Daddy Love

by Joyce Carol Oates

  In such places, people generally mind their own business. A child being disciplined by his daddy would not draw attention. No one would dare come near the minivan with the cross on its roof, to peer inside the tinted windows. Yet, Daddy Love knew better than to take a chance.

  A slightly older child, of seven or eight, Daddy Love might have half-walked half-carried into the restroom, and into a toilet-stall and washed him brusquely at the sink. The older child would understand what Daddy Love meant when he said If someone comes in and you make a peep I will kill you but the younger child, in his paralysis of horror, would not understand and could not be trusted.

  Daddy Love cleaned the child with wetted newspapers, flung then onto the ground. Daddy Love was breathing hard, annoyed, but smiling.

  “‘Gideon’ is your new name, son. When we are in our new home, I will baptize you properly. D’you hear?”

  Daddy Love stroked the child’s head. The thrillingly curly-kinky hair, like a little bush. Daddy Love leaned over the child to touch his lips to the child’s forehead which was unnaturally cold and at last the child recoiled, and began to pant, and to cry as a wounded little animal might cry.

  This at least signaled a response. Resistance is a normal response, initially.

  Initially, Nostradamus had resisted. But soon, Nostradamus had given in.

  Before him, Deuteronomy.

  And before him, Prince-of-Peace.

  In the Kittatinny Mountains of northwest New Jersey, close by the Delaware River at the Water Gap, their bodies were buried beneath boulders “unmarked” to the ordinary eye.

  Only just bones now, scraps of skin, hair, rotted clothing. Their child-brightness had dimmed. They’d become too old. Boys were irresistible, adolescents not. Eleven was the bittersweet age for Daddy Love foresaw, as Nostradamus, Deuteronomy, and Prince-of-Peace had not, that his love for them, which meant his patience with them, his caring-for them, was coming to an end.

  Twelve was already too old—thirteen was repellent.

  The new child was very young: five years, four months according to the news stories Daddy Love had heard. There were at least six blissful years ahead.

  Never had Daddy Love seized a child so young. He’d believed that eight or nine was the optimum age. But in the Holy Roman Catholic Church it was well known by religious orders that if you secure a child before the age of seven, his soul is yours.

  He had never fully understood the verse from Psalms: Out of the mouth of babes and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.

  As Gideon was so young, so Gideon would be the more shaped by Daddy Love. His memories of his ordinary life in Ypsilanti, Michigan, would fade like watercolors in pelting rain.

  Daddy Love would love this child tenderly. His other sons had coarsened and disappointed him. He would not have any barrier between himself and Gideon. As soon as they arrived safely home in New Jersey, in Kittatinny Falls he would begin his love-campaign.

  There would be not two-ness but only one-ness.

  This is my body and this is my blood. Take ye and eat.

  There would be little pleasure in no resistance at all, of course. Daddy Love would expect this, to a degree. As, with the older boys, there would have been little pleasure if they hadn’t fought for their lives—and a little beyond.

  Gideon? Will you eat? To please your daddy.

  Daddy Love pried the child’s jaws open, just slightly. The child shuddered and struggled and his eyes rolled in his head in a paroxysm of panic and at that moment, headlights flooded the van—a vehicle was turning into the rest-area.

  The quivering child drew breath to scream. But Daddy Love was quicker clapping his hand over the child’s mouth.

  Soon then, that night, crossing the high windy bridge above the Delaware River at the Water Gap, and arriving at the farm, or what remained of the farm, three miles beyond Kittatinny Falls.

  Upsie-daisy, son! Climb up out of there, come on.

  Your new home, Gideon.

  Daddy Love has got you.

  10

  KITTATINNY FALLS, NEW JERSEY APRIL 27, 2006

  The woman lingered in the doorway. Her eyes moved over Chet Cash like hungry ants.

  Anything else you’d be wanting, Chet. Just give a call.

  Sure I will, Darlene.

  You got my cell number.

  I do, Darlene.

  It’s looking pretty good here, eh? Just needed a little work.

  You did a great job, Darlene. I’ll be calling you.

  Next week is OK, Chet. I got lots of free days. At the medical clinic, they’re cutting back the cafeteria hours. So I got more time.

  That’s too bad, Darlene. I mean—your work-hours cut.

  It’s this God-damn economy. You can’t save a penny. I got “credit card debt”—it’s serious.

  I’ll be calling you, Darlene. Maybe not next week, but the next.

  She was a big-bodied female of about thirty-five. Fleshy-muscled upper arms, muscled (bare) calves, and on her feet flimsy flip-flops. Her streaked-blond hair was long and thick as a horse’s mane and tied up around her head in a way you had to suppose the woman thought might be gypsy-glamorous. Her face was round as a full moon, and pug-nosed. Red lipstick on Darlene Barnhauser was like lipstick on a pig but it gave her a look of sexy-girlish insolence. And she had a smudged-looking rose tattoo on her right shoulder. She lived about three miles away in the village of Kittatinny Falls, on the River Road. Since Chet had last seen Darlene, about nine months before, she’d put on weight; though she wasn’t fat or in any way soft or flaccid and she was impressively strong—she’d gone to fetch the stepladder in the old barn and carried it into the house by herself.

  She’d laughed with good-natured disgust, on her knees cleaning beneath the sink, reaching to pull out, with rubber-gloved hands, a desiccated rodent-corpse.

  Oh, man! Like it’s some kind of mauzzo-leum in here!—she’d laughed to draw Chet Cash’s attention. (Chet was sweeping the front hall. Chet wasn’t given to on-your-knees housecleaning.)

  Chet didn’t like it, Darlene never properly dressed for housecleaning, or manual labor. Like it was a matter of female pride. A big husky girl in flowery T-shirt and pink stretch-waist slacks, that were now covered in cobwebs and dirt. She’d sweated through her clothes. Her pug-nose shone with grease. But she’d done a good job and Chet would probably call her again.

  She was saying now, wistfully: Y’know, Chet—we missed you. Lots of us. Like at church, it really felt sad and kind of empty when you were gone. Rev’nd Prentiss could feel it too. Like, some kind of spirit had departed from our midst.

  I missed you all too, Darlene. But it couldn’t be helped.

  I’d drive out here sometimes, just to check on the house. Make sure nobody’d broke into it, like kids vandalizing places where nobody lives. It’s not a bad place. Even all gone wild like it is, and the apple orchard wrecked from last winter …

  Her voice trailed off. Chet Cash was instructing himself Be patient. She will leave in one minute.

  Saying, in a flat not-encouraging voice, OK, Darlene. Good to hear it.

  See, it just needs some painting, and the roof repaired. And that stone chimney kind of going to pieces. My brother-in-law Lyle, he’s a real good carpenter. He could help you, if you wanted. You want his cell phone?

  Thanks, Darlene. Maybe when I get settled.

  This linoleum floor in the kitchen isn’t bad, is it? Once you get the grime out. And the bathtub, and toilet—I got most of the stains out. Looked like some kind of small rodent died in the toilet, the size of the bones … It just takes work, and not getting discouraged.

  Chet Cash smiled harder. Saying, Maybe.

  Anybody coming to stay with you? Like—family?

  Maybe.

  Nostradamus?

  No. Nostradamus is with his mother.

  I never met her! Where’s she takin him?

  Upper Peninsula, Michigan. She�
�s got family there.

  That’s too bad! He’s a real polite nice boy.

  He was.

  You and her—you’re, like, separated? Divorced?

  Chet Cash smiled harder. Chet Cash said not a word.

  His stone-colored eyes on the woman’s face.

  One more minute. You have one more minute, Darlene.

  So badly wanting to grab the woman around the neck, squeeze and squeeze.

  He’d bury her with the others. Mile and a half he’d have to drag her, and he’d have to be shoveling a fucking grave for her, and he had no energy for such an ordeal so soon after the long drive from Michigan. And her family in Kittatinny Falls knew where she’d been. And he was needing to tend to the child. So calmly Chet Cash spoke.

  You did a great job, Darlene. I’ll call.

  Thanks, Chet! Like I say, it just takes work.

  Very reluctantly the woman shifted her weight in the doorway. A blush had lifted into her heavy face, you could see that Chet Cash had the ability to make her happy.

  You got my cell number?—I guess you do.

  Right.

  OK, Chet. G’night.

  G’night.

  A few yards away like an irrepressible child the woman turned, grinned and waved—Good to have you back, Chet. Missed ya!

  There is the need for a female. Somehow, it can’t be avoided.

  He watched Darlene Barnhauser walk to her car. She had the side-to-side shuffling gait of a fat child. He would not take his eyes off her until he saw her climb into her piece-of-shit Saturn hatchback, with difficulty fitting her stout body behind the steering wheel, and turn on the ignition, and depart.

  All these minutes Daddy Love’s excitement had been mounting. Blood like hot lava flooding the pit of his belly, his groin.

  In the back bedroom, where the child awaited Daddy Love.

  11

  YPSILANTI, MICHIGAN MAY, JUNE 2006

  They waited.

  Each hour of each day they waited.

  The phone would ring and the message would be Good news, Mrs. Whitcomb! We’ve found your son and he is—

  The choice of this next word was crucial. The word might be well, or alive and well, or—alive.

  Just to hear that word—alive.

  “‘Alive.’ ‘Alive.’”

  In her scratchy voice Dinah practiced. Her jaws were not so painful now when she spoke though she still had difficulty eating and so did not eat anything that involved an agitation of her jaws.

  Alone, Dinah practiced. She had her physical-therapy exercises to do and these she did religiously as required and she forced herself to walk up and down stairs using just a single crutch now. She thought It’s no worse than arthritis would be. Millions of people have arthritis.

  The landline rarely rang now. Yet, Dinah often heard it.

  A single short ring, cut off. She was sure.

  Her heart beat hard, as she listened. In the silence of the house it would have been difficult not to hear the phone ring and yet, she was anxious that she might miss it.

  Mrs. Whitcomb? Good news! We’ve just got word—

  It was a foolish sort of consolation and yet: her heart lifted, hearing her own scratchy voice as if it were a stranger’s voice on the phone that rarely rang for it was a phone with an unlisted number and this number was known only to law enforcement officials.

  Aloud she practiced the words she would someday hear:

  “‘We’ve found your son Robbie and he is—alive.’”

  Or, “We’ve found your son, Mrs. Whitcomb, and Robbie is alive and well.”

  On a cork bulletin board in the kitchen, on the refrigerator door and on a wall above the telephone were snapshots of Robbie, Robbie and his parents, drawings and watercolors of Robbie’s in bright colors—Dinah stared at these countless times a day.

  Alone in the house on Seventh Street, Ypsilanti. Often she was alone.

  She’d had to quit her part-time job at the University of Michigan biology library. They’d given her a medical leave but it wasn’t clear when she’d be well enough to return and so, in all fairness to her employers, Dinah had quit.

  As she’d withdrawn from her classes in the education school. She’d been six credits from a master’s degree in public-school science education, with a social sciences major.

  Co-workers from the library had more or less ceased dropping by for there was no news to relay to them. And Dinah’s physical condition—her faltering words, her poor motor coordination and scarred face—her attempt to seem upbeat—was just too sad.

  Friends and neighbors were more faithful. Especially if Dinah was sitting out on the front porch with her laptop, furiously typing.

  The Internet had not yet yielded any helpful information. But the Internet was a great abyss of information, she believed.

  So many “lost” children! Their wide-eyed faces stared at her, pleading.

  Some of the children’s photos have been posted for years.

  It was a shock to discover photos of young children who’d been abducted as long as ten years ago.

  Among them Robbie Whitcomb, five years old, Ypsilanti, Michigan. Abducted from Libertyville Mall, April 11, 2006. Witnesses reported “battered beige minivan.” If you have information about this abducted child please call this toll-free number …

  There was a fantasy you might inhale from the Internet, that all these children—abducted, kidnapped, “lost”—were together in one place, waiting to be brought back home.

  As soon as she’d been discharged from the hospital and could see clearly enough to use her computer, Dinah was obsessed with typing in Robbie’s name. Her own name, and Whit’s. A dozen times a day.

  Checking e-mail. A hundred times a day.

  Whit had cautioned her. Take care, Dinah.

  You don’t know what you’re going to see online. There are sick people out there.

  It was a risk Dinah took. Daily, hourly.

  Though once she’d been appalled, sickened—she’d clicked onto some sort of public-forum Web site and there were (anonymous) individuals busily discussing the abduction of her son.

  Seems like the mother lost him at the mall. Bitch told this itty-bitty child to wait for her while she goes for a smoke and when she comes back, some guy with dreadlocks is dragging the kid into a van.

  The bitch should be arrested—“negligence.”

  Hey the mom almost got killed—got dragged under the van. She’d run after it and tried to stop it.

  Bitch should’ve been killed. Neglecting her son like that.

  Dinah had struggled up from the computer, half-fainted falling to her knees.

  “God forgive me! I know—I have been a bad mother.”

  “Do you know where he is—really? Have you ever known?”

  Her mother came to see her. Her mother had the air of a Fury of ancient times, perching on a chair in Dinah’s living room. Her talons shone red.

  “Your husband. Your—‘exotic’—‘DJ’—husband.”

  Dinah said nothing. The ache behind her eyes and in the region of her heart was too painful.

  Her mother blamed her, Dinah knew. The loss of the grandson was Whit’s fault somehow, and so it was Dinah’s fault too, for sleeping with Whit before they’d been married, and then for marrying him.

  Dinah’s mother had long held a grudge against Whit Whitcomb who’d failed to flatter and to adore his mother-in-law as she believed she deserved. And she’d never entirely succeeded in resisting speaking reproachfully to Dinah, that Dinah had taken up with a mixed-race individual.

  “Not that I am a racist, Dinah. I hope you know that.”

  Dinah nodded. Oh yes, Dinah knew.

  “It’s just that Whit is—well, a certain kind of person.”

  Not our kind, Dinah thought. That’s right.

  Dinah’s father had been a midlevel executive at Ford Motors in Dearborn, Michigan. They’d lived in a whites-only gated community called Bloomfield Vistas in Birmingham, Michigan. G
eraldine and Lewis McCracken and their little daughter Dinah who’d been sent to Birmingham Day School, not the public school. In her class there were two Chinese-American children, both brilliant; no Hispanic children, no African-American children, no mixed-race children.

  Not our kind Dinah thought, smiling. Thank God.

  Six years before, Geraldine McCracken had happened to observe Whit Whitcomb smoking a joint in the backyard of the little rented Ypsilanti house. Dinah’s mother, who drank whiskey, and whose words sometimes slurred when she came to visit her convalescent daughter, had been incensed, outraged. Marijuana is illegal. It’s a controlled substance.

  Whit had said, mildly, Not in Ypsilanti–Ann Arbor, it isn’t.

  This was a joke. But Dinah’s mother didn’t laugh.

  After the abduction, after Dinah returned home from rehab, her mother’s visits became more frequent. The drive from Birmingham to Ypsilanti was nearly forty miles but not a sufficient deterrent for the older woman who’d given up her volunteer work in Birmingham, she’d said, and her friends, to “help out” her “disabled” daughter.

  Dinah had grown to dread the sound of her mother’s voice as she knocked on the front door—“Dinah? I know you’re home. Please open this door.”

  If Dinah wasn’t feeling well, lying on a sofa in the living room, at the rear of the house, her mother was likely to come peer in the window, shading her eyes to make out Dinah cringing beneath a blanket.

  “Dinah! Let me in, or I’ll call 911. This isn’t normal.”

  Sometimes, Dinah was lying on Robbie’s little bed. In Robbie’s room on the second floor.

  This room had not been altered since the day of Robbie’s disappearance of course. It was a small room beside Dinah and Whit’s bedroom and when Dinah had been pregnant with Robbie she’d fantasized having a door between the rooms that might be kept open at night. Like a nursery in a fancier sort of house.

  Now, the room was a small-boy’s room. There was a four-foot bookcase Whit had built for Robbie out of glass blocks and in this bookcase were Robbie’s storybooks—quite a few, in fact. In a paralysis of hope and dread Dinah would remove one of the books from its shelf—The Littlest Fox, with its astonishingly beautiful watercolor illustrations—and quickly skim the familiar text, that she and Robbie had both memorized. She recalled how, when she read the story to Robbie, he’d begun to read along with her, running his finger beneath the words. He’d gotten ahead of Mommy, sometimes! She could hear his voice, which left her shaken.