The Color of Joy

by Julianne MacLean

  “Their first?” I asked.

  “Yes—so it’ll be a first for all of us.”

  The woman’s husband arrived with their suitcases. “Ready to go?” he asked, giving me a curious look.

  “Yes,” the woman replied. She turned back to me. “Unless you need help getting your bags? My husband would be happy to pick them up for you if you like.”

  I shook my head. “No need. I don’t have any bags here except for this one.” I gestured to my diaper bag. “I’m just waiting for my husband’s plane to land. He’s coming home from Afghanistan tonight.”

  “Oh, isn’t that wonderful?” she said. “He’ll be excited to see you no doubt. Please thank him for us—for his bravery and service.”

  “That’s very kind. I’ll tell him.”

  The woman took hold of her suitcase handle and followed her husband toward the main doors.

  Looking down at Alyssa sleeping soundly in the carrier, I felt an immense surge of excitement in my heart. “Wait until Jake sees you,” I whispered to her. “He’s going to be so happy.”

  I turned and wandered off.

  *

  I wasn’t sure how much time had passed since I last fed Alyssa—it seemed like I’d been wandering around the airport for hours, so when she began to fuss, I searched for a place to breastfeed.

  Glancing around, I spotted an empty bench in a semi-private alcove and moved to claim it. Once there, I opened the diaper bag, withdrew a blanket to cover myself, unfastened the buckles on the carrier and gently lifted Alyssa out to hold her in my arms.

  Motherhood was still new to me and I found myself wrestling with feelings of insecurity and self-consciousness. Breastfeeding in public wasn’t something I’d given much thought to when I was expecting—because that process had been rather brief—but here I was, alone and needing to feed this baby. I glanced around uncomfortably, then assured myself that this was a private enough location.

  Still, I felt a twinge of anxiety as I unbuttoned my blouse beneath the flannel blanket and cradled Alyssa’s head in my hand, guiding her to my breast. Would this even work?

  Alyssa latched on quickly enough, but within seconds, she let go and turned her face away. I persisted, but she stubbornly rejected me, time and time again.

  “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” I gently asked. “I thought you were hungry. You must be.”

  She put her fist in her mouth and I let out a frustrated breath, wincing at the burning sensation on my nipples which were chafed and red from all these failed attempts to feed her.

  It wasn’t easy to accept that this didn’t come naturally to me because I’d never entertained any fears that I wouldn’t be good at breastfeeding. What can I say? I was a born optimist.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, working hard to stay positive as I buttoned my blouse. “We’ll get this, you and I, because we’re not quitters. It just takes practice, that’s all. I’ll call the doctor as soon as we get home and ask about it. I must be doing something wrong.”

  She continued to fuss, however, and I didn’t know what to do, how to make her happy. I picked her up and held her, conscious of people walking by with wheeled suitcases, glancing over at me with sympathy in their eyes.

  I wished Jake were here. Hurry and get home. I need you. I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew.

  It wasn’t easy for me to admit that to myself.

  Chapter Forty-three

  “I don’t know what to do,” I whispered, growing more and more desperate as I sat on that bench in the airport, holding that screaming baby in my arms.

  By then it was dark outside and I didn’t know where my husband was or how I got there. My head was throbbing, but I didn’t want to take any medication because I thought I was supposed to be breastfeeding and I wasn’t sure how that might affect the baby. New mothers had to be so careful.

  Glancing at the open diaper bag, I spotted a package of wipes and a few diapers and wondered if she needed to be changed. If that might help.

  I stuffed the BABYBJÖRN carrier into the bag and took Alyssa in my arms to a family washroom with a sign that indicated there was a change table inside. I entered and locked the door behind me. It was a large, private washroom with a polyethylene change station attached to the wall and lowered on its hinges. I laid Alyssa upon it and kept my hand on her belly while I pulled a fresh diaper and wipes out of the bag.

  Sure enough, when I finally removed her diaper, I saw that it was soiled. “There! I’m not a total failure at this after all,” I said in a playful voice, kissing her cheek. “Maybe this was the problem the whole time.”

  As I cleaned her little bum and outfitted her in a fresh diaper, something strange began to happen. There was a buzzing sound in my head. A thick fog seemed to surround my thoughts.

  Quickly I finished dressing the baby in her pink cotton sleeper, somehow knowing that I had to get her off this table—but it wasn’t easy to maneuver her little feet into the leg holes. I was all thumbs. Even my tongue felt thick and unwieldy.

  It was only in that moment that I noticed she wore a hospital identification band around her ankle. I stared at it, bewildered.

  What was happening? Confusion swirled around me. I found myself wondering where I was and who I was. What was my name?

  Then my muscles began to stiffen. I felt all twitchy inside and my heart fluttered like pigeon wings. Frightened and anxious, I wanted to call out for help but couldn’t seem to find words that made any sense in the thick ball of wool inside my brain. I couldn’t even get my vocal chords to work. Was there anyone out there? Help! We need help!

  Knowing something terrible was happening to me, I looked down at the baby and had a frightening vision of her falling off the change table. We have to get to the floor.

  But whose baby was it? Was it mine? No, it couldn’t be. Where was I?

  Carefully, with growing distress, I gathered the child into my bungling arms, shaking with feverish terror at the possibility that I might drop her, and somehow I managed to sink to my knees and set her gently on the floor beside me.

  There… There, now…

  Unable to control my movements, I stretched out in an involuntary fashion and squirmed awkwardly, helplessly, until my eyes rolled back in my head. Then my body began to convulse faster and I became imprisoned in a shuddering, tortuous, inescapable and merciless shell.

  Sylvie

  Chapter Forty-four

  When the doorbell rang, I practically leaped out of my chair. I’d been waiting impatiently for the detective to arrive—the one who had called to follow up on Officer Jenkins’s missing person’s report.

  In fact, I was surprised when he called because Jenkins hadn’t seemed overly concerned by the situation. Earlier, I doubted he would even file the report, but he must have filed something because there were now two plainclothes detectives at my door—one male and one female.

  I opened it quickly. “Hi. Are you Detective Miller?”

  I glanced down at his badge which was clipped to his belt, then up at his face which I studied carefully in the hazy glare of the porch light. He was of medium height with strong features and dark eyes.

  “Yes. You must be Sylvie?” He shook my hand. “This is my partner, Detective Holmes.” Holmes was female, about six inches shorter than Miller, slim and petite. “Thanks for seeing us,” he added. “Mind if we come in?”

  “Please do.” I stepped aside and opened the door wider. “I’m really glad you’re here, actually. My sister’s not home yet and it’s not like her to ignore my texts or calls. Something’s definitely wrong. I’m really worried. Did Officer Jenkins tell you she has a brain tumor?”

  Miller wasn’t looking at me, however. His eyes were perusing the house. He was looking all around at the floors, the walls and even the ceilings. Then he inclined his head to peer into the living room.

  “She’s not here,” I said, feeling taken aback by his interest in the house as opposed to what I had to say. “She’s missing, re
member?”

  “Just looking for clues,” Miller explained, meeting my eyes at last with a warm and reassuring smile that unnerved me for some reason. Even the female detective seemed to be watching me intently, sizing me up.

  “You guys seem a lot keener than the cop who came to my door earlier,” I mentioned. “What’s going on?”

  Miller reached into his pocket for his notepad and pen. “The report said your sister had a miscarriage a few weeks ago, but she doesn’t remember anything?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. It also said she continued to set up a nursery in the house, even after losing the baby. Is that correct as well?”

  “Yes, just in the last few days.”

  He nodded and looked down at the notepad. “And when was the last time you saw her?”

  “Last night, when we went to bed. We talked about her appointment for blood work this morning. She planned to take a cab. We texted each other throughout the day and she said she was fine. I assumed everything was okay, but I came home to a message on my answering machine that said she didn’t show up for her checkup at noon. I don’t know where she went after her blood work. I called the clinic and asked them if she mentioned anything about going anywhere, but they had no information. And I went to the hospital myself to look for her tonight, after Jenkins left. I walked through the whole place but she wasn’t there.”

  Miller wrote a few things down and said, “Mind if I take a look at that nursery?”

  “Sure,” I replied, leading the way, “but I wouldn’t exactly call it a nursery. It’s mostly a storage room for a lot of junk since I moved in here.”

  Both detectives followed me down the hall. I opened the door and they walked in. The female detective examined the labels on the new curtains and baby blanket in the crib.

  “The report said your sister is married and her husband is coming home from Afghanistan tonight?” Miller asked.

  “Yes, I think so, but I haven’t heard from him yet. I sent him a text but he must still be in the air.”

  “So neither your sister, nor her husband, are responding to your calls?”

  A shiver of unease snaked up my spine as I recognized a note of suspicion in his tone. I also saw mistrust in the way the female detective was looking at me.

  Suddenly I didn’t feel like the victim. I felt like the guilty party.

  “What’s happening here?” I asked as they continued to survey the contents of the room.

  Miller’s cell phone rang just then. He withdrew it from his jacket pocket. “Miller here.” He listened and exchanged a look with Detective Holmes. “Good work. Send someone over there now to check the security tapes. Yes, we’re still here talking to her sister. Let me know if you find anything else.”

  He hung up the phone, stared at me for a moment, and addressed me directly. “I’m afraid we have a bit of a situation here, Sylvie.”

  “What is it?” I asked as a wave of panic rippled up my spine.

  “Your sister’s not the only person who went missing today,” he replied. “We’ve been working on another case as well—a newborn baby that was taken from the same hospital your sister went to for blood work. The baby was taken from the nursery sometime between 6:00 and 9:00 a.m. Do you know anything about that?”

  Bewildered, I shook my head. “What are you suggesting? That my sister kidnapped that baby?” When he gave no reply, I said, “So you’re not here because she’s missing. You’re here because she’s the suspect in a child abduction case?”

  Again, Miller simply stared at me. I sensed he was waiting for me to answer my own question or start spilling out a waterfall of information.

  “Who was on the phone just now?” I asked.

  Thankfully he was upfront with me. “One of the detectives on the case called to tell me that your sister used her credit card at Walmart this afternoon, here in the city. She purchased a diaper bag, a baby blanket, and one of those infant carriers, as well as a few other items.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. “Well, at least she’s not lying in a ditch somewhere. Not that you’d care.”

  “We do care,” Detective Holmes said, striding forward to stand beside Miller. “If your sister is suffering from mental illness, we want to help her and make sure that she’s safe.”

  “It’s not mental illness,” I replied. “It’s a brain tumor, and I give you my word that she would never do anything like this under normal circumstances. Seriously, you have to believe me. Just to give you some perspective, she suffered a miscarriage and didn’t remember having it.”

  I wondered suddenly if I should be saying things like that. Maybe I should be calling a lawyer.

  The two detectives shared a look. “Can you tell us where you think she might have gone?” Miller asked.

  Realizing there was a missing child in the picture—and my sister really needed to be found—I labored to remember everything we’d talked about the night before.

  “I don’t know. She had every intention of going to her doctor’s appointment at noon. If she got confused and took a baby, thinking it was hers, I would have expected her to come home with it and put it in the crib she just bought. It doesn’t make sense that she’d go anywhere else because I’m certain this wouldn’t have been premeditated. She would never plot to abduct someone else’s child and make off with it. She’s not a criminal. She’s the nicest person you’d ever want to know. Besides, she can’t remember things. She forgets.” I felt heat rush to my cheeks. “Oh God, what if she has a seizure?”

  Miller frowned. “She has seizures? How often?”

  “She’s only ever had two,” I replied. “It happened less than a week ago but the doctor gave her medication to prevent them from happening again until she could have the surgery.”

  “Surgery to remove the tumor?” Holmes asked.

  “Yes. It’s scheduled for the day after tomorrow.”

  “Has she been taking the medication?” Miller asked.

  “I think so. I’ve watched her a few times. Let me check.” I ran to the kitchen where she kept her pills and opened the bottle to look inside. “Most of them are gone,” I said. “She takes them right here at the sink.”

  To my surprise, Holmes pointed at the green houseplant on the windowsill. “I don’t suppose she thought they’d make good fertilizer?”

  Lifting my eyes, I nearly swallowed my gum at the sight of a small pile of pills on top of the dirt. “What the heck?” I picked one up to examine it. “This is crazy. I watched her open the bottle, put the pill on her tongue and drink the water.”

  “Any chance she might have put the pill on her tongue,” Holmes asked, “didn’t like the taste of it, and gave it to the plant instead?”

  I sighed with defeat. “Maybe. Oh Lord.” Feeling a surge of panic, I turned to Miller. “This is really bad. She’s sick. She could be passed out somewhere. And if she took a baby… Pray God, she didn’t…” I covered my face with my hands. “Why didn’t she just come home? Or at least call?”

  Miller handed me his card. “Get in touch with me right away if you hear from her. Even if she didn’t take the baby, someone else did, so we need to know everything.”

  They made a move to leave so I led them to the front door. When I opened it, however, my jaw fell open at the sight of Jake, in full fatigues, walking up the steps. A cab was just pulling away from the curb.

  There was no sight of Jenn.

  “You’re home,” I said, pausing in the doorway. “Thank God.” I strode forward and wrapped my arms around his neck.

  Army bag in hand, Jake hugged me while glancing over my shoulder at the two detectives. “Where’s Jenn?” he asked. “And who are these people?”

  I pulled Jake into the house where the detectives were waiting. “This is Detective Miller and Detective Holmes. They’re here because Jenn went missing today.”

  Jake’s eyebrows pulled together. “Missing… What do you mean?”

  I proceeded to expla
in the situation while the detectives watched and waited for Jake’s response.

  “Christ!” he said. “How could this happen?”

  “When was the last time you spoke to your wife?” Miller asked, reaching for his pen and flipping open his notepad.

  Jake set down his bag. “We talked on the phone just before I boarded my flight in Dubai. That was last night, I guess. She said she had an appointment to get blood work done today.”

  “Have you heard from her since then?” Miller asked him.

  “I got a couple of texts from her—maybe about ten hours ago—but I’ve been in the air so my phone was on flight mode. I texted her back when I was waiting for my connection in Atlanta, but she didn’t respond. I figured her phone was dead or she was sleeping. I was disappointed when she didn’t meet me at the airport just now, but I figured it was because my flight was delayed. My schedule got messed up.”

  “Why didn’t you call the house when you landed?” I asked Jake. “I could have picked you up.”

  “I did call,” he explained. “No one answered. I didn’t bother to leave a message.”

  I glanced back at the phone. “I must have been at the hospital when you called. I was looking for her.”

  “But you didn’t find her?” Jake said, beginning to pace. “What the hell, Sylvie? No one knows where she is? She has a brain tumor!” He turned to me. “How could you let her go to the hospital alone? Why weren’t you with her?”

  “I had an exam,” I explained. “We talked it over last night and she convinced me she’d be fine. She’s been really good all week and I thought she was taking her medication. I’m so sorry, Jake.”

  With mounting anger, he continued to pace around the kitchen. “God… How long has she been gone?”

  Detective Miller slipped his notepad into his pocket. “We have a record of her using her credit card at Walmart this afternoon around 1:30 p.m. So she was still in the city at that time. We have a team over there now, looking at the security camera recordings and asking questions.”