Where is the Baby?

by Charlotte Vale-Allen

  As the old policeman and some others held the yelling people back, the tall lady grabbed her by the arm and hurried Humaby toward a door, away from everybody. ‘But how come I couldn’t see the baby?’ she asked, craning to look back as the door closed behind them and the tall lady yanked so hard at her arm that Humaby stumbled and nearly fell. It was familiar treatment. Under her breath, she whispered, ‘Hate you!’

  As predicted, the calls started coming in before the local TV segment was finished that evening. ‘The network news hasn’t even aired and the lines’re lit up like Christmas,’ Captain Garvey observed to no one in particular as he paused in the squad room. How the hell they were ever going to sort it out was beyond him. All he could do was recruit more of the civilian staff for overtime, to help man the phones that were ringing nonstop, calls on hold on every phone on every desk. God forbid there was an emergency – nobody would get through. Meanwhile, they’d dismiss all the obvious whackos, log the information on those calls that seemed remotely legit-imate then, from those, they would filter out the ones that might be a fit. A massive job.

  The next morning the applicants got the news from Margery Briggs, Humaby’s social worker, who’d had a brief meeting with her overbooked superior to state her case. Her decision-making as to who might be best suited to provide temporary foster care for the child both before and after her surgical procedures was based on her hour-long exposure to the little girl when she got her ready and then accompanied her to and from the press conference, and on her prior acquaintanceship with Stefan Lazarus.

  Brian and Jan were turned down as possibilities because Miss Briggs (who had made no home visits or – so far as Brian knew – interviewed any of those who’d volunteered to take in the child) declared that in her professional opinion Humaby would be a negative, possibly dangerous influence on Lucia.

  ‘Are you kidding with this crap?’ Brian snapped, deeply offended.

  ‘I assure you, sir, that I am not kidding,’ Briggs said, and put down the phone before Brian could argue with her decision.

  In Brian’s view the reverse of her so-called professional opinion was true. Lucia’s effect on the other child was evident after mere minutes. She did her special voice, a startling baritone rasp, saying, ‘I’ll be Ken and you be Barbie,’ and Humaby had actually laughed at the big, gruff voice that emerged from the girl’s mouth. Just a small, abruptly cut-off sound. But she’d laughed. And when they were leaving to head back to the hospital, she’d climbed into the squad car, exclaiming, ‘Look what Lucia gived me!’ showing him a somewhat worse-for-wear Barbie. ‘She said I could keep it.’

  ‘That’s great, honey.’

  ‘Lucia says we’re friends!’ she said wonderingly. ‘Can I come to play again amorrow, Mister Brian?’

  ‘I hope so. But I can’t promise. We’ll try, though.’

  As she’d expected, Connie was rejected as a viable foster parent because she was unmarried. The social worker was abrupt and cold, saying only, ‘In the agency’s view we don’t consider you a suitable match.’ And that was that, end of call, no room for protest. And what argument could Connie have offered? That she had an intimate understanding of the lifelong effects of pain and fear? That she already loved the child? None of that mattered. She had no husband; therefore she was not fit for parenthood.

  Despite its being expected, it felt as if she’d lost something very precious. Her mood remained dark throughout the morning, the persistent ache of the icy rejection like an internal injury. She sat in the kitchen drinking coffee and staring at the wall, trying to get herself moving. There were prints to be delivered, a pair of back-to-back bookings scheduled for late morning. But for a time all she could do was sit staring into space, benumbed by disappointment.

  Captain Garvey and his wife were deemed to be too old to take on the burden of a very young, very damaged child. Indignant, Garvey slammed down the receiver, emitting a disgusted bark of laughter. Since when was forty-one too old to handle one more kid in a house that already had three of them and plenty of room for more? DCF didn’t know his Angie or what a great mother, what a fine person she was; they didn’t know that to be close to this woman was a privilege. ‘Assholes,’ he muttered, and slammed his fist on the desk. What was the big hurry? Why couldn’t they take the time to do their homework properly, make sure the kid was placed with the right people?

  Stefan Lazarus topped the list despite his being only recently married and lacking any experience in raising a child. He was a newly licensed doctor, a child psychiatrist. What more experience did he need? Plus being the son of prominent doctors – his father and mother also both psychiatrists – cinched the placement as far as Margery Briggs was concerned.

  Stefan was shocked by the decision, and immediately doubt-filled. Was he really the proper choice? Monica had been excited when he phoned to tell her they’d been awarded temporary custody, but she hadn’t yet met the child. She had no idea of the level of abuse the child had suffered. His hand kept wanting to go to the phone, to call back the woman at DCF to tell her it was a mistake to entrust the girl to him and Monica. Monica’s degree was in botany, for God’s sake. She knew more about fern fronds than she did about people.

  Yet he couldn’t help thinking that there was something to this: there was significant information to be gleaned from living with the little girl, observing her on a day-to-day basis; there was knowledge to be gained that he could share professionally, knowledge that would provide great insight into the long-term effects of prolonged abuse on the heart and mind of a small child. And if he were to be entirely honest with himself, working with her, publishing articles or even a book about her, would establish him as someone to be taken very seriously in the world of child psychiatry.

  So, despite his personal misgivings, his professional ambition won the day. He didn’t make the call back to the coldly elitist Briggs at DCF, one of the least-appropriate people performing as a social worker that he’d ever encountered.

  When he finally learned who’d been chosen to foster the child, Brian couldn’t help thinking the poor kid would feel like some kind of lab specimen, lodged in the midst of a family of doctors. But he kept remembering how Lazarus had cracked during that session with Humaby, how he’d wept so brokenly. If the rest of his family was anything like him, maybe they’d treat the child with sensitivity.

  ‘I truly hope so,’ Connie said fervently when they ran into each other at the station later that morning. She was dropping off the photos she’d shot the night before of a nine-year-old, so severely battered that it was doubtful that she’d survive the day. She repeated to Brian what Captain Garvey had told her of DCF’s decision to place Humaby with the Doctors Lazarus.

  ‘The last thing she needs is to be put under a microscope,’ Connie said.

  ‘Especially if it turns out to be for any length of time,’ Brian said. ‘She needs some pretty major surgery, and she’s already suspicious of most people and things. Every new person is a potential threat. You know?’ Connie nodded, and he said, ‘I’m hoping Lazarus will let us come see her.’

  ‘If you talk to him, please ask for me, too.’ She gave Brian her card, then said, ‘Keep me posted?’

  ‘Count on it. Wait one and I’ll give you our home number.’

  When the social worker told her she’d be going home with Mister Stefan, Humaby was upset but tried hard not to show it. ‘Please, Miss, can I stay with Mister Brian and Jan and Lucia?’ she asked, rubbing her velour-covered knee. ‘Or Miss Connie?’

  ‘That’s out of the question. You’re a very lucky girl to be going to the Lazarus family. They have a lovely big house and you’ll have your own room. Dr Lazarus’s parents’ house even has a swimming pool,’ the woman told her, irked by the child’s reluctance. To be fostered by a family of this caliber was unprecedented.

  ‘But I don’t know how to swim.’

  ‘Well, maybe you’ll learn.’ She wanted to grab the child and shake her.

  ‘But if I stay wi
th Mister Brian, I could play with Lucia. She’s got Barbie dolls. She even gived me one. See!’ She held up the doll to show the angry-looking woman. ‘And she’s got a bicycle, a pink one! Miss Jan said she’d teach me to ride it and let me make cookies and I could stay with Lucia in her room.’

  Stymied, more annoyed by the moment, Margery Briggs said, ‘Dr Lazarus and his wife are top-rate people and his sister’s very nice. I happen to know her myself.’

  ‘Is she a little girl?’ Humaby asked hopefully.

  ‘No, she’s a grown-up, a doctor.’

  ‘Don’t like doctors,’ Humaby said under her breath, gazing at her sneaker-clad feet.

  ‘There are arrangements to make, paperwork to be done. I have to go now,’ the woman said, looking at her watch. ‘You’ll be fine with Dr Lazarus. But if for some bizarre reason it doesn’t work out, we’ll find another placement for you.’

  ‘What’s a placeman?’ Humaby asked.

  Fighting to contain her impatience, the woman said curtly, ‘Another family. I’ll be back tomorrow to take you to the Lazarus home. Do as you’re told and be a good girl now.’

  ‘I am a good girl!’ Humaby whispered at the woman’s back as she marched away. She was a mean lady, like the ones in the big store – people who didn’t like little children.

  Scared and sad, she sat on the side of the bed, looking at the doorway, seeing people going by in the hall and hearing the voices come out of the ceiling. The TV set was showing cartoons again and she didn’t want to look at them. I am a good girl, she thought, stroking her soft sleeve. But it didn’t matter. No matter how good she tried to be, bad things always happened. She wanted to cry – her chest all tight with it – but she wouldn’t let herself give in. Crying made people mad, and she’d learned a long time ago not to do things that made people mad. So she tried not to let anything show. Sometimes, it was very hard.

  Connie’s mood just wouldn’t lift and, finally, after leaving the station house, she drove to the hospital.

  There was a different cop sitting outside the door; he looked scarcely older than the previous one. She showed him her ID, explained who she was and the youthful officer in an unexpectedly low, mellifluous voice said, ‘Poor kid’s just been sitting there for hours, since that pickle-puss babe from DCF left. Kid didn’t even eat her lunch. I tried to keep her company a while ago but I could see I was making her nervous, so I backed off. She’s been watching the door like she’s waiting for somebody. Could be you’re the one. Her lunch tray’s still at the nurses’ station. I asked them to hang on to it. Maybe you could get her to eat something.’

  ‘That was smart. Thank you. I’ll go get it.’

  Carrying the tray, Connie returned to the room, brightly saying, ‘Hi, sweetie. I’ve got your lunch.’

  ‘Hi, Miss Connie,’ Humaby said dully. ‘I’m not hungry, thank you very much.’

  Putting down the tray, Connie sat beside her on the bed, asking, ‘What’ve you got there?’

  ‘It’s a Barbie. Lucia gived it to me.’

  ‘Who’s Lucia, sweetie?’

  ‘She’s Mister Brian’s little girl.’

  ‘That was very kind of her.’

  ‘She’s my friend. We played with the Barbies and we had lemonade and cookies. I want to go stay with them, Miss Connie. Or with you. But the mean lady’s making me go with Mister Stefan to his house.’

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be very nice. And Mister Stefan must like you a lot or he wouldn’t have asked to have you stay with him.’

  For the first time, the child looked up at her. ‘People asked to have me?’

  ‘A lot of us did.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’ Lowering her voice to a confiding tone, she said, ‘When we were in the room with the little chairs and all the toys, Mister Stefan was very sad. He cried.’

  ‘He did?’

  ‘Yeah. I never saw big people cry before I was in here.’ She made a gesture meant to include the entire hospital. ‘But today the mama cried when she said to me they were happy to have the baby back. And the daddy, he cried too.’

  ‘Sometimes people cry when they’re actually happy, not sad.’

  ‘I never knew that either.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Connie told her. ‘I felt like crying this morning when I found out you weren’t going to be staying with me.’

  ‘But you didn’t cry?’

  ‘No. I wanted to, but I didn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m not really sure why. Sometimes, it makes me angry with myself if I cry . . . as if I’m being weak instead of strong and I don’t like the idea of being weak.’ She could scarcely believe she was confiding something like this to a small child, but her instinct told her it was the right way to go.

  ‘So you don’t let yourself cry?’

  ‘No,’ Connie admitted. ‘Sometimes I don’t.’

  ‘Me, too,’ Humaby whispered. ‘If I cried, Wolf and Toadman got very mad . . . So I teached myself not to cry anymore. But . . . Miss Connie, I don’t want to go with Mister Stefan. I’m ascared to go with him.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t need to be afraid.’

  ‘But I am! I’m ascared! He’s . . .’ She groped for the right word to describe him. ‘He’s all sad, Miss Connie. I want to be with Lucia and her mama and daddy, or with you. I’m not ascared when I’m with you.’

  Aware of how hard she was struggling to hold on to herself, Connie longed to comfort her but didn’t dare risk touching the child. ‘I know, sweetie,’ she said. ‘I know.’

  Humaby told herself she wasn’t going to cry. But she couldn’t keep it in. Her head came to rest against Connie’s arm and she felt so worried and so tired that the tears just came out by themselves. And that made her even more afraid, because you could never be sure about people.

  ‘Don’t be mad at me, please, Miss Connie,’ she begged, wiping her face with her hand.

  ‘I could never be mad at you,’ Connie said and, surrendering to instinct, she lifted Humaby onto her lap, where the child settled without protest. ‘That’s better,’ she murmured. ‘That’s much better.’

  Sitting on Miss Connie’s lap was like something she almost remembered; something from a long, long time ago. But she couldn’t remember what it was; it was just somehow okay.

  Connie silently rocked her until she actually fell asleep, her chest shaken by residual sobs. Holding her, feeling the warmth of the child’s slight weight, finally eased the day-long ache of disappointment.

  PART TWO

  1983

  SEVEN

  ‘For what it’s worth, I’ve always believed you were innocent.’

  Soberly, Tally said, ‘Thank you,’ and turned to look at the stocky middle-aged woman in the boxy gray suit with a white blouse buttoned to the neck. To all outward appearance an unremarkable person: plain-faced, with gray-threaded black hair blunt-cut to her square jawline. But to study the warden’s sadly intelligent brown eyes quickly erased the impression of plainness. She was a woman who’d seen and heard it all but, incredibly, still had an open heart. And it lent depth and humor to her deep-set eyes. So, in spite of the severe clothes and ugly shoes, the thick body and unmade-up face, she was a singularly appealing person.

  ‘I wish you well,’ the older woman said, and offered Tally her hand.

  For a moment Tally was bewildered by the gesture. Then long-ago training kicked in and she took hold, absorbing the details of the woman’s firm grip.

  Behind her the door clicked open and Tally felt the sound travel through her entire body. She hadn’t expected to have any reaction, but the sound of that door opening dried her mouth and accelerated her heartbeat.

  ‘God bless, Tally,’ the warden said as she withdrew her hand, ‘and good luck. Let me hear from you.’

  ‘I will. Thank you.’ Tally turned slowly to look at the door. She could see sunlight and moved toward it, then stopped and looked back.

  ‘Go on now,’ the woman said quietly. ‘Don’t look back.’ />
  Tally put the flat of her free hand against the door and pushed. Near-blinded by the sunlight, she stepped over the threshold. The door closed heavily behind her with another click, and she stood shielding her eyes with her hand.

  Warren Berman was standing next to a gleaming black Mercedes, waiting for her. As she stepped outside, he came toward her with a smile and a hello, automatically reaching to take hold of the small cardboard box she carried.

  Leading the way to the car, he held open the passenger door and waited until she was inside before closing it. Then he stowed the box behind the driver’s seat and slid behind the wheel.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Older,’ she said. ‘Do you happen to have a spare pair of sunglasses, Warren?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I do.’ Reaching past her, he opened the glove compartment and pulled out a pair of aviator-style Ray-Bans. ‘There you go.’

  She thanked him and put them on, at once eased, and turned to look at the structure that had contained her for the past fifteen years. I’m outside, she thought. Out. Free. After five thousand three hundred and seventy-two days. She had on clothes that were, surprisingly, too large, and in the back of the car she had a small carton containing the few items of any significance to her: a thin eight-by-ten-inch envelope of photographs, some photocopied articles from various journals, and the diary she’d kept during her first two years of incarceration before the pointlessness of the exercise had struck her and she’d stopped.

  ‘There’s a not-bad-looking diner about ten miles up the road,’ Warren said. ‘How does that sound?’

  ‘Fine,’ she answered quietly as he put the car into drive. ‘You look very well, Warren,’ she said, studying his profile.

  He glanced over with a smile. ‘So do you, Tally.’

  She didn’t respond to this but looked for a time at her hands, at her just-returned wedding ring and wristwatch – items that felt more substantial than she remembered. Then she turned to look out the window at the scrubby, featureless land flying past. She wanted to get as far from Nevada as possible, to be somewhere with trees and seasons and snow. And that, for the moment, was all she knew. Simply being outside the walls was a shock to her system, as if the top layer of her flesh had been sheared away. She felt shaky inside and hollow, as if a good shove would cause her to collapse in a heap of disconnected bones.