach turn. “Can you tell me what happened?”
She seemed to gather her thoughts by taking a deep breath. “Three days ago, I was in the backyard, and I heard him on the phone,” she shared. “He was on the phone and told them he needed to “take care of me” right away. I didn’t get what he meant, so I called him to ask, but he hung up when he saw me coming.
When I looked at Alex, he was shaking his head and his mouth was open a little. He tried to sound firm as he said, “This is crazy.” “I wasn’t on the phone.” She talks about things I don’t understand.
“Let her finish,” I said, but my tone was harsher than I meant it to be. I went back to my mom. “What happened after that?”
She went on, her voice shaking, “He was acting strange.” “He tried to calm me down by telling me I was making things up, but I knew what I heard.” Later that night, I saw him putting rope and… duct tape in a bag. “That’s when I knew I had to leave.”
It was quiet in the room. As I tried to figure out what she meant, my mind was racing. I wanted to think that she was just confused and that her illness was making her see something that it wasn’t. But there was a small voice inside me that thought there might be more to this than what I thought.
The police officers looked at each other. A soft voice asked, “Ma’am, can you tell us where you went after you left?”
“I walked to the old cabin by the lake,” she stated. “I thought it would be safe because I remember going there with your dad many years ago.” Someone had to find me, so I stayed there.
“Wait, you found your way to the lake cabin on your own?” I asked, shocked. It’s been over a year since my mom could walk down the block without help.
She said yes. “Yes.” I needed to get away from him.
The shaking in Alex’s head got stronger now. “This is crazy!” Recently, she’s been getting lost more and more. I think she got lost and ended up there. Now she’s making this story up in her head.” Without any hope, he looked at me. “You know she’s not feeling well, right?” This is just not possible, you know that.”
I wasn’t sure what to think. I felt torn between my love for Alex and the way my mom looked at me. She told me a story that made me think she was having a hallucination, but something didn’t feel right. “Alex,” I asked with a shaking voice, “if that’s what really happened, why didn’t you tell me she heard you on the phone?”
His voice got louder as he said, “Because it never happened!” “She doesn’t get it!” You know how she acts!”
A police officer put up a hand as he spoke, though. He said in a calm voice, “Mr. Ryan, we need you to come down to the station and answer some questions.” No matter how unlikely it seems, we need to look into this claim.
Alex’s face turned pale, and I could see fear in his eyes. “That’s not possible,” he told her. “She’s telling lies!” That’s not funny!”
The officer said, “We have to follow the rules.” “If it’s a misunderstanding, we’ll sort it out.”
I watched as Alex, who was still angry, got into the police car after being led out of the house. It hurt like someone was ripping my heart apart. Do you think my husband really planned something bad to happen to my mom? Was she correct, or was this a terrible misunderstanding?
Things changed the next day. There was still a lot going on in my mind when the police came back to our house with a search warrant. They looked in the basement, the garage, and every other part of the house. I was sick because I had no idea what they were looking for and was scared of what they might find.
After that, they did.
A police officer came back inside with a sad face. He asked, “Ma’am, can you come with me?” My heart was beating fast as I followed him to the garage. After pulling back a tarp, they saw a duffel bag with rope, duct tape, and a few other things inside. I knew right away what the bag was. Alex had always kept it in his car for trips.
It seemed like the ground was giving way under me. I stuttered, “That… that doesn’t mean anything.” “He could have used those things for… for anything.”
Even so, I could tell the officer wasn’t sure. He said in a soft voice, “We’re taking this as proof.” “If your mother’s story checks out, we may need to press charges.”
I sat in the living room that night and stared at my hands, trying to figure out what was going on. It was finally safe for my mom to rest in her room, but I felt like the house was closing in on me. What went wrong so quickly?
The next few days were filled with frantic phone calls, police interviews, and nights when I couldn’t sleep. Then, in the afternoon, the police called to let me know what was going on. In order to find Alex’s phone records, they did something that made me feel very scared.
In the three days before my mom went missing, Alex called a storage unit on the edge of town. The call only lasted a few minutes, but the police found that Alex had rented a storage unit from that place just a few days before. There was more gear inside the unit, like rope, gloves, and a big, empty suitcase.
At that moment, my whole world fell apart. There was no doubt left. My mom was right. Even though she was sick, she was able to see the truth. It was something terrible that Alex was planning, but she got away just in time.
Alex was arrested, and he later admitted to what he did. He was feeling too stressed out to take care of my mom, and he was sure that the only way out was to get rid of her. I was so shocked and hurt that I couldn’t even explain it. The man I had put my trust in had been hiding a dark side I had never thought of.
Leaving without me saved her life, and she was the one who told everyone the truth in the end. She had seen things I couldn’t even when she was sick.
My mom and I found a new place for her to live where she could feel safe and at ease. What happened hurt me for a long time, and I don’t know if I’ll ever fully heal. Only one thing is certain, though: I will never doubt my mom again, no matter what.
