Still Missing

He bounced the baby faster and faster and she began to whimper. 'They were in the woods on a blanket, and she was letting this man, this man she despised, this man who threw her away like garbage, do things to her. So I waited until he left and tried to talk to her, tried to tell her he was only going to hurt her again, but she told me to mind my own business and walked away from me. Away from me! After everything I'd done to try to protect her, she was going to go back to that man. I had to save her. She left me no choice.' His arms tightened around the baby.

I stepped forward with my hands out.

'You're hurting her.'

'She hurt me.' He jerked his head as the baby began to wail, then stared down at her like he didn't know how she got there. He shoved her into my arms, almost dropping her in the process, and stalked toward the door. With his hands gripping the frame, he said over his shoulder, 'If she becomes one of them...' He shook his head. 'I can't let that happen.' Then he slammed the door behind him, leaving me to quiet the baby and wish I could break down and bawl myself.

He came back in after an hour with his face serene and made his way over to the baby basket. 'I think if you take a look at what I've spared her from, Annie--the diseases, drugs, and pedophiles running rampant down there--and then ask yourself if you really want what's best for our daughter, or what you think is best for you...' He crouched over her and smiled down. 'You'll realize it's time you put her life above your own.' His smile disappeared as he looked up to stare hard at me. 'Can you do that, Annie?' My eyes dropped to his hands resting on her tiny body--hands that had killed at least one person and done God only knows what to that helicopter pilot.

With my head bowed I said, 'Yes, yes, I can.'

For the rest of that day every nerve in my body screamed at me to run, and my legs ached from unreleased adrenaline coursing through them. My hands shook--I dropped dishes, clothes, soap, everything. The more frustrated he became, the more things I dropped, and the more my legs cramped. The smallest sound made me jump, and if he moved fast, my blood surged in my veins and I broke out in a sweat.

The next day he packed up a small bag with a change of clothes and took off without saying a word about where he was going. My relief was underscored by my terror that he'd finally had enough of us and wasn't going to come back. My frantic fingers searched the cabin top to bottom again, but there was no way out. He came back the next day, and I still didn't have a clue how I was going to get my child out of this hell.

Wherever he'd been, he brought back germs, and soon he started coughing and sneezing. True to form, he was a demanding patient. Not only did I have to care for the baby and do my chores, I now had to wipe his brow every five fucking seconds, keep the fire going, and bring him blankets hot from the dryer--his idea, not mine--while he languished in bed. I prayed he'd develop pneumonia and die.

He made me read to him until my throat became raspy. I wished I could just play poker with him like I used to with my stepdad. Wayne wasn't the wipe-your-brow kind of guy, which was just fine by me, but he did teach me to play cards when I was sick. At the first sign of a sniffle he'd whip out a pack and we'd go at it for hours. I loved the feel of cards in my hands, the numbers, the set order of them. Mostly I loved winning, and he had to teach me increasingly harder games so he could beat me once in a while.

By the second day coughs wracked The Freak's body, and I paused from my reading to say, 'Do you have any medicine?'

As if I was threatening to pour something down his throat right there and then, he grabbed my arm, dug his nails in, and said, 'No! No medicine.'

'It might help.'

'Medicine is poison.' Against my arm his hand burned with fever.

'Maybe if you went to town and found a doctor--'

'Doctors are even worse than medicine! Doctors are what killed my mother. If she'd just let me take care of her she'd have been fine, but they pumped their poisons into her and she got sicker and sicker. They killed her.' Even through a stuffed-up nose his contempt infused every syllable.

After a few days he stopped coughing, but the baby began crying at night and waking up every couple of hours. When I reached my hand down to her she felt warm. I tried to comfort her as soon as she woke up, but once I wasn't fast enough and he threw a pillow at her bed.

Another time he wouldn't let me go to her, saying, 'Keep reading, she just wants attention.' I wanted to take care of my daughter, I wanted to keep us both alive. I kept reading.

Her wails grew louder. He ripped the book out of my hands.

'Make her stop or I will.'

My tone as calm and reassuring as I could make it, I lifted her out of her bed and said, 'I think she might be getting sick too.'

'She's fine. You just have to learn how to control her.' He buried his head under the pillow. I had the insane urge to go over and press my whole body down on the pillow, but then his head popped up and he said, 'Get me a fresh glass of water, and this time make it cold.' I gave him a cheerful smile while inside another piece of me snapped off and spun away.

The next morning, earlier than usual, she woke me crying. I picked her up right away and tiptoed around, trying to calm her down, but it was too late. The Freak jumped out of bed and threw his clothes on while glaring at me.

'I'm sorry, but I think she's really sick.'

He stalked outside. I lay back in bed and got ready to nurse her. It was one of my favorite things to do with her. I loved the way she stared up at me, one small hand resting on my breast, how her belly swelled up when she was full, how her little bottom fit my hand perfectly. Everything about her was so delicate--her hands with their little lines and tiny finger-nails, her smooth cheeks, her silky dark eyelashes.

Usually after she was finished nursing I kissed every part of her, starting at her toes and her soft instep. Once I got up to her hands, I'd pretend to nibble her fingertips and work my way back down her arm. For the grand finale, I'd blow on her belly until she emitted happy little squeaks.

But today my normally happy baby was restless and edgy, and every time I tried to nurse her she moved her mouth away from my nipple. Her skin was hot to the touch and her cheeks were circles of red, like someone had drawn a clown's face on her. Her belly looked distended and I thought she might have gas, so I walked around with her, but she threw up all over my shoulder and finally just cried herself to sleep. I'd never felt so helpless in my life. I was terrified of what The Freak might do if I told him, but I had to get her some help.

'The baby's really sick, she needs a doctor,' I said as soon as he came back inside.

He glanced at me. 'Start breakfast.'

During breakfast she started crying in her basket and I moved to get her, but he held his hand up and said, 'Stop. Going to her only reinforces negative behavior. Finish your meal.'

Her wails ripped the air apart, and as she inhaled between each lusty cry, I thought I heard a wet rattle in her chest.

'She's not doing well. Can we please get to a doctor? I know your mom died, but she had cancer--it wasn't the doctors that killed her. You can tie me up in the van and take her in.' I hesitated for a second. 'Or I'll wait here and you can just take her, okay?' Had I really said that? She'd be alone with him. But she'd get help.

He chewed slowly. Finally he paused, wiped his mouth on his napkin, took a sip of water, and said, 'Doctors ask questions.' Her wails reached heart-wrenching levels.

'I know, but you're smart--smarter than any doctor--you'll know what to say so they never suspect a thing.'

'Exactly. I am smarter than a doctor, that's why I know she doesn't need one.' He stomped toward her bed, with me right on his heels. His voice rose to compete with her cries as he said, 'She just needs to learn some respect.'

'Why don't you relax, and I'll quiet her?'

'I don't think so, Annie. Obviously you've been doing something wrong.' As he picked her up from the basket, I gripped the fabric of my dress at my thighs to stop my hands from pounding on his back and prayed she'd calm down for him. But when he bounced her, the wails only grew frantic.

'Please just give her to me.' I held my shaking hands out. 'Please. She's