Chapter 6: Reward (A True Story)

Sitting at my computer looking at the words, “What’s on your mind,” that is exactly what it says on Facebook, bloody “What’s on your mind.” I tell you what’s on my bloody mind. “Who has my baby?” “Why has no one found him?” “Who do the 2 dogs that are with George belong to that are in the photo that the lady had taken?”

My mind at this point was in turmoil, then the anger started to kick in. Someone has him, right I need to post “REWARD.” I knew that I had 389 euros in my jar downstairs as I was saving for my daughter’s wedding dress. Kerry was due to fly over in March to go wedding dress shopping with me. Kerry will understand, I told myself, 389 euros that’s not enough, though.

So, I immediately typed: “REWARD 500€, Small black dog.” I then attached a photo of George and simply wrote the word “Missing.” Over time I learnt that writing the word missing just wasn’t enough, missing where from? What time? Boy/girl? Castrated? When I say I learnt that over time, what I really mean is in literally moments, I learnt that. Holy moly, the moment that I clicked post on Facebook, my phone was bleeping out of control. Message after message. The strange thing is all I could think was why the hell didn’t I type “REWARD,” the second that I realized that George was missing.

Looking at all the messages turned my anger back into a state of sadness. Then yet again, the tears were flowing, and the snot was bubbling.

Thankfully I had a full draw of hankies. Kerry is embarrassed that I own hankies, yet without my hankies, I am sure that my nose would have never been the same again; super soft cotton they are.

Gary was now calling; as I answered, all I could muster was a snotty “Hello, Christine put your music on, put it on now, loud, George knows your music, Now put it on now.” “Ok bye,” is all I said.

I ran downstairs, and I did exactly that; uuffff I turned that volume button up to the max that I could actually feel every beat of every song throughout my complete body. As I sat there not caring if I damaged my speakers, if I was actually ruining someone’s sleep within the campo, I began to reply to all the messages. Thankfully one person had typed “Can’t share, make public.” So, frantically, I messaged Kerry, “how the hell do you make a post public?” Obviously, I couldn’t call her due to the music being so very loud. “3 dots, mum, the 3 dots on the top right of the post,” she said.

Holy moly, once my post was public, more and more messages were coming through. It was so difficult to keep up with them all, and basically, they all said the same thing “Sorry.”

Then came a WhatsApp message from Carol “Tomorrow I will go out again, we will find him,” then came a message from Kate “Tomorrow Caroline and I will come to yours and help you to search.” Then Claudia messaged telling me that tomorrow she was organizing some posters to be printed and that Linda

…and Roxanne were going to help put them up all over Coín. I started to regain some hope; hope was all that I had.

It was now around 3am, and I was so cold; sitting outside, the messages had stopped, and I literally couldn’t feel my feet, and the only way I knew that my nose was still attached to my face was because of the constant blowing. It was also at that moment that I realized I hadn’t taken a shower or cleaned my teeth since Saturday, and it was now Tuesday.

While cleaning my teeth, don’t ask me why but for some reason, I touched my bum. I wish I hadn’t, as I noticed that the jeans I was wearing were totally ripped, my actual bum cheek was poking through. All this time and no one had said a bloody word.

As I laid in the bath as a shower wasn’t an option, literally I didn’t have the strength to stand up. I started to sob, no hankie in sight and no care for human dignity. I blew my nose into my hand. Obviously, I had forgotten my towel, and as I stood up, all I could do was to wrap myself up in my fluffy pink dressing gown. Once again, I found myself staring into oblivion, and the total frustration of waiting for the first light was agonizing. It was now 7am, and it was still dark.

Realizing that I had the music on all night and now worrying about all the dog’s ears, I clicked off the music, threw my clothes outside on the wooden wagon wheelchair, and fed the dogs.

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