Where I Lost Her

by T. Greenwood

  I stop and turn to look at him. It’s a burgundy VW. He leans out the open window, his face tight with concern. He seems strangely familiar. Like I should know him.

  “I found her,” I say. I have no other words that can explain this: the terror, the relief.

  “Sam,” the dark-haired woman in the passenger seat says. “We need to help them.”

  But even as he helps us into the backseat, wrapping us both in a soft blanket from the back, I hold on tight. She holds on tight. We do not let go.

  We leave Guatemala City.

  There is nothing the lawyer here can do. And nothing Oliver can do at home either. This has happened before, he says. We should be grateful, he says, that we hadn’t gotten her home already. Children have been taken from their new parents’ arms, returned. It’s a corrupt system, he offers. Preying upon the hopeful, the desperate.

  Back in New York, I cannot work. I cannot eat. And I cannot sleep.

  Like any mother of a missing child, I call the media. Newspapers, radio, TV. I tell my story a thousand times to anyone who will listen, and even to those who won’t. I think that maybe, somehow, this will help me get her back. I sit and sweat under bright lights, microphones affixed to my blouses. I tremble and recite the story as though it is a prayer, an incantation that will conjure her. That will return her to me.

  There is an investigation into the agency, and we find that we are not the only ones. There are other couples who have been preyed upon. Who have, like us, lost hope. And sometimes, the children are not even real. They are fabrications. These phony agencies the thieves of dreams.

  And to you, she is only a dream. My dream.You never even met her. You never held her in your arms. For you, she is nothing more than an idea. A story someone once told you.

  But to me, she is flesh, not a wish. She is black hair that smells of tangerines. She is dark skin, wide eyes, a beating heart. She is real. She is real. She is my daughter. And she is gone.

  When Good Morning America’s producers call and say they are doing a story on criminal adoption agencies, I am so happy I could cry. I agree to come to their studio. To tell my story. Our story. I imagine in the show’s audience of millions there will be someone who can help. Who will hear my plea and help me bring her home.

  But you have had enough. You want to let it go, to just let her go.

  And so I go alone. And I sit in front of the camera by myself.

  But this time, when I begin to recite my story, when I describe the way it felt to stand at the locked door of the orphanage after the raid, the floor falls out from beneath me. Because in the audience, in the very front row, there is a child. Dark hair. Brown skin.

  Esperanza.

  I stop speaking and point.

  She looks at me, her eyes wide and familiar.

  “That’s her,” I say, jerking my head back to the woman who is interviewing me. “How did she get here?”

  I am thinking that this is one of those episodes where they reunite long lost friends, lovers. Mothers and their children. I look around in disbelief, in manic wonder, waiting for someone to bring her to me.

  I am smiling. My heart beating so hard I am sure the microphone pinned inside my bra will pick it up.

  “I know this must be very difficult for you,” she says. “Go on.”

  “How did you find her?” I ask, tears of joy running down my face. I stand up and start to go to the audience. She is right there. I can almost touch her.

  On the video, later, I don’t recognize that woman. The one who is weeping, gleeful. Charging toward a stranger’s child in the audience before the two security guards got ahold of me.

  The video and my memory stop there. I don’t recall anything else except for waking up in the hospital. The hazy feeling that all of this had been a dream. And later, when you came to get me. How the only words you had for me were “It’s over now.”

  “Can you believe this?” I say to Effie as we watch the press conference later that night in the hospital waiting room. They are keeping the girl for a couple of days until she is stabilized. Effie had wanted me to go back to the camp: to eat, to sleep. Promised we would return in the morning. But I refused to leave. I will not leave her again. And so Effie brought food, a pillow, and a blanket.

  On the TV, Lieutenant Andrews stands in front of a podium, flanked on either side by the state police. He is smug as he speaks, as he acknowledges the heroic efforts of his fellow officers, as he somberly reveals his version of the story.

  While I was inside that trailer, the cops, including Strickland, arrived at the empty red house. He found the photo I’d left for him, and because of the information I’d given him, they were able to track Alfieri and Sharp to the breeders’ property on the other side of town. They had brought Karina Rogers’s body there to dispose of it in the woods, or maybe even offer it up to those dogs. Sharp surrendered after a standoff that lasted over an hour. But Alfieri refused, and when he started to fire a gun through the windows of the house at the cops, they fired back. He died of a single gunshot wound to the head.

  “Nearly three hundred bags of heroin were found hidden among leaves and grass clippings in lawn bags. A stash of illegal firearms and nearly seventy-five thousand dollars in cash were located on Lincoln Sharp’s property. We believe that Alfieri was a major player in a heroin ring originating in Massachusetts.”

  The “suspect,” Vincent Alfieri, had been running heroin up from Holyoke for over a year, distributing it to small-time dealers like Karina. He was also running a nice little dog-fighting endeavor, using Lisa’s property, a day care, as a cover.

  Lisa was smarter than either one of the men. She must have sensed that her world was about to implode, because her “family emergency” got her halfway to Florida before she was pulled over in South Carolina by cops who’d been tipped off by the Vermont State Police.

  What Andrews does not address is that hole underground. The place where I found her, cowering like a frightened animal. The hole where Sharp and Alfieri kept their stash of firearms, their drugs. Sharp had stocked his little cave with water bottles and other supplies. I imagine he thought he might be able to hide out there if anything ever went down. She’d survived the week on water bottles and dry oatmeal packets. The doctors assured me that it didn’t appear as though Sharp had harmed her. Not in the way that I was most terrified of, anyway. His preference, Strickland told me, was little boys.

  “We understand a child was found on Lincoln Sharp’s property?” a reporter chimes in, and my heart begins to pound. “Is she the same child reported missing last week?”

  Andrews coughs. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I can’t speak to that right now. There is an ongoing investigation regarding the child found on Sharp’s property. It is likely unrelated to what we still believe is a false report last week.”

  “Lieutenant,” another reporter bellows. “Is it true this child was found near the house where her mother overdosed? That she was alone for nearly a week? Is this related to the shoot-out? To the heroin seizure?”

  Andrews nods again, but I can see his neck straining against his shirt collar. “Again, I can’t speak yet to this aspect of the case. Information is still coming in, and our officers are working round the clock.”

  “If this is the same child that was reported missing last week, do you think that you let the community down? That your department called off the search prematurely?”

  Andrews reddens, and I feel a surge of relief, of something close to justice for her. The community will demand answers.

  “It is still our belief that the initial report was erroneous,” he says. “Thank you.”

  When we first arrived at the hospital, I ignored the reporters who were waiting.

  The TV shows the exterior of the hospital and a split-screen shot of my face: my Facebook profile picture. It’s a photo from a trip Jake and I took to Rome, but they have cropped him out. Something about this tears at my heart. We were standing in front of the Trevi Fountain. He
had just plucked a 200-lira coin from his pocket and handed it to me. Make a wish, he’d said. We’d just started trying to have a baby, and so this is what I wished for. Please, I thought as I tossed the coin into the water.

  “Tess Waters, the woman who called in the report of a child wandering along Lake Gormlaith Road last week, is also reportedly the person who found a child alone on Lincoln Sharp’s property. It is unclear whether the child was being held captive by Sharp, a registered sex offender, or had simply wandered there after her mother’s death. It is also unclear what any of this has to do with the standoff with Alfieri and Sharp this morning. For now, Miss Waters is refusing to speak to the media. We will keep following this story as it unfolds.”

  I am trembling as Effie clicks off the TV.

  “It’s not over,” I say.

  “Yes, it is. She’s safe. You found her.”

  When Effie’s cell phone rings, my entire body feels jarred, like I’ve been rear-ended.

  Effie answers. “Yes,” she says. “Hold on.”

  She comes to me with the phone. “It’s Sergeant Strickland.”

  I take the phone, take a deep breath.

  “Did you watch the press conference?” I ask.

  “I did,” he says, and pauses. Clears his throat. When he finally speaks again, his voice is soft. “And I just wanted to let you know I plan to make this right. For you. For her. Whatever I can do.”

  “The false report?” I ask.

  “No charges will be filed. I promise.”

  Strickland was the first person I called after the Masons, who were on their way to Effie and Devin’s, found us on the side of the road. He was at the house with an ambulance within fifteen minutes.

  The sun was bright, and the grass seemed impossibly green as they lifted her tiny body onto the gurney.

  “I’m sorry,” Strickland had said, and I started to thank him, but then I realized he was talking to her. He bent over and touched her hair, gently, like someone’s dad.

  “I have a little girl too,” he said, looking up at me. He shook his head, and I recognized that look. The regret, the shame.

  When they started to lift her into the back of the ambulance, I said to the EMT, “I’m going with her,” and searched Strickland’s face for help when the EMT started to shake his head.

  “She needs me,” I said. She was holding on to my hand so tightly, refusing to let go.

  And so Strickland nodded at me, at the EMT. “It’s okay.”

  I followed her into the back of the ambulance, and sat next to her as we pulled out onto the dirt road. Her eyes were wide and scared.

  “It’s okay,” I said, and I stroked her hair with my free hand. And she reached out for it, gingerly touching the blood-soaked bandage. She gestured to her own cut too. As if this somehow connected us.

  I leaned over her, felt her curls touch my face. I turned and inhaled the earthy scent of her. “What’s your name?” I whispered in her ear.

  And she whispered back like a secret.

  “Starry.”

  Over the lake, the sky explodes into colored fragments like a kaleidoscope of lights. We hear the collective gasp of everyone who has gathered at the edges of the water to watch the display. The air is warm, the moon bright.

  We are sitting on a blanket spread out on Devin and Effie’s front lawn.

  “Look, look!” Plum squeals. She races across the grass trailing a lit sparkler behind her. It sparks and crackles, leaving a contrail of smoke like a secret message written behind her.

  It has been one week since I discovered Starry in that hole underground. I have still not stopped trembling, and I have been sleeping in the camp rather than the guest cottage, afraid of the consuming darkness of the woods. Each time a firecracker goes off, something inside me detonates as well. I wonder if I will always startle like this, shudder like this.

  When I called Jake, he said he would come up. He could come get me. Bring me home. And for just a moment, I thought that maybe that was the answer. That all of this had been some sort of strange dream from which I might just wake up. But even as he gently asked, “Do you need me?” he felt so very far away. He was the dream. And this, here, was reality. Truth:

  This little girl.

  Star Rogers. Three and a half years old. Daughter of Karina Rogers. Father unknown.

  She needs me. And I need her.

  “Did I miss it?” Ryan asks after he parks in Effie and Devin’s driveway and finds us on the grass.

  “Nope. Just getting started,” Devin says, standing up and shaking Ryan’s hand.

  Ryan puts his hand on my shoulder and I look up at him. He gestures to the empty spot on the quilt next to me.

  “Mind if I sit here?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “Please,” I say.

  Ryan has been helping me navigate what should now be familiar terrain. I have to trust him, he says, though trust is an elusive, slippery thing for me.

  “How are you?” he asks.

  I smile, nod. I don’t tell him about the nightmares. About how afraid I am.

  “I’ve arranged a visit,” he says. “With the foster family.”

  My eyes widen.

  “When?” I ask, my throat swollen. My eyes filling with tears.

  “Sometime later this week.”

  “I can see her?”

  He nods, smiles.

  My whole body flushes with heat, with relief.

  “Thank you,” I say, and he squeezes my hand.

  “Look at that one!” Plum says, pointing up as the sky explodes.

  We all look up at the burst of purple above us. And I imagine that each spark of colored light in the sky is a single star in an impossible constellation. All those wishes. I am swollen with a hope so big it makes my chest feel tight.

  Quimby, Vermont, August 2015

  In the morning, by the time the late summer sunlight comes into the little kitchen, I have already been awake for a couple of hours. I like to watch the sun rise now, to be a witness to the world as it wakes.

  I have furnished this tiny house near the elementary school in Quimby with the few things I took from our house in Brooklyn. The rest I have pieced together from the end-of-summer yard sales and from a couple of antique stores in town. I left most things in our house in Brooklyn for Jake.

  Jake’s mom is getting better. Stronger, though it’s still unclear how much of the damage will linger. After she finally got out of the hospital, Jake was able to go back to New York, where, fortunately, the offers for Charlie’s manuscript were still waiting for him. He even managed to talk Charlie into selling the world rights. I can’t imagine he’ll stay in the house in Brooklyn much longer. I am counting on my share of the sale of the brownstone to help start this new life here.

  Today I am painting the second bedroom. The can of paint sits open on the drop cloth, its creamy blue catching the sunlight.

  Outside the leaves are beginning to turn, just a few red maples asserting themselves, reminding us that summer will not last, though it will still be another month before autumn comes and with it the crisp air. For now, the mornings are cool, but the afternoons are warm.

  There is so much to do. For the first time in years, I wake early each morning with a sense of purpose. With Ryan’s help, I have submitted all the necessary paperwork, and I started the training yesterday. Tomorrow I will get to visit Starry at the foster home where she has been staying since I found her again. The foster mother is a woman who was two years behind me in school. I remember her as being funny and warm. She’s fostered over a hundred children; Effie assures me that Starry is safe. I bring her gifts: stuffed animals and little dolls. Ribbons for her hair and a pair of rainbow-colored tights. She likes bright things. Things that sparkle. We play hide-and-seek in the wide backyard behind their house. I brought Plum with me one day, and she taught her how to do a cartwheel.

  Every day is one day closer to things being finalized. And today is the home visit; the social worker is scheduled
to come at noon.

  If everything goes as it’s supposed to, the whole process could be completed by the time school starts again and the playground next to our house is filled with the voices of children. Before the maple tree in the front yard turns crimson.

  When she was released from the hospital, taken into the custody of DCF, I hadn’t wanted to let her go. But I couldn’t go with her. I had nowhere to go except to Effie’s house.

  Mena made dinner for us that night, and I forced myself to eat.

  And afterward, Effie and I went outside, walked down to the dock, and sat with our feet dangling in the water.

  “Are you sure this is what you want?” she asked after a while.

  One loon called out, and another answered.

  “It’s the only thing I ever wanted.”

  Above us the sky was clear, the stars bright.

  “Aren’t you afraid?” she asked. “That it will happen again?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m terrified.”

  And it is possible. It is always possible that someone will come out of the woodwork and claim her as their own. Of course, her mother is gone now. And Karina’s own mother is long gone as well; she died of liver failure when Karina was only six. She literally drank herself to death. I worry about this cruel inheritance, pray that it is not her legacy. I will do whatever it takes to keep her safe. And so I have stopped drinking. No meetings in musty church basements with bad coffee and stale donuts. No need. I just stopped. And the clarity of everything is both terrifying and beautiful.

  There are no certainties; that is the only certainty. Ryan has assured me that we are doing everything correctly, that the process is long and slow, but that we are doing everything we are supposed to do to ensure that nothing goes wrong. He is patient and kind. He has walked me through every step, untangled every knot in the endless curl of red tape. And I just comply: with the psychological evaluations, the medical evaluations, the financial audits.