Little Girl Gone

by Alexandra Burt

‘Cursed? Isn’t that a bit over the top?’ I narrowed my eyes in disbelief and gently straightened Mia’s head, so as not to wake her. I couldn’t believe that I had forgotten to strap her in.

  ‘No, cursed is the right word. The contractor ran out of money, the subcontractors quit, workers stole materials from the jobsite, and no one got the appropriate permits. You name it, it went wrong with 517. I’ve never had a property that had so many problems. The contractors have been ordered to fulfill the contracts but they have to be supervised. No one is very happy at this moment, especially your husband. The property should have sold or rented months ago.’

  I tried to look enthusiastic about the gossip she was so willingly sharing with me and nodded in agreement.

  ‘Nothing like a disgruntled contractor forced to fulfill a contract, let me tell you. The insurance company paid for the claims but everybody is getting impatient. Brilliant idea to have someone on site at all times to make sure everything goes smoothly. David Lieberman’s quite proficient and he keeps the workers in line. Lieberman reports to me, I report to your husband.’

  Suddenly a sound startled me. It started off as a murmur, then turned into a loud crash, making me flinch. A cloud of dust emerged from a huge green metal container connected to a bright yellow construction chute in front of 517. Within seconds we were covered in a cloud of construction dust.

  ‘Is there a provisional date of completion?’ That’s what Jack had called it. A provisional date of completion, meaning the moment when renters wouldn’t be bothered by the noise any longer. I wondered how Jack thought my living here in the meantime would even remotely be a good idea.

  ‘We’re playing it by ear. Contractors are never on time.’

  ‘My husband told me it was a matter of a couple of months.’

  Yolanda Drake shifted her considerable weight from one foot to the other and raised her eyebrows. ‘Anything is possible, I guess,’ she said and handed me the key. ‘It’s all yours,’ she added, wiped her hand on her pencil skirt, and walked away.

  My eyes followed her until she disappeared around the corner. The key to 517 felt warm to the touch. I glanced back at the car. Mia was peacefully asleep in the car seat, calmed by the humming engine from the ride over here.

  I switched on the baby monitors and left one on the passenger seat and tucked the second one safely away in my purse. The temperature was a comfortable sixty degrees, the sky overcast. The tinted windows hardly allowed any visibility into the car’s interior. I told myself that I wasn’t even going to close the front door, and she’ll be fine for a few minutes.

  Apartment A1 was located on the first floor. I calculated I could get to the car in less than thirty seconds if Mia started to cry. I was reluctant to wake her, knowing it would result in another crying fit, making me think how hard it must be on her to respond to life with such violent protest. Every nap was hope on my part, hope that she’d wake up and be calmer, more content.

  I manually locked the car so the remote locking sound didn’t startle her and walked up the steps to the front door. It opened before I could fully insert the key. In front of me stood a man in steel-toed boots covered in wood shavings like coconut flakes on a cake. He stood on the threshold, the rim of the yellow hard hat shielding his eyes. He lifted his head and his eyes skimmed over me. He continued down the steps and turned to the left. I followed him with my eyes, down the sidewalk and up the block. His stride was wide, his torso upright.

  I entered the building. I stood still just long enough to take in the scent of fresh paint and a faint odor of disinfectant. ‘A1’ in cursive, gold letters on the door straight ahead. To the left was a large opening taped shut with heavy duty tarp to keep the dust and debris out.

  A hair-raising shriek made me reach for the baby monitor. The green display sat idle, a faint sound of white noise in the background. Then a whining sound turned into a throaty grind. I shut the monitor off, then back on. Nothing but white noise. When I inserted the key into the lock and pushed open the door, I realized the sound was coming from behind a tarp: carpenters sawing wood, framing walls or working on the hardwood floors.

  The two thousand square feet apartment floors were solid cherry wood, native to upstate New York. The distance from the front to the back was an impressive forty feet. The hallway led through two parlor doors into the living room, which took up the entire back of the building. There were two rooms on the left; the kitchen and the dining room, eventually leading into the parlor. There were three rooms on the right; the first one the bathroom, the other two bedrooms.

  My footsteps echoed through the rooms and the light flooding through the windows was harsh and uncomfortable. The walls were bleak, painted in an abrasive white. I inspected the doors and windows. A double cylinder deadbolt on the front door, a type of auxiliary lock that required a key to project or retract the deadbolt from either side. There was also a mortise lock, usually found in older buildings, making any attempt to break in practically impossible.

  Suddenly the monitor unleashed violent static and then went silent again. I manually switched over to the second channel. Again, nothing but white noise. I switched back to the initial channel and heard a man’s voice. Before I reached the car, baby monitor in hand, the monitor changed to a gentle buzz, then to a protest and finally an eruption. Mia’s stuttering gasps interrupted by attempts to fill her lungs with air.

  I dug into my purse for the car key and when I looked up, the man with the steel-toed boots I’d seen earlier stared at me. His eyes went from the car – echoing with screams – back to me, to the monitor in my hand. My cell phone rang and the moving company confirmed the address. When I turned back around, he had left.

  A week later, I stood by the window, parted the curtain with my hands, and looked out into the fall night. It was almost dark and the streets were deserted except for a few people taking their dogs for a last pit stop before they’d curl up on couches or on the kitchen floor. Leaves tumbled about like discarded paper, following their destinies into storm drains, iron window grates, and curbside puddles.

  I pulled the curtain, layered it midway where the panels met, and shut out the dark. Night falling on New York City was not my favorite time of day. The outside noises – the traffic, the hurried voices, and the screaming children in the school courtyard across the street – never completely stopped but slowed down like a clock that needed winding.

  With Jack being gone, initially, I felt more relaxed. It became apparent that not having him around, I demanded less of myself with every passing day. I skipped the shower in the morning and didn’t feel guilty wearing the same clothes day after day. The first few days I stepped into my sweatpants still bunched up on the floor and pulled a random shirt out of a pile of clothes. After the first week I didn’t even bother changing my clothes at all. I didn’t worry about going to the market and I lived off crackers, oatmeal, and stale bagels. I did however wash Mia’s clothes religiously, folded her bibs and socks and shirts, and dressed her every day.

  A voice inside myself chastised me, telling me that still Mia wasn’t sleeping through the night, still she was crying more than she should have, and it wore on me more and more. I didn’t allow her to soothe herself to sleep like the doctor suggested, instead I rushed into her room and held her in my arms, squirming and arching her back. Her cries echoed through the house and I wondered how much longer I’d be able to hold on. Jack called frequently but our conversations were short; my pretending to be okay and Jack promising to come home for a weekend soon. I wondered how I’d ever manage to get the house in order and stock up the fridge. I mostly dozed off during inopportune times just to be awakened by Mia’s cries. As the days bled into each other, I felt caught in a vicious and never-ending cycle of sheer exhaustion and angry baby monitor displays running amok.

  That day I jerked up from a half-sleep state, a buzz echoing in my head. I listened but it was quiet. I shut my eyes again. Three more buzzes sounded and I realized it must be the doorbell. I pe
eked through the hole but all I could make out was a shadowy outline of a man.

  ‘Yes?’ I said through the closed door.

  ‘Mrs Paradise?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘David Lieberman.’

  At first, the name meant nothing to me, and then I remembered Jack and the property manager mentioning the name of the upstairs tenant who was overseeing the renovations. I had a feeling he wasn’t going to go away unless I talked to him.

  ‘Just a minute,’ I said, ignoring Mia wailing in her crib. I opened the door, chain still engaged, and looked at him through the gap.

  ‘How’s the pressure?’ His voice was like silt, something you felt the need to wipe clean afterwards. Lieberman checked his hands and proceeded to clean the fingernails of one hand with the nails of the other.

  ‘What?’ I wanted to tell him to go to hell but he’d probably tell Jack and Jack would call, expecting me to scold myself for being rude.

  ‘The pressure. The water pressure.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘The water pressure.’ He emphasized every syllable, as if I was either incapable of understanding English or partially deaf.

  ‘What about it?’ I tried to sound engaged and friendly because, according to Jack, Lieberman was here to help.

  He cocked his head. ‘Someone’s crying in there,’ he said.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ I said ignoring his comment. Mia was barely whining by then.

  ‘If you pick her up she’ll stop crying. I’ve been listening to her all day.’ He gave me a stare. ‘Not that the walls are particularly thin in this building, but noise travels.’

  ‘What about the water pressure?’ I tried to keep my face expressionless.

  ‘Have you taken a shower lately?’ he asked and looked me up and down through the crack in the door; my greasy hair, my wrinkled shirt, and the pants I’d been wearing for a week. ‘There’s a problem with the plumbing, they’re working on the pipes.’

  ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘She isn’t going to stop crying until you pick her up.’ His neck craned to see what was going on behind me.

  I started to think that my expressionless face might be a mistake. ‘Let me call you after I check, okay?’

  I closed the door and on my way to the nursery, I avoided looking at myself in the mirror. I went past Mia’s room, to my own and slammed the door shut to escape the noise. What seemed only minutes later, the buzzer went off again. This time I opened the door and stood in the doorway. I had all but forgotten about the plumbing and the water pressure.

  ‘The pressure seems fine,’ I lied, ‘but I can’t tell a difference, to be honest with you.’

  ‘Would you mind if I checked?’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘I met your husband a couple of times.’ He hesitated ever so slightly, then added, ‘He asked me to check on you.’

  ‘I don’t need to be checked on.’

  ‘Maybe that came out wrong. He wants me to help you if you have any issues. Plumbing, electric, whatever you need, just tell me. I’m either next door or upstairs. Except on the weekends, I’m never here on the weekends. I visit my sister upstate. But during the week, Monday morning until Friday afternoon, I’m all yours.’ He smiled at me, then cocked his head. ‘You didn’t call me about the water pressure and I realized you didn’t have my number.’ He stepped closer and handed me a piece of paper. I got a whiff of sawdust and oil.

  ‘I’m not sure what my husband told you, but the moving company gave me a list of plumbers and electricians.’

  Lieberman nodded. ‘Do you have any idea how long it takes to get a plumber to show up? You have more important things to worry about,’ he said and raised his eyebrows.

  Mia was fussing in the background, something I hadn’t noticed at all. ‘Right,’ I said and grabbed the door.

  ‘I’m around nail guns and saws all day, it can get pretty loud and the ringing in the ears sometimes takes hours to go away,’ he said and tapped his right ear with his hand. He smiled without showing teeth and took his New York Yankees hat off. ‘I go home at the end of the day and then I hear the baby cry through the ceiling. That’s all I’m saying.’

  He looked even younger with his hat off.

  ‘I’ll check and I’ll call you. Promise.’

  ‘Okay then. If I don’t hear from you I’ll just come back,’ he said and laughed.

  I offered him a smile that was friendly without being encouraging. Before I shut the door, I heard the tarp move and for a second the construction noise increased. Then the tarp closed and all was quiet again.

  A couple of blocks from North Dandry, A Child’s Play offered childcare services by the hour.

  ‘Here’s a copy of our policies. The by-the-hour group drop-off times are flexible. The other groups adhere to a curriculum and you have to talk to the individual caregiver regarding the drop-off times.’ A middle-aged woman in ice cream cone littered scrubs handed me a stack of papers from behind the counter and led me on a tour through the facility.

  Behind a two-way glass wall two staffers in pink scrubs sat in padded gliders, each one rocking a baby in her arms.

  ‘Her immunization record must be up-to-date,’ she said and pushed her glasses back to the bridge of her nose. ‘There’s a list of shot records required by law in your paperwork. Take it to the pediatrician and have them look it over. It’s pretty standard.’

  We passed the window of the toddler room where about two dozen children, in groups of three or four, were lying on the floor curling their bodies into the shape of each letter of the alphabet.

  A woman in purple scrubs joined us. After she introduced herself as the director, she glanced down at Mia thrashing her arms and legs. ‘Anything out of the ordinary we need to know?’ she asked while Mia was catching her breath between two wails.

  ‘She’s just a bit fussy today,’ I said and struggled to pop the pacifier back in Mia’s mouth.

  ‘Don’t forget her shot record, we can’t enroll her unless the paperwork is complete,’ the lady in purple reminded me. I signed the required paperwork and handed her a check for the application fee.

  After I left the daycare, I thought about things that seemed to be out of place lately; a formula bottle I thought I had left on the counter was now in the fridge, baby clothes I had left draped over the crib ended up in the hamper, windows left ajar, and dirty diapers I’d left around the house wound up in the trash. It was probably my imagination, it wasn’t as if Jack was catching a flight from Chicago to New York, secretly checking in on me, moving things around. ‘Mommy brain’ they call it, I kept telling myself, assuming that the part of my brain that used to be involved in planning and foresight was taken over by the baby’s schedule. It was probably the unfamiliar surroundings but I didn’t need another worry.

  Mia was asleep in her stroller when I entered a hardware store just a couple of blocks from North Dandry. The sales clerk at Taylor Hardware, Security & Lock wore an apron with the name ‘Larry’ stitched in cursive across the pocket, almost illegible in all capital letters and a slightly more complicated name would have been impossible to decipher. Larry climbed ladders and pulled boxes from the very top shelves while I listened patiently to his explanations, taking a mental note of possible lock choices, all the while looking into Larry’s watery eyes stuck behind his enormous glasses.

  ‘What kind of locks you have now?’ he asked and pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose, leaving fingerprints on the lenses.

  ‘A latch set with a key hole on the outside and a thumb-turn on the inside. There’s also a chain door guard.’ Mia started to stir in the stroller and I knew it was only a matter of minutes until she’d break out in a full-blown howl.

  ‘Sounds pretty secure to me. Are you looking for additional security? Like a deadbolt or something?’

  ‘There’s no such thing as too much security,’ I said.

  Mia started to fuss and her hands began to flail. Larry’
s eyes were huge behind the lenses as he raised his voice to top Mia’s crying. My embracing her was the most uncomfortable state of being for Mia and so I just rocked the stroller back and forth. I hoped I’d make it through the lock purchase without Larry giving me any advice on how to console a screaming baby.

  ‘How about an old-fashioned alarm system sounding like sirens and hell rolled all into one?’ he said. ‘The security company will dispatch a car within minutes. We’ve got a special going on, twenty percent off and free installation.’

  ‘I don’t want to alert anyone, I just want to be able to lock my doors and keep them that way.’ I kept rolling the stroller back and forth, trying to stop Mia’s crying.

  ‘I’m not sure if additional locks—’

  ‘Just tell me what else you have that I can install myself.’ I checked my watch. Larry took the gesture as impatience on my part and started pulling cardboard boxes and metal parts off the shelf behind him.

  ‘And I need tools,’ I added. ‘Like a screwdriver and a handheld drill.’

  ‘She’s got a set of lungs on her.’ He looked down at Mia whose face had turned red, her mouth a gaping well of fury.

  ‘Just give me what I asked for. Don’t forget the tools.’

  He wasn’t offended by my rudeness. ‘Are you sure you can manage? I’ll talk to the boss and maybe we can throw in a free installation. You live in the neighborhood?’

  ‘Close enough,’ I said and checked my watch again.

  ‘I’ll install the locks myself if you’re interested.’ He stepped closer and when I reached for the boxes, he didn’t let go immediately. ‘Seriously, I will. Like I said, it’s free of charge.’

  After he rang me up at the register, I left the store, knowing his eyes were following me as I walked by the glass storefront. I had seen the disappointment on his face when I paid in cash. I knew he wanted to look at my credit card and remember my name, even look me up later. Or ask for my driver’s license to find out my address.