by Rene Denfeld
“Maybe in a bit.”
The Danforth home was run-down and smelled of old wood and mold. The paint was cracked and peeling, the living room window boarded with wood. The kitchen was immaculately clean—Naomi could see where the grandmother had scrubbed so often at the peeling cupboards they had burr marks.
Violet herself was put together, wearing a clean, if well-worn, wool skirt set, her hair freshly pressed, the sharp smell of hot Vaseline in the air.
“I’m glad you’re here to help my granddaughter,” Violet said, quietly, putting out cracked plates.
“I’m here to find the baby,” Naomi corrected.
“Same thing as far as I am concerned.” Violet paused. Her skin was dry with age, her lips withered with wrinkles.
“You think the child is alive?”
“No.” The old woman surprised her. She looked down at the plates. “She was a precious thing. My great-grandbaby.” She took a sharp intake of breath. “Precious.”
“Where do you think she is, then?” Naomi watched her set out salt, pepper, and a jar of homemade hot pepper vinegar.
“Don’t you think I’d tell the police that if I knew?”
“If the child is dead, how would that help Danita?”
Violet sighed. “Let me show you.”
In the small dark living room—the shades looked like they had been drawn forever—Violet pulled a box out from under the television. It was an old Valentine’s candy box, red and heart-shaped. Naomi was touched: this was where Violet kept the family pictures.
“This was Danita when she was a baby herself.” Violet showed Naomi, as they sat on the couch. The photo showed a baby on the lap of a pretty mother. “That was Shauna, my daughter. Her boyfriend killed her when Danita was just three. He got killed in the state prison, stabbed by some guy who ended up on death row—good riddance.
“Here she is a bit older, in school.” This time the photo showed a wild-looking Danita, her hair flying in all directions, a grimace on her face.
The pictures went on, and Naomi took them as offered, one after another, until her lap was covered. By late middle school Danita was a glowering, angry-looking mess.
“I tried to get her help. But they acted like I was just another black woman shuffling off the problems of her kids. That’s how the schools acted. Like Danita was just trouble. Like she was trying to be bad.”
She put the photos back in the box, her hand pausing over them as if waving away the grief.
“I finally got some help. I was told about the clinic and took her there. By then Danita was fourteen, and in a world of trouble. She was in one of those schools with nice-sounding names where they just lock up the kids all the time.”
“What was wrong with her?”
The old woman said sadly, “She’s autistic.”
Naomi nodded. The attorney had implied something to the effect. The flat affect, the socially inappropriate behavior, the learning disabilities, the public meltdowns. It all made sense.
“You know what that doctor told me?” Violet asked. “He said black children don’t get diagnosed autistic. They just get diagnosed bad.”
“The media said she had a criminal record,” Naomi said.
Violet scoffed. “Criminal record? She was arrested trying to steal a day planner from a Rite Aid. She was worried she wasn’t keeping track of the baby’s appointments. That’s the kind of criminal mastermind she is.”
“And the polygraphs she failed?”
“If you wanted Danita to confess to the murder of JFK, she’d probably do it.” Violet snorted. “She doesn’t know one day of the week from the next.”
“How did she get pregnant?”
Violet looked up, and in the profound sadness of her eyes Naomi saw humor. “Honey, you don’t know that yet?”
Naomi stood in the doorway of Danita’s room upstairs. The bed was neatly made, with a solitary flat pillow.
The crib was empty, only a pile of soft blankets. A plastic mobile with baby elephants was screwed to the top: Naomi could imagine the infant opening and closing her hands as the elephants danced.
The closet was small. Danita had few clothes, but all were clean and hung neatly. There was a set of old brown shoes on the floor. There was something missing—something she had expected to see by now in the house.
Naomi knew the police had turned over the whole house, from attic to basement. They had even dug up parts of the basement on a lurid tip from a neighbor who turned out to have mental health issues herself. The case was so recent she could still see the fingerprint dust in the room, feel the presence of heavy-booted police. Unlike Madison, this loss here was fresh, and she could feel the difference. It had not been long since Baby Danforth had been in this room, alive.
“Danita loves her child,” Violet said behind her. “Baby was the best thing that ever happened to her. She settled down, learned how to work. She was a good mom.”
“What about her disability?”
“I used to ask her if she would consider putting the baby up for adoption. She said no. She said, ‘Grammy, this is the first person to ever look at me like I am beautiful.’ So I knew then it was on me to take care of both of them.”
Naomi paused outside the closet. The mobile above the crib made a cute tinkling sound.
Something was missing—she turned slowly around.
“That is why it will be good to find my great-granddaughter, even if she is dead,” Violet said, pressing her now trembling hands down over her skirt. “Because it is on me. I failed Danita, and I failed her baby, too. I told God already: He can forgive me in the afterlife, if He chooses. I am never going to forgive myself.”
“Let’s go through this again,” Naomi told Danita, who looked pressured and trapped at her table.
“She already—” the attorney began.
Naomi stopped her with a raised hand. “It’s important.” She was watching Danita.
“You took the baby to the doctor,” Naomi began.
“Yeah. We went on the bus. Number four bus.”
“Tell me about it,” Naomi said, knowing the doctor had confirmed to the police that Danita had been there the day before the baby went missing.
The doctor told the police that Danita was a regular—almost too regular—visitor with her infant. Every little scratch, every little rash, occasioned a concern. The visit had ended by afternoon, and Danita had been seen going home with the baby.
“Baby cried. I gave her a bottle. Apple juice, I think. And crackers. She got her shots.”
That much was true.
“You rode home on the bus?”
“Yes.” Dawning light. “A strange man was looking at us.”
The attorney sighed. Naomi let her have a warning glance. These visions were common in missing-child cases—the mind sought each and every glance, every possible suspect later.
“You went home.”
“I was going to take her to the park, but it was cold. And she wasn’t feeling good, because of the shots. So I made soup. It was good. I ate it and we took a nap.”
“Did she sleep with you?”
She gave a guilty nod. “I know you’re not supposed to do that, spoils them, but my grammy used to cuddle me.”
“What was the soup made of?”
The attorney frowned at Naomi.
“Tomato, out of the can. I made a tuna sandwich on the side, because my grammy was gone. She teaches Bible study.”
Naomi pulled back. Something was becoming clear. “Danita, how do you know when the bus is coming?”
“I—I wait for it. Number four comes right outside my door.”
“How do you keep track of the doctor visits?”
“I—I try my best.” Her veneer cracked, and for a moment Naomi could see a childhood of confusion. “I try my best.”
“Danita, now here’s the truth. You really don’t remember exactly what happened the day before she went missing, do you?”
“I tried, I did.”
; “What days do you work, Danita?”
“Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, not Thursday, work Friday, Saturday, and not Sunday.” She chanted it like a mantra.
Baby Danforth had gone missing on a Thursday, her day off.
Naomi knew what she had been missing now. “Danita, how do you get your baby around? Do you carry her?”
Danita shook her wide eyes. “I have a stroller.”
There had been no stroller in the Danforth home.
“The police were already here,” said the principal at the school where Danita worked as a graveyard custodian.
“Of course,” Naomi said. “I’d like her time card.”
“I’ll get you a copy.”
The time card was simple: an old-fashioned punch card that showed when Danita arrived and when she left. Danita had clocked in and out the night the baby went missing. “I thought she was usually off on Thursday,” Naomi said.
“We had a big assembly and needed an extra day. So on Wednesday I asked her to come in the next night and clean.”
“Can I see the auditorium?”
The man looked mystified, but led her down the silent halls.
Naomi had made sure to come in when the school was closed. Schools made her feel uncomfortable. She had never gone to a school until she was at Mrs. Cottle’s—and then she went only because Jerome was there. She didn’t like the feeling of confinement, the hard wooden chairs, and the thick smells in the air. The other children seemed so foreign. They had lost the sense of freedom, if they ever had it.
The large, empty room smelled of stale children. The aisles were neatly swept, the chairs all clean and folded up. Naomi could imagine Danita here, cleaning. But where would she park her baby?
“Did you know she sometimes brought her child to work?” she asked.
“The police told me. I checked in on her when she started, and that was when the infant was just a newborn. I didn’t know.”
Naomi walked across an empty stage, the heavy curtains pulled open. The stroller would have been parked up here, probably—Danita could have watched her child, heard her, while she worked.
“How did you hire Danita?”
“We hire our custodians from a program that serves the disabled.”
She inspected the entire stage area. In the front was a tiny unused pit. The inside was empty except for a few candy wrappers. Naomi stood in it, trapped, and felt at home.
“How did you remind Danita about work on Thursday?” she asked, climbing out of the pit.
“You’re perceptive,” he said. “I called her house.”
“Did she answer?”
“Yes. She sounded sleepy.”
At the edge of the stage was a soft rag doll. Naomi picked it up, turned it over in her hands, thoughtfully. The arms flopped, and the face was blank, with stitched eyes and mouth. She tucked it in her bag.
“I’d like to see every room that Danita would have cleaned or had access to.”
“All of them?”
“Yes. You might as well just give me the keys. You can leave. I’ll drop them through the door.”
Hours later Naomi had inspected every inch of the school. There was no sign of the baby. She wasn’t disappointed. She was getting closer now to what had happened.
She locked the door, dropping the ring of custodian keys in the slot as promised. Outside the night was cool and calm, and she could imagine Danita leaving work this way, when the sky was still dark, pushing her baby in her stroller.
Naomi had brought the rag doll out with her. She put it on the dashboard of her car, where it flopped, helpless. The doll had reminded her of something—something she knew she would realize soon.
In the farmhouse, Jerome took care of Mrs. Cottle, leading her slowly to the bathroom. Helping her sit on the toilet. Bathing her, looking away discreetly, seeing the old withered legs in the tub and wanting to cry. Holding her as he patted her dry with his one hand, her harsh weeping on his shoulder.
“Heaven is coming soon,” he told her.
His empty shoulder joint reminded him that life came at a cost. The bomb that had taken his arm exploded as he was saving a hostage; he was lucky. An accident might take his legs; a stroke could take his brain. His heart could die of loneliness a little every day. Why, life could steal all of him at any time.
That was life.
This was life, too: helping Mrs. Cottle into bed, plumping the flowered pillow she had embroidered under her head. Hearing the tick of silence outside, and then the forlorn songs of birds celebrating the coming night. Seeing the tiny flies light on the window at dusk, finding the hole in the screen and the one that was crawling on his shirt.
He sat next to her bed and read her Bible to her. There was nothing ugly about this particular death. Even her slack jaw had a beauty, an importance. Jerome, who had seen the worst kind of death overseas, knew this.
You are missing out, Naomi, he thought, sitting at the bedside. You are finding your children, but you are not finding yourself. You are not sitting at the bedside.
He didn’t blame Naomi. He admired her strength, her spirit. But he saw Naomi as the wind traveling over the field, always searching, never stopping, and never knowing that true peace is when you curl around one little piece of something. One little fern. One little frond. One person to love.
You can have it both ways, Jerome thought, turning off the lamp at Mrs. Cottle’s bedside, her peaceful cheek sinking into the pillow. You can have the wind and the searching, and you can have the safe place you land.
If only Naomi could see that. If only she could trust herself.
“Heaven is coming soon,” he reminded Mrs. Cottle again, warmth in his voice, and she let out a sigh that said she had heard.
11
Snow girl knew in this world there were no birthdays, no Valentine’s Day, no Halloween or Thanksgiving, no turkey, no Fourth of July. There were no plans to get a dog, with careful talks about how to care for it. In this world the dogs were furtive wolves on the high ridges that looked at you like you were food, too.
But snow girl had thought, why not a celebration, why not a present?
It was her second year as snow girl. The snow came forever this winter. It piled around the cabin in high drifts. Their snowshoes squealed happily in pleasure. She waited until they were done trapping for the day. On the porch lay a stack of rabbits.
She had struggled to think of what would make Mr. B happy, outside of her touch, her presence. Then she had realized: another snow child.
She bid Mr. B stop and wait. While he watched she constructed a snow child.
First she rolled the body, and then another smaller ball for the head. She found two sticks for the arms. Small dark fir cones became the eyes, a cedar bow for the mouth. A nose from a tiny dark cone.
Mr. B opened his mouth, amazed, and clapped his hands, wordlessly, at the person she was creating.
The snow child rose out of the white ground. For the hair she patted fresh snow, her hands growing cold—she put them against her belly to warm—and then, feeling inspired, added a draping of red cedar fronds for a dress.
Mr. B was laughing now, inside himself, unaware of the sounds that came from his throat, bass strings of delight.
At the very base of the snow child, she put two pretend snowshoes made of bark.
The snow girl stepped back, waiting for her new sister to awake. She turned to Mr. B, waiting for him to do whatever magic he did, to roll the girl from the snow, to make her come alive. But her sister didn’t move. She glared at snow girl with her flat, dead black eyes. Snow girl wanted to kick the dumb snow sister and push her down.
But then Mr. B began dancing ecstatically in a circle around the snow sister, like a child who has seen something brand-new.
Snow girl joined him, and they danced in silence around her poor dead sister.
Snow girl longed for the sound of children. It was not something she could tell Mr. B, even with her hands. Sometimes she thought she heard laughte
r among the trees. She wanted to run towards it.
Mr. B was a man who hunted. The soft furs gave themselves, though unwillingly. Their spirits left their mouths and trailed along the woods, as silent as ghosts. By the time she and Mr. B found the bodies they were usually stiff and cold, having frozen to death in the night. Sometimes he had to end their lives, which he did quickly.
But that didn’t mean their spirits weren’t still there, hiding around the next tree, as mischievous as children. Maybe the children she could play with were the spirits of the foxes, the ghosts of the marten and coyote. She carved their images on the cave walls.
She often returned to that old, faint carving in the corner, the one shaped like a crude number 8, and wondered how it had come to be there. She pressed her face against it, hoping it would tell her the secret.
Snow girl lengthened, and fed by the forest, her body warmed. Her armpits smelled different now. She was changing. Time was passing. She was growing up.
Oddly enough, the bigger she got, the more she could see she was a child and Mr. B was a man. That didn’t seem right to her. Maybe they shouldn’t have gotten married. But Mr. B was a frightened man, and in the bed they had climbed to the pinnacles of heaven. She didn’t have all the words for these feelings yet, but she knew them, and she knew that if she didn’t die, one day she would understand.
Naomi awoke to the phone ringing.
She felt her heart sift down, through the layers, and found something at the bottom that reminded her of old gauze, and Sunday afternoons, and a smiling foster mother in front of a cracked vanity mirror when she caught Naomi trying on her lipsticks. Saying, Oh, now look at you, pretty girl. Showing her how to blot the color on a worn hankie, the past smudges like little blooms.
“I’m sorry,” she told Jerome.
“She was a good mom,” he said. He was crying and not ashamed. “I tucked her in last night, read from her Bible. She died real peaceful.”
“Maybe it’s too late,” she said. “But I want to say a real good-bye.”
