Little Girl Gone

by Alexandra Burt

  I stepped on the gas and the car started moving. The tires dragged across the gravel, slowly accelerating. I grabbed the gun with my right hand and held it against my temple.

  Fifty yards, at the most. I reached for the seatbelt, tempted to unbuckle it, to get out of the car. Some sicko’s lap, she’d said. I had no argument left, no offer, nothing but my ability to barter my life for Mia’s future.

  Thirty yards. The Range Rover accelerated, moved faster, much faster.

  Ten yards. My entire world was covered in a sticky substance that reeked of metal.

  One yard. I pulled the trigger. There were sparks and a loud pop. Then my ear tingled and my head snapped back. I felt as if someone had injected pepper in my veins. My body lifted off the seat and I felt weightless, like riding a Ferris wheel. It seemed like forever until my stomach dropped and the car landed. Surrounded by the sickening crunch of metal collapsing, I heard glass shattering. My body jerked in all directions. Then everything went silent.

  And, like a death row inmate’s last meal, I asked for one last wish. The choices were endless; time travel, a reverse button, the power to become invisible, resurrecting the dead, undoing the chaotic knots of my tangled life. I must make my selection wisely. I must be precise, cover all possibilities, and leave no room for error or interpretation.

  And then my last wish took shape, primal and powerful; Mia, I wish that we’ll meet again at another place and time, when my body is molded perfectly so you can curl against it.

  Chapter 25

  When we enter the 70th Precinct on Lawrence Avenue, I recall the janitor, the urge I had felt to walk out and leave the building. I understand now that I saw the world through a lens, a lens of a brain crammed with hormones and doubts, thoughts jam-packed with contortions, deformation, distortion, and falsifications. The police would have found the dumbwaiter, would have questioned David Lieberman, everything could have been so much easier. Another notch in my belt of failings.

  An orderly I have never seen before takes us downtown. As Dr Ari and I pass through the glass doors and wait by the front counter, I can see our reflections in the glass. I’m disheveled and worn; Dr Ari is pressed, lint-free, and cheerful. One impeccably dressed man, probably passing as a lawyer, and a woman with a strange haircut and a missing ear. I can feel the memory of the day I walked in here wanting to take over but I remind myself that things are different now. This time I have all the answers.

  The clerk looks at us and motions us up to the counter. ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘Detective Wilczek, please.’

  The clerk picks up the phone and we sit down. After a couple of minutes a detective in slacks and a light-blue shirt, his tie tucked into his waistband, walks up to us. The gun in his holster seems too small for his body. His nametag reads ‘Detective Robert Wilczek.’

  First the name rings a bell, and then the face. I remember him from the hospital. He was one of the detectives who questioned me. His face seems slack and disinterested, but then he makes eye contact and straightens his tie. I realize his face isn’t relaxed at all but merely composed. A blue bulging vein runs across his left temple.

  ‘I’m Detective Wilczek.’

  ‘I remember you.’ Mrs Paradise, children don’t just disappear out of locked apartments. ‘I’m here to report a crime.’

  I had lost my child, then I found her, then I left her, and when I went back to get her she was gone. For a while, I couldn’t remember, but now I do. And I know who took her. But not where she is now.

  ‘I know what happened to my daughter,’ I say.

  He looks at me, then at Dr Ari who is determined to allow me to do the talking. He will only speak when I’m not capable of relaying the story. That’s how he was when we met and he hasn’t faltered since.

  ‘We’ve been speaking on the phone. Dr Ari I assume?’ Detective Wilczek asks and they shake hands.

  ‘Dr Solska Ari. I’m Psychiatrist in Chief at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Clinic. Mrs Estelle Paradise has been a patient at Creedmoor for the past month.’

  The detective clears his throat. ‘Let’s find a place to talk.’ Detective Wilczek motions to the clerk behind the counter and asks her to call Detective Riverton and meet us in Room 1.

  We walk down the corridor, its blue linoleum polished to perfection. We follow the detective, like ducklings following their mother. The interrogation room consists of a table and three chairs, nothing else. The walls are made of plastic panels, the floor covered in industrial carpet.

  Dr Ari and Detective Wilczek leave the room, I can hear them talking in the hallway, but I’m unable to make out any specific words.

  After a minute or two Dr Ari pokes his head in. He promises to send someone from Creedmoor to pick me up once the interview is over. I’m tempted to ask him to send Oliver, but I don’t want to press my luck.

  Then it’s just the two of us. We sit down. Detective Wilczek sits across from me, and I know this conversation is being videotaped and watched in another room, or at least recorded. Detective Wilczek’s dark hair is thinning and I can see his shiny scalp through his buzz cut. His front left tooth is chipped.

  I try to avoid my reflection in the mirror. I’m sure it’s a two-way mirror and I’m not ready to face more than one person at a time, not even through a wall. The only one who has heard my story is Dr Ari and I feel as if I’m going to say the wrong thing. I didn’t commit any crime I’m aware of. The fact that I helped bury a dead man is a mere legality that won’t carry any weight, I’m sure, and not reporting the abduction is something I didn’t know at the time. The laws of the land go easy on redeemed mothers, at least legally, but in my own eyes, as a mother, I am guilty of countless crimes.

  Three hours later I’ve told them the entire story. For years I’ve judged myself by the way people looked at me. Have not only judged myself but considered the opinion of others the gauge by which I judged myself. I’m back at my parents’ funeral, people looking at me bewildered, unsure if they should stroke my hair or ignore me altogether. Wilczek and Riverton have seen a lot, I can only imagine how many dead bodies they’ve come across, how many images are etched into their brains, never to be erased, how many nights they’ve sat in their cars, in front of their houses, wives and husbands waiting, kids asleep, unable to switch off their minds.

  The rest of the night unfolds in stretches of waiting and more questions and ultimately I am escorted outside where a van is waiting to transport me back to Creedmoor ‘for the time being.’ Detective Wilczek tells me he will drop by and have me sign the statements ‘once everything checks out.’

  Back at Creedmoor I fall into a deep sleep. Wistful dreams and occasional moments of waking – yet I’m at peace with the chaos of my thoughts. I spend the following days in my room. Between meals and discussions with Dr Ari about my future, I fill up an entire composition book. I don’t leave a single line blank, for its completeness gives me the illusion of also being complete myself. I don’t want to spend another minute wondering what I might not remember in the future. I feel as if I’ve been floating in open water and I’ve come upon an island that is able to sustain me and I don’t ever want to be caught off-guard again. That’s the theory anyway.

  The following week I get my release papers.

  ‘We checked out your story,’ Wilczek says.

  ‘Upon entering Anna Lieberman’s residence, the officers …’ His muffled voice echoes in my head, as if he’s speaking down a well.

  I imagine his words, like a movie unfolding in front of me. Entering Anna’s house, the officers walk with a mission, threadbare carpet underneath their feet. Their eyes glance over the shiny travel catalogs in the living room. They hurry down the hallway, enter the room in which I saw Anna from the street, holding my daughter.

  ‘There were lots of baby clothes and toys,’ Wilczek says and now he no longer looks me in the eyes, but reads off his notes as if he can’t remember the details. ‘The clothes range from newborn to school age children. Th
ere were schoolbooks too. We’re still trying to sort it all out. I’d be lying if I told you we knew what that meant.’

  I’m not the only one whose child they’ve taken, there are other mothers out there, looking. I can’t even allow myself to continue the thought. My own loss is all I can handle, I’m not equipped to take on someone else’s burden.

  Entering the kitchen, the officers find the yellow floral china I described and the baby spoon. They don’t find any dirty diapers underneath the plastic pots and empty seed packages in the garbage bin.

  ‘There were empty diaper boxes and wipe wrappers. Nothing with any DNA. The garbage had been collected that day and taken to the landfill.’

  Officers found the cornfield. They dug up David Lieberman’s body wrapped in a blue tarp. He died of a gunshot wound to the back. That’s preliminary but quite obvious. I had buried his body. I dug a hole and buried the body of the man who abducted my child. I’m not haunted by any of this, but maybe it’s the fact that the less you fight the images, the more bearable they becomes. The decrepit barn has not been located. Wilczek calls that fact ‘rather insignificant.’

  I wonder what rather insignificant means? Maybe it’s just proof that crazy people get away with holes as long as they are irrelevant and inconsequential to the story itself.

  The diner’s had many owners over the years, this year was a seasonal operation. It closed down right after Halloween once the corn maze was shut down. It’s the only one in the entire county so there’s quite a bit of traffic. An elderly couple leased the diner but hired seasonal wait staff on a part-time basis and there’s no paperwork, no contracts, nothing. And if that wasn’t disappointing enough, it’s been bleached and wiped clean.

  ‘There’s an APB out on Anna Lieberman, but so far we haven’t been able to locate her. State agencies are on alert and I don’t see how she can get your daughter out of the country, she has no birth certificate, no passport, nothing. Sooner or later her cover will blow. The moment she seeks medical help, tries to enroll her in daycare or school, it’ll arouse suspicion. Even a traffic violation or her name showing up on a lease will trigger the system. It’s only a matter of time. She can hide, but only for so long.’

  School, daycare. ‘That could be years from now,’ I say and shake my head. ‘What do I do in the meantime? Where do I look?’

  Hundreds of children go missing every day. Posters in store windows. On milk cartoons. Do they still do that? Some supermarkets have posters of local missing children, posters I’ve scanned before, appalled by the years that have passed since they’ve last been seen. Teenagers usually, disappeared, never to be seen again. Some thought to have run away. Running away is not a crime. Are they even looking? Don’t fight it, I tell myself, there’s no end to this. It’s a bottomless pit, my daughter among them.

  ‘I want to apologize to you but I know there’s nothing I can say to make this better, so I’m not even going to try.’

  Sorry, he said. The cheapest of all words. It’s as if he’s trying to cut open the snake and retrieve its victim, expecting life to go on. It doesn’t work that way.

  ‘Let us do the looking. All you have to do is be patient,’ he adds.

  ‘Right,’ I say and put on my gloves.

  Patience. It’s starting to wear thin and I haven’t even left Creedmoor yet. Not only is it wearing thin but it strikes me as sheer madness. The same people who didn’t believe me then are telling me now to trust them and be patient?

  Jack has been briefed, so I’m told by the detective, and eventually we talk on the phone. He’s focused on the details and at times there are long pauses during which I imagine him taking notes, but maybe he’s trying to wrap his mind around this, I must admit, rather bizarre story. He went from having a wife under suspicion to being the clueless husband and still Mia is missing. He’s not very forthcoming with his feelings towards me and talks about coming back to New York soon. Coming back and soon are ambiguous enough for the both of us; I have only one goal in mind, finding Mia, Jack is probably adding a few things to the list of his own shortcomings. We are not what we are both focused on right now.

  I wonder how mothers know they are better. When do we know the worst of postpartum is over and things are on their way back to normal? I imagine when they are able to laugh again, maybe just living their lives without a cloud above their head. For me, it’s a bit more complicated. I can’t walk into my daughter’s room, pick her up and hold her close. I’m left with empty arms and getting better to me means, literally, not having to pretend to be normal. It seems as if for every minute Mia remains out of my reach, I gain some sort of strength. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s growing. Getting back to normal is like losing the knots in my stomach and then suddenly there is room for something else. Resolve maybe? Courage? Do I need to lose one thing to gain another for there’s a limited number of items I can carry inside myself? Is that why I don’t seem to have any room for Jack right now?

  The day I leave Creedmoor, as it sits silently overlooking the East River, I say goodbye to Oliver. It is a clandestine ritual on my part. Not a traditional farewell − no embrace or small talk − just me touching his hand ever so slightly as I walk past him. I’m not even sure he notices. I’ve also realized I’ve lost the acorn and after an initial moment of sadness I no longer dwell on it. It has served its purpose and won’t be forgotten.

  I walk down the pebble walkway on the north side of Creedmoor one more time. I count five windows down and three up to find the window of my former room. I find the nest. What was once a well-built structure of tightly woven sticks and twigs is now flattened and dilapidated. The bird’s nest I used to watch from my window is abandoned. No worrisome parents nearby to watch the fledglings on their clumsy flying attempts. Life goes on in so many ways.

  Dr Ari sees me in his office one last time. I attempt to take it all in; the diplomas on the walls, the scent of shoe polish, the view of the smokestacks in the distance.

  ‘I wanted to wish you good luck,’ he says. ‘And that I hope for a happy ending to the story.’

  ‘There’s nothing else I can do but wait for Anna to make a mistake. Luck can’t be all I’ve got left,’ I say and my eyes tear up. I blink them away.

  ‘I’m a great believer in luck,’ he says and closes my file one last time.

  ‘Speaking of happy endings, you never told me about the woman with the egg,’ I say later, as he escorts me outside, where a cab is waiting for me.

  Dr Ari furrows his brow, then his eyes light up. ‘I forgot I told you about that.’

  ‘So, what was it if it wasn’t the egg?’

  ‘She’s passed since and I guess it’s okay if I share her story with you. It was the spoon she ate the egg with.’

  ‘The spoon?’

  ‘She ate off a silver spoon. The silver reacted with the sulfur in the egg, created a tarnish on the spoon. The spoon had a foul taste and reminded her of a rather violent experience in her life. The memory emerged and rather than deal with it, she shut down.’

  ‘So that’s the story of the egg woman.’

  ‘That’s it,’ Dr Ari says.

  ‘Will I ever see you again?’ The thought of never seeing him again seems arduous. There’s still so much more at stake with Mia being missing.

  ‘I’d say you have no need for a man like me in your life. You are going to be okay.’

  As he extends his hand, I grab it. Then I pull him into an embrace. He’s stiff in my arms, but only for a second. Then he softens.

  I watch him through the rearview mirror of the cab one last time, straightening his tie and removing invisible specks of cotton from his suit.

  Chapter 26

  As the months pass and Mia remains missing, I feel fear hatching inside of me. I did as Anna told me to do in exchange for Mia’s future wellbeing – I wrote the confession, I drove the car into the ravine, I shot myself – but I didn’t die. What has become of Mia and did Anna renege on her promise too? Eventually Jack and I
talk about the possibility of having to identify Mia’s ravaged and abused body in unimaginable stages of decomposition − we agree we’ll make the identification together − yet we can’t quite agree on how to live our lives until then.

  In the meantime, I rent a small studio apartment on 58th Street – it’s affordable and Jack is surprisingly generous, and I enjoy living in walking distance to the nearby trains, on a quiet, tree-lined street.

  Once his contract in Chicago ended, Jack finds a position as Assistant DA in New York City, ‘entry level, no pay, and long hours.’ His furnished apartment, The Tribeca Suites, allows him to remain ‘in transition.’ We both know what that means. We don’t mention the word divorce quite yet; we allow life, according to Jack, ‘to play out,’ whatever that means.

  Even though we both hate to admit yet another failure, we are merely sitting ducks. Marriages confronted by tragedy don’t break apart because of that fact per se, but it seems as if there’s only so much resolve to go around and everything pales in comparison to Mia’s disappearance. And so we live separately and wait for the inevitable burial of our union. I don’t feel any sort of way about it, we’re just another one of those the-way-it-used-to-be things that got lost along the way. We know the demise of our marriage is nearing, like a sure winter storm, its icy breath approaching the hairs on the back of our necks.

  Once a week Jack and I meet at a coffee shop in a book store. There, we are encased by the contrived normalcy of people around us discussing the books they’ve read, trips they’ve taken, discussing normal things that normal people do, and I am painfully aware that we are never going to be a normal couple again.