Little Girl Gone

by Alexandra Burt

French toast is churning in my stomach, but I vow to keep in control. Thirty minutes into the ride the queasiness begins to leave me, but a substantial pressure has settled between my eyes, leaving fuzzy outlines of passing cars like laser tracers in the dark.

  ‘What happened to your hair?’ Dr Ari asks.

  I lean to the left but can’t see myself in the rearview mirror.

  ‘I cut it last night. Do you like it?’

  I try to sound indifferent but I’m not, I actually hate what I’ve done to it. Wanting my outside to reflect the change I’ve been going through on the inside, I attempted to change something about me, something visible, something everybody would notice.

  Knowing that today’s trip was imminent, I wondered where to turn for support – what a juvenile notion – and remembered a specific Catholic saint. Both my parents were Catholic, and even though they weren’t practicing, my birth certificate proclaims the same denomination. My brother shares his name with Saint Anthony, a Franciscan monk with tonsured hair and the patron saint of lost articles and missing persons, who cut his hair as a symbol of his renunciation of the world. I felt compelled, for a second, to shave my entire head, but then decided to shorten my hair to symbolize a new beginning. It seemed like some sort of clemency, a freeing myself from past sins. But maybe I made too much of it and it was just my way of offering St. Anthony a sacrifice to appease him, for this day seems frightening and promising at the same time. For all it’s worth, I’m not bald.

  ‘Does your hair have anything to do with our trip today?’ Dr Ari seems impartial regarding my hair but asks nevertheless.

  His insight into my motivation is uncanny, yet I remain elusive. ‘I was ready for a change, I guess. That’s all.’ There’s this sadness again, it sits somewhere between my heart and my stomach, a feeling I’ve never been able to describe appropriately, more a sensation, making me crave cold water as if to calm some sort of deeply seated thirst within me. I run my fingers through my hair, starting at the right temple. It used to reach way past my shoulders; now it barely covers the scar that reminds everyone that I’m missing an ear.

  I study Oliver’s profile. He seems nonchalant about this trip, but I imagine him relieved at not having to administer Valium and fasten straightjackets.

  ‘What do you think, Oliver?’ I look at him and I know he is supposed to ignore my attempts to converse with him.

  ‘Change is good,’ Oliver says and winks at me, causing Dr Ari to clear his throat.

  Dr Ari doesn’t mention the fact that my mangled ear is now clearly visible but I’m sure he will eventually. Impulsive as it was, I wanted the world to see that, regardless of what I’ve done, something was done to me.

  We drive silently for a long while. Dr Ari hasn’t elaborated on specific goals for the day, just told me to go with the flow, to let it happen. I hope I can bring a story back to him, lay it at his feet like a slaughtered goat, an offering to the god of lost memories.

  At the same time I wonder what Dr Ari’s bag of tricks holds. I keep peering at his briefcase – he seems to be guarding it rather obsessively – and I imagine surgical blades, bone saws, and rubber mallets. I picture Dr Ari stranded on an island, allowed three items of his choice. I pick for him; a lint remover, a digital recorder, and the Quran. Oliver is harder to pinpoint; a radio perhaps, a dog, and a pack of smokes?

  As we approach North Dandry, I feel a stroller handle between my fingers. Other moms used to give me dirty looks as I pushed a crying infant along. Once we’d reach Drummer’s Cove, Mia always calmed down, the rhythm of the drums, the noisy summer celebrations, and the dancers would always lull her to sleep.

  Prospect Park appears on the left and North Dandry is to our right. When we reach 517, the van pulls over and parks at the curb. On the sidewalk, I watch a dog walker struggling with three greyhounds. The leashes are tangled, the dogs’ tails tucked beneath their streamlined bodies, pointing at their deep chests.

  As the dog walker asserts control over the pack, I hear a clicking sound. Dr Ari has opened his magic bag. He’s holding a plastic evidence bag with a blue adhesive closure strip in his hands. He breaks the seal and hands me Mia’s blanket. The experiment has begun. It’s uncanny how the close proximity of the brownstone and Mia’s blanket in Dr Ari’s hands recreate the perfect spark that’s needed to set my memory ablaze.

  I force myself to look straight ahead. Scent is magic that brings forth a rush of vivid memories, time travel at its finest. Can we string memories like beads on a thread and wear them around our necks? And will greyhounds forever prompt me to recall of this very experiment?

  Scientific facts tumble around in my mind. Scent, the most powerful trigger of all, activates the olfactory bulb, which is connected to the brain’s limbic system, therefore calling up memories almost instantaneously. When we experience a scent for the first time, we link it to an event, a person, or a moment. The smell of chlorine is forever embedded in our brain as the memory of summer days or a specific moment like panic after falling into the pool.

  I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and then I let go.

  There is a switch inside of me, a switch I can only describe as a powerful tilt towards another point in time. I hear the rustling and crackling of a plastic bag. I take in a mixture of baby powder, fastening tape, moisturizer, synthetic diaper, and fragrance. Mia. The odor is faint, yet produces powerful physical and emotional reactions. As much as I don’t want to look at it, even want to escape the scent in the enclosed van, I surrender to its force. Whatever I have been keeping at bay unleashes like a herd of wild mustangs charging through an open gate. A memory reaches my brain as a scent, yet it’s more than that. It’s the all-encompassing sensation of my daughter.

  Random scenes rush at me.

  A newborn’s face rests on my chest. Covered in blood and glop, her skull bruised, her skin a bluish tint. My brain stumbles. Her frailness surprises me, her alertness keeps me at bay.

  Nighttime feedings, one after the other. The crying, its urgency yanks at me, tugs at me like a rubber band stretched to its limit. Her wails tighten the rubber band, jerking at it to the point of rupture.

  Madness located in my jaw. I pull the pacifier out of her mouth, replace it with a bottle before the crying starts. Like a dog’s jaw I sink my teeth into the plastic and hold on with hundreds of pounds of pressure. Her pacifier handles are rimmed with the marks of my teeth.

  The soft spot between the bony plates of her skull, the fontanel, holds this madness and like a wicked invitation I wonder how deep my thumb will go and how hard I have to push before the crying stops.

  Short spans of sanity among the madness. Three noises capable of drowning the cries: the running shower, the vacuum, the radio. All three at once are heaven. I’ve established the holy trinity.

  I’ve made a mistake. Wanting to hold her and cradle her and look into her eyes, cooing her name and smiling – all those feelings and gestures have become alien to me.

  I’m committed; I change diapers, I bathe her, I feed her. But nothing comes easy. Not my love for her, not my being everything to her.

  Her neediness thrashes inside of me like a creature, tearing at me from the inside out.

  I’m not a good mother.

  There is Jack. His face aglow, he holds her instinctively, his love is primal. His eyes adore her. A king protecting his kingdom, aware of the pressure, selfless and courageous. Our happiness depends on him. He accepts this fate. He is rewarded by joyous crows and capers. As for me, I’m not worthy of this crown.

  The visions release me like a giant’s hand returning me to the backseat of the van. Rain pounds the roof like rapid machine gun fire. When did the rain start? When did the skies darken and unleash their wrath on me? My face is wet and I’m shaking. I feel like an open wound.

  I grab the handkerchief Dr Ari offers me and wipe my eyes. The rain stops as suddenly as it started. I look through the window of the parked van and see Oliver across the street at the park entrance, sitting o
n a bench under a gazebo, wires from his pocket reach his ears. He pets an occasional dog, and his eyes follow a group of girls strolling by. I envy him; how easy it must be to guard instead of being guarded. He takes something out of his pocket, some sort of tool, and he starts chipping away at it as if he’s carving some elaborate meerschaum pipe.

  Dr Ari, his digital recorder in his hand, the blanket in the other, studies my face. The close proximity of our bodies is awkward and uncomfortable.

  I exit the van, give the door a determined pull and watch it slide shut on its suspended tracks.

  North Dandry is tree-lined and straight as a ruler. Brownstone row houses sit in harmony like books on a shelf, all old, all narrow. Their façades range from muted yellows to reds and grays. Further down, as North Dandy turns into Fullerton, the houses switch from Gothic to Greek and Italian revival. North Dandry’s brownstones blend into a cumulative front of arched windows, large chimneys, and cast-iron stair rails and fences.

  The Norway maple in front of 517 rests silently in its own island of tightly packed soil surrounded by a wrought-iron fence amidst otherwise concrete landscape. I could have sworn the tree in front of North Dandry was a hemlock and not a maple.

  I look at Dr Ari, waiting for him to give me instructions. Pulling a set of keys out of his coat pocket, he lowers his glasses onto the tip of his nose and fumbles for a specific key.

  His voice is as composed as ever. ‘The building is vacant,’ he says and offers me a large gold key between his thumb and his index finger. Is his plan as easy as it is crazy; just go in and demand the building’s memories? What if the building has a soul and is angry at me? Could it punish me for what’s happened here?

  ‘Unlock the door and enter the apartment. Walk through, touch anything you feel like touching.’ He nods and steps aside. He lifts his right arm as if welcoming me into his home – my home. ‘Go ahead.’

  I take the key from him and walk up the steps to the front door of the building. I insert the key into the lock and turn it to the right. I push and the door opens.

  ‘Entering 517 North Dandry,’ Dr Ari says and turns on the recorder.

  An intrusive paint odor greets me, the freshly painted hallways are harsh and white, almost blinding. My temples start pulsating the moment I set foot over the threshold.

  The door to my apartment is unlocked. Standing in its hallway feels familiar yet strange at the same time, as if I’ve travelled through time. I’m unsure of what to do next. Is there going to be a magical scent, a sound, or a taste that’s supposed to answer all my questions?

  I notice black powder marks on the doors and remnants of yellow police tape. Even though the police have undoubtedly gone through the apartment, the place looks tidy. No cabinet doors ajar, no drawer contents poking out. The only sign of strangers having been here are the blinds stuck halfway, leaving the place in slight disarray.

  As I enter Mia’s room, my heartbeat accelerates. I cannot dispute the peculiar energy of the empty crib in front of the window. The room looks as if volcanic ash has descended upon it. The crib mattress and the bumper have been removed. It seems as if the colors of the room have been adjusted since the last time I was here, everything seems brighter, and the room is bathed in light spilling through the blinds. The crib slats are covered in black powder, so are the dresser, the changing table, the closet door, and the windows. A sense of guilt weighs on me, as if I have done something that can’t be undone, without knowing exactly what it is. I want to make amends, confess, but it’s only a feeling, vague like a ghost, without form and body.

  The Tinker Bell mobile above her crib dangles, crooked and abandoned.

  The night sky projection lamp is missing its dome, a sad turtle without its shell. Someone must have removed it to examine the inside of the lamp. I step closer. Two wind-up cogs, a battery chamber. The light bulb is missing. I run my finger along the rim of the opening, remembering how much Mia loved the stars travelling across the walls and the ceiling. A sticker on the rim, partially pulled off, Keep Out of Reach of Children.

  My hand starts trembling and I jerk back when something pecks at my finger. I stare at the crimson line and I realize I have sliced my finger on a tiny shard sticking out of the groove where the dome used to be. I rub my bloody index finger against the tip of my thumb. The blood is warm between my fingers and the sticky sensation turns a crank and, like a jack-in-the-box, the thought bobbles, then it rests, comes into focus. The melody it plays is one of thunder rumbling in my head and I witness my mind reassembling the moment the memory was created.

  Blood, lots of blood.

  Tears forging a soft trail down bloody cheeks.

  Naked feet stumping furiously among the shards.

  Bloody footprints leaving a path the length of the front crib rail.

  Hands and feet covered in cuts and nicks and wounds.

  My mind shuts down, unwilling to proceed. But I need to know. I need to know what happened. I grip the image as if I’m floating in the middle of an ocean clinging to a piece of driftwood.

  The image returns, the random vision of a figment of my amnesiac imagination, a half-hearted truth then, the very first day I woke up in the hospital. Now I know it wasn’t a vision after all.

  The assembly continues; the night of the hurricane, the power outage, the smoke detector. The molten bottle parts and pacifier.

  I have to go further, I have to force my mind. I am so close.

  I run all four fingers of my right hand over the rim of the domeless turtle lamp. I press hard and I linger, I feel the spiky glass cut the tips of my fingers. And then I run my fingers over the spiky shards, again and again and again.

  A glass dome.

  Keep Out of Reach of Children.

  Not a toy.

  And then the memory forms, in its entirety. Seeing is believing, they say, but feeling is the ultimate truth. I wait the memory out, allow it to spiral its circular path like a balloon without its opening tied up, until it lies there, deflated, empty.

  It was the day the eye of hurricane Irene had plowed through the New York Metropolitan area, drenching everything from the Carolina coast to northern New England in over twenty inches of rain within 24 hours. Mayor Bloomberg had called for the evacuation of low-lying areas in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and Manhattan.

  By late evening the power in Brooklyn had gone out, intermittently at first, then my street, North Dandry, was completely without power. There wasn’t a single streetlamp lit, and Brooklyn was bathed in darkness.

  A battery-operated lamp in Mia’s nursery was the only light source in the entire house. Its turtle-shaped dome projected a starry night onto the walls and ceiling. Mia, seven months, was finally asleep in her crib. Her small frame was settled against the bumper, arms tucked under, and butt up in the air.

  It was daylight when I woke on the couch to a loud and eerie moaning. I was disoriented at first, but then realized the sound originated from the recessed exterior of the building. The wind howled and lamented, shaking the window shutters. Voices trailed my way from the living room. Suddenly I smelled burning rubber and the high-pitched smoke alarm jerked me into reality. Puzzle pieces snapped into place and the scorched smell became familiar; nothing but sterilized bottle parts and pacifiers I had left on the stove. The power must have come back on and the water boiled until it evaporated, leaving molten plastic on the bottom of the scorched pot.

  The TV in the living room continued to babble, updating viewers about the state of the city’s power grid. I grabbed a bottle of formula from the fridge, dropped it in the bottle warmer, and entered Mia’s room, slowly making my way towards the crib.

  Red. Everything is red. No. No. No.

  Later, as the sun came up, shadows of Mia’s eyelashes against her cheeks, I cupped her feet in my palms. And I apologized to her, again and again.

  Keep Out of Reach of Children.

  After my heartbeat slows, I allow myself to connect the dots. I had left the projection lamp w
ith the glass dome next to her bed. Mia must have grabbed it, pulled it into her crib and somehow broke the dome. Mia’s fingers and feet were covered in tiny nicks but after I cleaned her up she didn’t look half as bad as she had while covered in blood. Her vaccination appointment was two days later. I didn’t know how to explain the nicks and cuts on her hands to the doctor. That’s why I missed the appointment. And consequently without a shot record, there was no daycare. And before I could make another appointment, Mia was gone.

  Keep Out of Reach of Children.

  I couldn’t even get that right. Something I should have known, like not leaving her unattended in the tub, no, not even with a sticker telling me explicitly what to do.

  I also remember not knowing half the time how I ended up on the couch or in my bed. Not being able to figure out if Mia was crying or if I was merely hearing an echo in my head. And then leaving something clearly dangerous close to her crib.

  And I’m wondering what else I had neglected to do.

  I leave Mia’s room and go to my bedroom, where everything is covered in a layer of dust. My clothes are still in the closet, there’s an empty glass sitting on the nightstand, its yellow content dried up like honey. The scented candle fragrant with bergamot and despair hangs in the air.

  I wonder if Jack’s been here, if he walked through these rooms, if he tried to connect the dots as to what happened. I wonder if he opened drawers, rattled the bars on the windows. Being here feels as if I’m disturbing the past, my mere presence is upsetting the layer of microscopic particles deposited the day Mia disappeared. I want to leave it undisturbed, to maintain its crime scene status for all eternity, and I wish for supernatural powers so every thumbprint and DNA trace will expose a hint as to what happened within these walls.

  I feel tired suddenly. I sit at the foot of the bed and close my eyes. Sitting here, I don’t remember Mia’s first words (was it something like ba-ba or da-da?), the first time she sat up (was it on the floor or in her stroller?), the first time she rolled over, held her own bottle. There were smiles, but they didn’t fill me with joy. Bottles, diapers, crying, over and over, twenty times over, day by day. I was covered in dust, just like this apartment.