Little Girl Gone

by Alexandra Burt

  Back home, I went to work on the locks but realized quickly that I was in way over my head. I couldn’t even hold the drill steady nor could I identify the exact spot where the screws were supposed to go.

  Two hours later the metal door to my apartment was scratched and dented. I studied the parts I had bought at the hardware store. I read the back of the boxes until the words no longer made sense. The bolt throw seemed too long and I couldn’t find the steel insert. One of the locks contained a free-turning cylinder but the screws were too short to reach the wood studding beyond the doorframe. I was frustrated, sweaty and discouraged, my knuckles were bruised.

  The hardware store address and phone number were printed on the top of the receipt and I hoped Larry’s offer for a free installation was still good. I called the hardware store and asked for him. I heard paperwork being shuffled, and the bell above the door jangling. Eventually Larry came to the phone. I explained who I was and what I’d bought and asked if the free-installation offer was still valid.

  ‘Yeah, about that,’ Larry said and I heard the sound of the register open and shut. ‘I was wondering how those locks worked out for you. I can come by after work and take a look. What’s your address again?’

  ‘517 North Dandry, apartment 1A. There’s a lot of construction going on and I was going to ask one of the workers, but … anyway … I don’t want to disturb them.’

  ‘Like I said, it’ll be after hours. It’s just something we do out of courtesy for our customers.’

  We agreed on a time and hung up. If Larry got the job done quickly, neither Lieberman nor Jack would ever find out that I had locks installed. After I hung up the phone with Larry, a faint whine crept towards me from Mia’s room. There was no shower in my near future but at least the installation of the locks seemed certain.

  After I fed and changed Mia, I stood with her in my arms looking out the window facing the street. The windows still had their original cast-iron bars and unless someone took a metal saw to them, they seemed very sturdy and safe.

  Larry appeared and his tool belt fit snuggly around his waist, his belly hanging over the tools. He laid out all the locks carefully on the foyer tile.

  ‘Locks have personality, you know,’ he said.

  ‘Well, they weren’t speaking to me,’ I said and passed Mia from one hip to the other.

  She let out a sudden screech that prompted Larry to drop the electric drill. It left a jagged crack in the ceramic tile.

  ‘Darn it,’ Larry said and inspected the damage. ‘Little one scared me. I’ll replace that for you free of charge.’

  I didn’t care for him to come back. ‘Don’t worry about the tile. I’ll have that fixed. There’s lots of tiles stacked in the hallway.’

  Whatever I hadn’t managed to do a couple of hours earlier took him all of twenty minutes.

  ‘Anything else I can do for you?’ Larry asked and took his time returning tools into his red Craftsman box. ‘While I’m here. I’m handy with a lot of stuff.’ He winked at me and with the back of his hand wiped the sweat off his forehead. ‘If you don’t mind, call my boss and tell him about my work. It’s almost Christmas which means bonus time.’

  I promised I would and that I’d call him if I needed anything else and shut the door quickly. It was dented, the paint scratched, but I thought that I had all the locks I needed to keep us safe and I wouldn’t have to second-guess my mental state every time something seemed out of place.

  That night, as Mia rested in my arms exhausted after a day without a nap, she began to nod off as her eyelids continued to flutter. Her hands and limbs were flexed even though she seemed to be sleeping and just as I bent over to gently place her in her crib, she awoke and began to cry. We repeated the ritual three times before she finally relaxed into a deep sleep.

  Later that night, after I walked across the room to the fireplace and poked the logs until the flames grew into a joyous blaze, I sat in front of the fireplace, yoga-style, and raised my palms until the heat of the flames became unbearable. I looked around the sparsely decorated room, which consisted of a couch, a chair, and an old table.

  Jack’s architect had decided to convert the brownstone into four separate units in order to take advantage of the rising real estate values. One unit was occupied by Lieberman and another by me. The two units next door were still under construction. I envisioned how this building must have been a century ago. Opulence lingered just beneath the coat of wear and tear. Single living rooms replaced double parlors, kitchens became smaller but more efficient, and entry foyers disappeared completely. The parlor doors had lost their shine and the marble mantels had long been replaced. The ceiling plasterwork was still intact but showed patches here and there. All interior doors and wood moldings showed deterioration and fatigue, but the charm was in just that: the beauty of imperfection. I wondered how every little scratch or scrape had gotten there. The rooms were spacious, their ceilings an imposing fourteen feet. The sleek mahogany doors were the most distinct feature of the apartment.

  The ceiling work of the house was machine-made, rather than handmade, and of papier-mâché or stucco, rather than plaster. The combination of luxury, faded glory, and ornate shabbiness gave the apartment a kind of magical charm. Since the first story’s floor plan was the exact mirror image of the second floor, four identical apartments had been created by using the former grand entrance as the hallway and separating two units by a simple wall.

  Mrs Drake had explained the legal ramifications in our initial meeting, her yapping Pomeranian nestled in the crease of her fleshy arms. I hadn’t understood most of it, but found out that the completion of the two unfinished apartments was behind schedule due to a lawsuit that Jack had filed against the contractor. The settlement, now concluded, would allow for new contractors to be hired to complete the left part of the building.

  The blaze in the fireplace had eased and the shadows flickering across the walls were subtle, almost comforting. The rainbow-colored craze of flames was exhausting itself into a tamed orange glow.

  The next morning – four empty bottles on the couch proof of the number of night feedings – I took two aspirin for my headache. I waited for the buzzing in my head to ease, for my thoughts to stop spinning.

  The buzzer sent Mia into a frenzy. I went to her room, picked her up, and to my surprise she settled down the second the bottle hit her lips. Through the peephole I saw a shadow passing by the door.

  Later, after Mia had gone back to sleep, just as I was pulling her door shut, the doorbell buzzed again. This time I just yanked the door open. It was David Lieberman. He bowed his head and took off his hat.

  ‘I need to measure the pressure. Looks like we have to flush the pipes.’

  ‘I thought it was all taken care of,’ I said and added, ‘Kitchen or bathroom?’

  ‘Kitchen. The pipe connections in this building are a maze.’

  ‘So just turn on the water and check for what?’

  ‘May I?’ Lieberman put his hand on the door. Then he paused. ‘What happened here?’ he asked, gently stroking the door’s surface with his fingertips, the tips caressing every groove and dent.

  ‘I had some locks installed.’

  ‘You had some locks installed.’ Lieberman seemed puzzled, rubbing the chipped paint. ‘Low pressure is just inconvenient but high pressure can do a lot of damage,’ he said and held up some sort of gauge device.

  Mia was fussing in her crib. I could hear her getting more impatient, the intervals between her protests getting shorter, her objections louder and more urgent by the minute.

  ‘I don’t have much time,’ I said but I opened the door and stepped aside. He went straight to the kitchen and screwed the gauge to the faucet. I mumbled an apology and went to Mia’s room to change her diaper.

  I put her on the changing table, leaned over her, gently cooing, hoping she’d cooperate. The toy I handed her flew to the ground. Mia was delighted to be free of the diaper, stretching her limbs, enjoying how her
legs moved without a wad of diaper between them. She was all joy and play until it was time to put on a clean diaper. I distracted her as much as possible, but her body tensed and her legs stiffened to the point that it was tedious to pull the diaper through her legs to fasten the tabs. When I was finally done, I found Lieberman still under the kitchen sink.

  ‘Shouldn’t a plumber take a look at this?’ I distinctly remembered that he said he was just supervising the contractors. He stood by the sink and turned on the faucet. It barely trickled and the pipes emitted a humming noise, then the walls around us seemed to vibrate and I felt a tremor under my feet.

  ‘I’m going to have to turn the water main off.’ He pointed at Mia in my arms. ‘You’ll have to use bottled water in the meantime.’

  ‘How long is this going to take?’ He hadn’t even laid out his tools yet and I wondered what he’d been doing the entire time I had changed the diaper and dressed Mia. I felt a tinge of impatience.

  ‘I’ll take care of the pipes,’ he said and grabbed a wrench off the counter. ‘You just go and get some water.’ He pointed at my purse on the counter.

  I wasn’t in the mood to get dressed and run to the store, but I was happy to get away from the noise of groaning pipes and having to deal with Lieberman in general. I went into Mia’s room and held out my arms. Her face was blotched and her little mouth stretched wide. She reciprocated, settled down in my arms but then shook her head with a jarring motion from side to side. Instead of holding on to me, her arms grasped at the air, her shrill cries interrupted by her gasping for air.

  I put her in her stroller and grabbed my purse, hoping she’d settle down as we walked.

  As I passed by my usual market, Mia was still crying and I decided to continue further down the block to the next corner market. Minutes later it started to sprinkle and I covered the stroller with a blanket. Mia had fallen asleep when I entered the market. The clerk was framed by porn magazines in plastic pouches and probably had a shotgun stashed close by.

  I grabbed a gallon of water and made my way to the counter. Setting the water down, I reached in my purse. There was no wallet. I rummaged senselessly through the compartments filled with tissues and receipts as the clerk looked at me sideways. I mumbled an apology and quickly left.

  When I returned to North Dandry, Lieberman had gone. I checked the entire apartment for my wallet and found it sitting on the kitchen counter under a stack of mail and papers. Next to it sat a one-gallon jug of water. I shook my head, scolding myself for being so scatterbrained.

  I opened the fridge door. I felt a sinking feeling of despair as I stared at an array of bottles with baby formula.

  Between the wallet, the water, and the formula, I realized that at some point I had to admit to myself that the word forgetful was no longer accurate. Brain on fire was more like it. I didn’t even attempt to construct an elaborate rationalization as to why I couldn’t remember what I had done mere hours ago.

  A nagging voice in the back of my mind whispered what are you going to misplace next?

  Part Two

  Chapter 11

  As we cross into Queens, I catch a glimpse of Creedmoor Psychiatric Facility sitting silently on a hill overlooking the East River. Jack’s subdued, almost as if he’s in a trance. We ride in silence until he jerks the steering wheel to the right and almost sends my stomach over the edge. I dig my heels into the floor mats because there’s only one thing Jack hates more than a woman’s tears, and that’s vomit on his charcoal Corinthian leather seats. The car slides as if suspended on a bed of marbles and comes to an abrupt halt. Jack turns the key and silently we sit on a bed of gravel.

  I watch him as he hides his face behind his cupped hands. When he starts shaking his head, I hear sobs and I know Jack’s crying. He finally looks up and I’m amazed. Jack cries in style, silently, tears shaped like precious pearls rolling down his cheeks.

  I take deep breaths to calm my stomach, at the same time I try to figure out what’s going on with Jack. I remain removed from his pain, maybe because I’ve been alone with mine for so long that I just can’t seem to comfort him. I stare at the tears emerging from behind his hands and random facts pop into my head – that happy tears emerge from the right eye, the first tear from the left eye signals pain, and I don’t remember if that’s true or a myth – but either way, he doesn’t look right. Suddenly he’s slouched over, his shoulders are bobbing and his hands are rubbing his eyes. Jack’s composure resurfaces and his outburst is over just as quickly as it began.

  When he finally speaks, his voice is so low I can hardly understand him.

  ‘My entire life I knew how to deal with other people’s problems and then this happens and I’m just fucking lost.’

  He goes on to tell me how he hasn’t been sleeping, how he’s just muddling through and how all of this is swallowing him up and how I’m not the woman he married – that woman was dependable and capable – and how he’s been wondering if that woman will ever come back and how it doesn’t really matter because nothing will ever be the same. And how he is torn – he never says just what he is torn about – and how he just can’t wonder about the truth day in and day out and that living like this isn’t a life at all, and that there’s nothing heroic about fighting all the time, and that he’s no longer got the strength for both of us and now all he’s got left is the love for his daughter. And that she is so small and fragile and never did anything to harm anyone, and everything is just a mess and he can’t cope any longer but he will do everything in his power to bring her home.

  And then: ‘I don’t know what it is you did or didn’t do, Estelle, I just can’t wrap my mind around it and that’s why I have to step back.’

  Stepping back. I can’t fathom what stepping back entails, but I feel something taking hold, something sinister and rather final, but I’m behind with my thoughts and I’m not sure what’s going on, and therefore I just sit and listen and look at him hoping my facial expression is sympathetic and attentive.

  ‘I’ve defended people – guilty people, innocent people, people I didn’t know if they were guilty or not, because everyone has the right to counsel and a defense and that’s what being a lawyer is all about, that’s what this entire legal system is all about. But this is nothing like that at all, this is personal, this is my daughter.’

  His emotional quandary is the love for his daughter – and I give him that, he’s got his priorities straight – but I wish he would just say it, just say I don’t know if you’re guilty or not. That’s what it all comes down to.

  And then he goes on about how he didn’t do anything to deserve this, all he ever did was protect her and care for her and provide for her and he needs to concentrate on what’s important, and he can’t do that when he’s around me. He continues and I space out, not on purpose, it’s just something that happens, and once I jerk back into reality I’m not sure if I missed anything important. He uses words like doubt and responsibility – they roll off his tongue – and apprehension and contempt and my mind shrieks, yet I can’t interpret any of the words buzzing around in my head, can’t get them in the right order to make sense of them. I try to focus, come up with a coherent statement, anything that reassures him that I’m worthy of his trust. We share this space, the air, this moment, yet we couldn’t be farther apart. I want to scream at him that all I ever wanted was to protect her, and that I’m no different than he is, that I don’t deserve this either, and for fuck’s sake, what does stepping back even mean?

  And for a split second I have a moment of clarity and I understand that he’s failed me, that he’s to blame for this, that he didn’t live up to his responsibilities, that I at least tried while he just … just gave up on me. That Mia wasn’t safe because I wasn’t well and that he abandoned me and therefore he abandoned both of us a long time ago.

  But I don’t tell him any of this because we’ve talked too much about how I feel, and I know he’s done illuminating my pain. It’s all about him now and why he’s
come to the conclusion to … what was it again? To step back.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says and his voice cracks. ‘I can’t think about what happened to my daughter and love you at the same time.’

  I look at myself in the exterior side view mirror. He’s right, as always, Jack is right, there’s no telling what I did. I can’t be trusted. I want to come up with some sort of consolation for him, I want to tell him that I understand and that he’s right, and that he needs to concentrate on finding our daughter, I want to say something coherent, something supportive, and I think I can get there, I trust myself enough that I can console him.

  ‘Sometimes I imagine her dead,’ I say and stare straight ahead. I hear my own voice, so small and meek, and I know I have failed him yet again.

  Later, at the Creedmoor intake office, the nurse bends over to pick up my suitcase. I turn and realize Jack’s left without my noticing, not so much as a last word. I feel myself unraveling like a ball of yarn but I manage to hold on. I wonder how many failures Jack’s had in his life and I can’t think of a single one, except me. He cannot connect with failure, it’s that simple. And I decide to abandon hope and just let it be. Jack’s left me and we have to cope, apart from each other. It feels familiar, I know what it means when someone is gone, comes up missing, stolen, kidnapped, whatever. Whatever.

  Someone asks me to sign paperwork but my hands shake so badly that the pen slips right out of them. It lands softly on the marble floor, bouncing a couple of times, and then it comes to rest. I stare at the floor. The cream marble tile background is in stark contrast to the bold brown veining. There is an oval within the grain of the marble, the size and shape of an egg maybe. As I reach for the pen, I hear a small sob, almost gentle, that erupts and makes its way out of my very own throat. I drop to my knees, unable to take my eyes off the shape of a baby’s bloody footprint embedded in the shiny floor. I try to wipe it away but I can’t.