Disappearing from View

By Susan L. Pollet

This collection of short stories describes that phenomenon in different contexts, whether it is in the form of a person who purposely disappeared for a time; a mind which was stolen by Alzheimer’s disease; the vanishing of truth with a pathological liar; a cat which escaped; a person recollecting solitary confinement during the isolation of the coronavirus pandemic; the elimination of privacy in the time of technological advances; the loss of our planet and humans from climate change; the fading of morality; the disappearance of home from a fire; the absence of a lust for life; the evanescence of youth and purpose during the last phase of aging; and the cessation of kindness in our world. What we wish would disappear and what actually does creates an ever changing landscape which is often out of our control. How we make peace with that makes all the difference.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adelaide Books Publishers
• Release date: Aug 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781958419311

Susan L. Pollet

Susan L. Pollet lives in New York City, and has been an attorney for over forty years, primarily in the area of family law. She has published over sixty articles on varied legal topics, including family and criminal law. She was President of the Westchester Women’s Bar Association, Vice President of the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York, Executive Director of Pace Women’s Justice Center, Director of the New York State Parent Education and Awareness Program, and a prosecutor. She is also a published author and artist. In 2019, her first novel was published by Adelaide Books, New York/Lisbon entitled “Lessons in Survival: All About Amos.” She created the collage for the book cover. In 2020 Adelaide published her novels Through Walter Lens and Women in Crisis: Stories From the Edge. She painted the portraits for the covers. In 2020 Adelaide published her first children’s book, Juliette Rose’s Dream of Becoming, which she wrote and illustrated. Three of her short stories were published in Adelaide’s literary award anthologies in 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively.

Book preview

DISAPPEARING FROM VIEW

Also by Susan L. Pollet

LESSONS IN SURVIVAL: ALL ABOUT AMOS

THROUGH WALTER’S LENS

WOMEN IN CRISIS: STORIES FROM THE EDGE

A GREY DIVORCE SUPPORT GROUP

NOT SO SURPRISE ENDINGS

WATCHING AND LETTING IT ALL GO

JULIETTE ROSE’S DREAM OF BECOMING

WILLIAM WONDERED WHETHER WORRYING WAS WORTH IT

Disappearing From View

A Collection of Short Stories

by

SUSAN L. POLLET

Adelaide Books

New York / Lisbon

2022

DISAPPEARING FROM VIEW

A collection of short stories

By Susan L. Pollet

Copyright © by Susan L. Pollet

Cover design © 2022 Adelaide Books

Cover image by Susan L. Pollet

Published by Adelaide Books, New York / Lisbon

adelaidebooks.org

Editor-in-Chief

Stevan V. Nikolic

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For any information, please address Adelaide Books

at [e-mail]

or write to:

Adelaide Books

244 Fifth Ave. Suite D27

New York, NY, 10001

ISBN: 978-1-958419-31-1

Dedicated to my loving family members, and to friends who have become family.

All of them mean everything to me.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One: Disappearing Without a Trace

Chapter Two: When Alzheimer’s Disease Steals a Mind

Chapter Three: When Truth Vanishes

Chapter Four: Where Did Elsa Go?

Chapter Five: If You Are Having A Conversation And No One Is Around To Hear It, Were Sounds Made?

Chapter Six: Privacy Lost, But Do We Care?

Chapter Seven: Planet Lost, Humans Gone

Chapter Eight: The Fading Of Morality

Chapter Nine: The Home That Became Invisible

Chapter Ten: Lust For Life Lost From View

Chapter Eleven: When Youth Evanesced

Chapter Twelve: The Cessation of Kindness

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Our lives are written in disappearing ink.

—Michelle Cliff, Author

Prologue

No matter when you live your life, you will experience, amidst ephemeral periods of joy and harmony, that the world is constantly changing, and what you once thought was solid and stable, disappeared from view, sometimes for the better, and other times not.

This collection of short stories describes that phenomenon in different contexts, whether it is in the form of a person who purposely disappeared for a time; a mind which was stolen by Alzheimer’s disease; the vanishing of truth with a pathological liar; a cat which escaped; a person recollecting solitary confinement during the isolation of the coronavirus pandemic; the elimination of privacy in the time of technological advances; the loss of our planet and humans from climate change; the fading of morality; the disappearance of home from a fire; the absence of a lust for life; the evanescence of youth and purpose during the last phase of aging; and the cessation of kindness in our world.

What we wish would disappear and what actually does creates an ever changing landscape which is often out of our control. How we make peace with that makes all the difference.

Chapter One

Disappearing Without A Trace

I was in the process of finishing up some paperwork for a domestic violence incident, and was eating lunch at my desk while working, per usual. At that moment, I was interrupted by a fellow police officer named James. He approached my desk with hurried steps and a frown on his face. He told me, with some sense of urgency in his voice, that a woman was in the waiting room, and that our Captain had determined that I needed to speak with her immediately. I swallowed, whole, what was left of my sandwich, brushed the crumbs from my uniform, gulped down the remains of my coffee, grabbed a pad and pen, and wondered what could not wait.

Our police department was located in Wilmer, a bucolic, upscale suburban community about an hour and a half outside of the City. My prior experience had been as a police officer in the City where the number and variety of crimes gave me excellent preparation for police work in any community. While many crimes do happen in Wilmer, more than people think, the pace was much, much slower. Sometimes I was itching for more action, but I felt guilty for thinking that because a faster pace meant that more bad things were happening in the community.

As one of the few females on the force, I was usually given cases involving complex family matters. While James was probably the more sensitive and psychologically oriented of the two of us, my gender was my destiny. My degree was in accounting, so I had more of a preference for white collar crimes; however, I did have some affinity for family matters as a mother and closet feminist. The reason James had greeted me with a frown was because he wanted to be involved in this case, as he had been previously, but the Captain preferred to assign it to me.

In preparation for the interview, James told me that the woman’s name was Charlotte Johnson, and that Charlotte’s family had been living in Wilmer going back at least three generations. She had been missing for seven years. Our department and the other local, state and federal authorities had given up finding her. She had left behind a husband and triplets, all girls. The children were now in high school.

Although I had not been involved in her case previously, I did remember seeing a missing person poster with her photograph, had read articles about her in the local newspaper, and watched accounts about the case on the local television station. She came from a wealthy family, and had attended boarding school and then a fine, small liberal arts college. She married her college sweetheart, Todd, she attended fashion design school while he attended law school, and they then moved to Wilmer. They had infertility issues, they received treatment, and she gave birth to triplets.

Charlotte never worked outside the home. They lived in a large 19th century brick home and belonged to a toney, exclusive country club. She had no enemies, was a PTA and soccer mom, and mostly stayed at home. She sold her sewing creations at the annual community craft fair which took place at their Church.

Everyone said how sweet Charlotte was, and how, despite all of their money, earned and inherited, she cared for the children on her own with no help except from her parents, did all of the cooking, and even sewed the children’s clothes. They also marveled that, despite giving birth to triplets, she had retained her figure, and always looked as though she just came from the hair salon and from the beach. She sported a permanent tan, tailored, fitted clothing, and just the right amount of jewelry.

Todd became a Trusts and Estates lawyer with the largest firm in Wilmer through his father-in-law’s connections. He worked long hours, and left the parenting, cooking, cleaning, and decorating of the home to Charlotte. He was good looking, flirtatious with women, and rumored to have had affairs. After she went missing, many people assumed and gossiped that Todd had killed her because the husband is usually a main suspect in these kinds of cases. He did not report that she was missing for three days. Nobody could come up with an alternative theory. No evidence was ever developed to tie him to any crime. Shortly after Charlotte’s disappearance, Todd’s parents moved in with him and the girls, and he hired a housekeeper and nanny. Charlotte’s parents died last year, probably from heartbreak.

The case made quite a sensation, as no one of Charlotte’s social standing in Wilmer simply disappeared into thin air leaving a family behind. I do remember thinking at the time that maybe Charlotte made herself disappear because her life as a suburban wife and mother of triplets had become too much for her, or not enough. I mused that after her escape she was living life free of responsibilities on some remote island with a wine glass in one hand and a book in the other, lolling on a recliner on the beach. I conjured images of a handsome beach attendant handing her fresh towels and applying sunscreen to her back. My dreams were trite, but entertaining, at least to me. I sometimes had fantasies of escaping from my husband and children, but could not truly contemplate how a parent could do that, especially a mother.

Perhaps it was unfair of me to make a distinction between a mother and father in terms of abandonment.

Charlotte’s body had never been found. Recently her husband instituted court proceedings so that she was legally presumed to be dead, a funeral was held for her, and a tombstone bearing her name was placed at her grave in the local Church graveyard where all of her relatives had been buried. Charlotte’s parents were in graves adjacent to hers. Her husband wanted to remarry, and needed closure. The funeral, legal matters and his engagement were covered in the local newspapers. He had recently collected insurance money on Charlotte’s life which was quite considerable, in the multi-millions of dollars, which was also the subject of a newspaper article.

With all of my recollections swirling in my brain, I went into the hallway, and saw a woman who looked to be in her forties. She appeared as though she had lost a tremendous amount of weight. She was wearing an old pink sweatshirt and sweatpants with stains, which looked two sizes too big, and dirty white sneakers. Her bleached blonde hair, with patches of orange discoloration, was unwashed, uncombed, and looked as though it did not have a proper cut for some time. Her fingernails were dirty, her teeth were brownish, and she was carrying a garbage bag filled with possessions. It was hard to reconcile her current appearance with the poster photograph, and the articles about her prior life, although I immediately recognized her to be Charlotte Johnson. Her physical appearance dispelled all of my prior fantasies about what had become of her.

After a brief greeting, I asked her to come with me into one of the interrogation rooms, which I referred to as a conference room. She walked with her head slumped down, and her back rounded forward. Her voice was barely above a whisper. She seemed ashamed of herself. Her body was positioned and her speech modulated in a permanent state of contrition.

I told her that we had complete privacy in that room, and that I would speak with her confidentially. I asked her why she had come to the police station. What I heard next gave me insight into what had occurred, and stopped me from judging her.

"My name is Charlotte Johnson. You might have been involved in trying to find me the last seven years, or perhaps you read about me in the newspaper. I came here today to apologize to the police for their time in trying to locate me. I have terrible regrets about that as I know your resources are stretched with important matters. I do not know how to make up for that.

Yesterday I went to the high school, talked with the principal, and apologized there as well. I asked to meet with my daughters at the school, as I was afraid of my husband. The principal, school social worker and school psychologist set up a meeting between me and my children in the psychologist’s office. Although it was irregular to do so without my husband’s consent, they knew me personally and decided to go against protocol given the circumstances. The children did not want to speak with me, but went there reluctantly.

During that meeting, I told them how much I loved them. I said that I did not want to leave them but that my life had become unbearable and I thought they would be happier without me for a time. I told them that I had worked as a nanny under an assumed name, and that my life was miserable without them. Everyone was curious to know what happened to me, although