Little Girl Gone

by Alexandra Burt

  Dr Ari watches me fold my arms in front of my chest.

  ‘Jack used to call me his princess, he was old-fashioned in many ways; flowers, gifts, opening doors, that kind of thing. But nothing was as it seemed, Jack had money problems, some investment gone awry, and he eventually took a job in Chicago. It was a temporary job but it paid well and it allowed us to get out of debt.’

  After he reaches into his desk drawer, Dr Ari takes off his glasses and polishes the lenses with a cloth. Is he ready to look closer or is he just tired of smudges infesting his world?

  Tapping his pen on the folder in front of him, he then opens the folder and shuffles papers around. He wants to make sure he gets it right.

  ‘Mia was seven months old and it must’ve been a difficult decision for your husband to make, considering the state you were in.’

  ‘Women raise children alone every day.’

  ‘Tell me about how you were feeling.’ Dr Ari reels me back in, not willing to let go of what’s on the other end of this rope.

  I look around his office, trying to focus on something that will allow my heartbeat to slow. The pounding in my temples is painful, as if there is something trapped inside of me trying to escape.

  I tell him how I was tired, overwhelmed, covered in spit-up. How ever since I had Mia, I felt I didn’t belong in the body of a mother. How going out just meant having to put on clothes and a fake smile for the world around me. How my dark days started with watching Jack leave in a dry-cleaned suit and a starchy shirt, smelling of shoe polish and coffee and, when the door closed behind him, how I descended into darkness. Then Jack came home and I was still alone. And I descended even deeper. How I couldn’t keep up with her demands, how Jack told me, in so many words, to snap out of it. And how all those months of Jack telling me to get it together had finally paid off and by the time he went to Chicago to allow us a new start I had managed to turn myself inside out, like a dirty sock, into a better, more cheerful version of myself.

  ‘Did you ever see a doctor?’ Dr Ari’s eyes are observant and concerned.

  When I tell him a doctor prescribed antidepressants, he asks if I ever saw a professional, a counselor or psychiatrist, and if I ever attempted therapy.

  ‘Therapy was the last thing I needed. Imagining the sound of my own voice going over the same old stuff made me sick just thinking about it.’

  I hold myself perfectly still. I lower my eyes. I focus on the manila folder in front of Dr Ari. His hands are folded, resting on top, his manicured nails shiny and perfectly shaped. I wonder what the file holds. Police reports, medical files, photographs, newspaper articles.

  ‘I don’t want you to think that it was all doom and gloom. The fact that I created a miracle wasn’t lost on me, not for a second. I loved Mia so much I thought my heart was going to explode out of my body. But when she started crying all the time, the days became endless.’ The last word prompts me to shake my head.

  Dr Ari’s eyes have the generic expression reserved for the borderline insane. ‘Did you feel like a bad mother when you couldn’t stop her from crying?’

  ‘I did what the doctors told me to do but nothing worked.’

  I felt watched, observed, under a microscope. I tell Dr Ari that I saw it in their eyes. Watch the crazy woman who can’t take care of her baby. Doctors. Jack. Nurses. People in the streets. They gave me advice, do this, do that, don’t rock her so hard, rock her more, let her cry it out, hold her, everybody and everywhere, at grocery stores, at the park.

  ‘When nothing worked, what did you tell yourself?’

  ‘Now, at this very moment, I understand that things change. That everything passes, that the way I felt was not the way it was going to end. But back then, my world didn’t reach any further than the moment I was in. I was easy pickings.’

  ‘Did you think Mia was suffering? Did you think you had to somehow absolve her from you as a mother, from her pain? Was that a thought in your mind?’

  My brain is racing for ways out and a rush of heat overtakes me. Thoughts accelerate inside my head, I want them to slow but they don’t.

  ‘There are things I can’t say out loud. It’s like I’m wearing an armor.’

  ‘Can you try to write it down?’ Dr Ari pushes my journal towards me. He takes a deep breath in and then breathes out, releasing his frustration. It escapes and fills the room with heaviness. ‘You didn’t write in your journal yesterday. Why not?’

  His irritation engulfs me like a heavy cloud. I haven’t delivered the goods; I haven’t kept up my end of the bargain. Lately I think so hard my head hurts; every day, during our sessions, every night when I write in my journal, every waking moment, I think. Even my dreams are constant inquiries, intrusively probing for the truth.

  There’s a wall, and regardless of how hard I try to will myself to see what’s on the other side, it never manifests itself. Instead, I get headaches – pounding, dull headaches – right behind my eyes.

  ‘Tell me what you didn’t write down.’

  I raise my voice. ‘It was nothing, really. A large tree obstructing the view of a building. In my dream the wind moves the branches, makes them sway, but I can barely see past them. The windows are looking at me like eyes, I’m close, so close, but then it all disappears and I’m back where I started.’

  ‘In a dream, a tree is never just a tree.’ Dr Ari tries to coax me back to the path of recollection, littered with pebbles supposed to trigger my memory, so I may continue with the story he longs to hear. He retrieves my journal and studies the last entry.

  Since I’ve arrived at Creedmoor my sleeping pattern has adjusted. The constant anxious state I was in had made it hard to settle down but the rigid schedule at Creedmoor forces some sort of tranquility upon me. I’m no longer a walking zombie, no longer unable to focus on mundane tasks.

  Dr Ari explained to me that I needed to verbally state my desire to recall my dreams as I am falling asleep. I’ve been using a special digital alarm clock that wakes me every ninety minutes starting at three o’clock in the morning, during or immediately after the REM periods of sleep. Last night something changed. It started with dream images of a small house, only one square room. There was a river running by the side of the house. The house slightly leaning towards the river. The river was moving recklessly, its currents were powerful, almost raging. I was aware of the danger, I could almost feel the pressure the raging waters put on the walls around me. They were straining, the walls of the room were screeching and moaning. I could see water trickling through the cracks and I knew it was just a matter of time before the door would give way to the power of the flood. It was just a matter of time before the waters would gush forth and the river would pick me up and carry me away. In my dream I was searching for a way out of the house and when the alarm woke me, I was still searching.

  As I nibble on my frayed nails I remember how it felt, searching frantically, heart pounding, breathing rapid and shallow. Sometimes you remember one thing, and that one thing makes you remember something else and before you know it, you remember everything.

  I’m tired. Tired of reducing my memories to rubble, tired of unfolding the membranes and layers of my brain when all I do is make up stories. That’s what they are. Stories. I’m in survival mode and my mind has muzzled the truth, instead lies I tell myself swirl all around me, suffocating the truth. Am I a Monster?

  Instead I say, ‘What I neglected to write down was that last night I remembered when I left the house to search for Mia.’

  Dr Ari flips through the pages in the manila folder. He pulls out the North Dandry blueprint stapled to the property deed. A blueprint of a house, a map of its rooms, hallways, and doors. He unfolds it, and disappears behind it as if he is casually reading the Sunday morning paper. He realizes the words are upside down and he flips it over and continues to study. The waxen paper is strong; its creases resist any fold but the original one.

  For a moment I’m mesmerized by the sound of the paper. I wonder if words a
nd pictures imprinted on it alter its sound. The sound of candy wrappers holds the promise of sweetness, wrapping paper evokes Christmas mornings and birthday wishes fulfilled.

  The map reminds me of my father’s maps tucked away in trunks in his study, old and frequently handled. Touching them sounded like the passing of distances itself, parchment and vellum, lightweight and translucent. Made from sheep skin, its animal source outdated compared to the waxed paper floor plan Dr Ari is holding in his hands. I can almost hear the blueprint of North Dandry in his hands starting to vibrate.

  Finally Dr Ari emerges from his paper fortification. He puts the blueprint on his desk. The floor plan is littered with interior walls and hallways, their orientation downward from above. Dr Ari is looking at God’s view of a human attempt to create shelter from his wrath.

  ‘Tell me about your search.’

  What kind of mother would I be if I didn’t look for my child?

  I tried to force myself to think logically. The first thing you do when you’ve lost something is to go look for it. I had read articles about parents who had left infants in the backseats of cars, in strollers, and even at daycares, forgotten like an umbrella on the subway or a bag at a restaurant.

  I stood on the sidewalk and looked left, then right. There was an abandoned red couch on the curb, a cardboard sign ‘Take Me’ propped up in the corner.

  I shielded my eyes with both hands to see through the tinted windows of my car. Nothing but an empty car seat stared back at me. I hit the unlock button on the keyless remote and the trunk popped open. Mia’s old rear-facing baby seat and the old empty suitcase I took to New Jersey a long time ago. I had switched prematurely to a front-facing seat because Mia seemed calmer when she was able to see me. The suitcase in the trunk was dented; the locking mechanism no longer worked. It was the same suitcase I had taken to Jersey so many years ago.

  I closed the trunk with a hefty thump. The street noises were familiar, it was Sunday and from the church across the street, St. Joseph’s, organ pipes sustained the tones of an unfamiliar hymn. About a hundred yards further down the street was the subway entrance. A homeless woman sat by the iron fence leading downstairs. A small dog cowered on a piece of cardboard next to her, a greasy bandana wrapped around its neck. When I approached, the dog lifted its head. The woman wore at least three or four layers of clothes. The top layer was a large black garbage bag with a hole for her head and two for her arms. Next to her sat two plastic bags bursting with clothes and blankets. Her eyes were closed but her posture was tense.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said and watched one of her eyes open. The dog growled and got up. She put her dirty hand on the dog’s back. He lowered himself back down to the ground but kept an eye on me.

  ‘What d’ya want?’ she demanded.

  ‘Have you been sitting here long?’ I asked.

  She sat in silence.

  ‘Have you seen someone leave my building with a …’ I hesitated. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. I stepped closer and the dog let out a low growl. ‘A baby,’ I added and realized immediately how insane that sounded.

  ‘Got some change?’ The woman pulled a banana from underneath her raincoat garbage bag.

  ‘No, no I don’t, I don’t have my wallet on me, but I need to know if you saw anyone leave the building down there,’ I pointed down the street, towards 517, ‘kind of where that red couch is. With a baby. Did you see anyone with a baby?’

  ‘I see a lot.’ She made a sucking noise through her teeth and unpeeled the overripe fruit. Then she looked me up and down. ‘A baby you say? Your baby?’

  ‘Yes, she’s seven months old, someone took her. Did you see anything?’

  ‘Your baby’s gone?’ she asked and her toothless gums pinched off a piece of the banana. ‘Should’ve kept her close.’ She smacked her lips, taking another bite. ‘I have a son,’ she continued. ‘You wanna see him? He’s always with me.’ She scanned the sidewalk as if to make sure there weren’t any onlookers. The dog gladly took what was left of her banana.

  ‘Your son?’ I asked.

  ‘My son.’

  ‘I don’t … just … I really just need to know if you saw anything.’

  She reached under her raincoat bag, dug deep within the layers and pulled out a bundle of dirty rags. She unfolded the fabric, one corner at a time, as if the bundle contained a precious gem. When she lifted the last corner, she smiled a toothless smile. There was a large brown mass nestled between the folds. I swallowed hard. A stench of decay drifted my way.

  ‘I wish I had a home for him,’ the woman said and stroked a mummified squirrel with her blackened fingertips. ‘He’s in bad shape. This ain’t no place to keep a child. You have something I can put him in?’

  She held up the bundle. An incision ran the length of the squirrel’s stomach. I shuddered and turned my head. I fought to stay in control of my stomach but the battle was all but lost.

  I ran less than half a block down North Dandry, towards Liberty Street. I turned into an alley to the right, the back of a deli facing Linden Street to the front, and I vomited. Then I continued to heave, unable to get the hollow cavity of the squirrel’s shell out of my head.

  I finally looked around: an array of fruit crates filled with wilted lettuces and shriveled cucumbers on top of dented cans of chick peas. The stench was horrific. A decaying and almost liquefied head of lettuce sat on top of a food crate filled with cadaverous tomatoes, dented cans of corn, flattened milk cartons, and a mesh bag of shriveled oranges covered in a bluish-green mold.

  Walking back towards 517, I again passed the homeless woman. The dog looked up at me, but this time wagged its tail. The woman’s eyes were closed, her head resting on her chest. I walked past her, down North Dandry. I opened the trunk of my car, sat the car seat on the ground, and grabbed the dented suitcase.

  I kept my eyes on the woman, and even as I placed the suitcase down next to her, she remained silent and motionless.

  I sat on the couch in the living room for what felt like hours. It was so quiet that I was aware of my own heartbeat. I tried to occupy my mind with questions like where to look, where I had already looked, what to do next. I pushed thoughts of fear for Mia’s wellbeing and life aside, as if not entertaining them made them less possible. And then it struck me, a newly formed logic, a possibility I hadn’t thought of yet. I wasn’t any different than the old homeless woman on the corner passing off a hollowed-out squirrel as her son.

  This is crazy, all of this is crazy.

  No one came and took Mia.

  No one took her clothes and her bottles and her formula.

  No one walked through walls with her diapers, no one got past the locks and bolts and bars. There was only one logical explanation for this entire scenario: there was no baby. There never had been a baby. Mia was but a figment of my imagination. How else could I explain that everything belonging to my baby was gone? Clothes, diapers, bottles. I needed proof, proof that she had really existed. I needed to convince myself that I wasn’t crazy.

  I got up and went to the bedroom. I took off my shirt and my bra. I stood with my back to the long dressing mirror. I remained still, preparing for a moment of truth. Certainly there would be marks on my body if I had given birth. There should be excess weight around the midsection, soft, flabby skin not quite back to its original state. There should be stretch marks, a linea nigra, and darkened nipples.

  My sanity depended on what I was going to see in the mirror. I took in a deep breath and turned around. The woman in the mirror was lean, on the verge of being bony. Her cheekbones were pronounced, her skin seemed paper-thin. Her breasts were of normal size. There were no stretch marks, no darkened line down her belly or enlarged nipples.

  I followed the contours of my stomach, hesitated at the waistband. I closed my eyes and pulled the elastic down. A horizontal surgical scar from a caesarean section, raised and pink. I traced the cord of scar tissue, the palpable bumps, the ridge of sutures, with my fingers.<
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  It was real. I wasn’t crazy after all. I couldn’t believe that I’d ever doubted Mia existed and the fact that I stood in front of a mirror checking my body for signs of recent childbearing, now seemed ridiculous. But I wasn’t so much surprised that I hadn’t imagined Mia. I had expected a model thin body, but I was merely skin and bones. What happened? What the hell had happened to me? When did I go from a once attractive woman to this? A few more weeks and I’d be nothing but skeletal remains.

  The biggest surprise wasn’t that I hadn’t imagined Mia. The real surprise was that this bony and emaciated woman, this lunatic in the mirror, was in one piece.

  What held her together I had no idea.

  Part Three

  Chapter 15

  Dawn has not yet given way to the morning light when an orderly escorts us to a white van. I sit in the back, Dr Ari sits to my left, behind the driver seat. His briefcase rests between us, with his right arm on top as if guarding a secret hiding between its leather skin and silk fabric lining. We depart down the serpentine driveway flanked by weeping willows. Their branches waft in the breeze like the coattails of an eerie congregation.

  The orderly, who I’ve seen occasionally during mealtimes, wears a leather jacket over his scrubs. His name is Oliver. His fingertips are callused, and veins, like blue rivers, travel up and disappear into the sleeves of his jacket. When the time is right I will inquire about the rugged condition of his hands, but for now, I watch his fingers operating the radio. He is young and good-looking and I decide to use him as a distraction.

  Dr Ari wears a suit and a trench coat. This is the first time I’ve seen him not shrouded in white. The radio volume is low yet I recognize Maroon 5’s ‘She Will Be Loved.’