This is Mindy. I’m sorry I left without saying goodbye. I had a chance to go live with some elephants on an elephant farm and sing songs all day. You know how much I like elephants and singing. I hope you can forgive me for leaving without saying goodbye. I miss you. I love you.
Mindy
Thorin was thrilled to hear from her. She had no longer disappeared from his life; she hadn’t abandoned him. He was able to understand she had this irresistible opportunity that prevented her from seeing him.
My family had a relative on my dad’s side who went to the “big house” for stealing nurses’ purses. That’s how my mom would bring it up to my dad when denigrating his side of the family: “Well, your half-brother went away for stealing nurses’ purses.”
I first noticed Thorin might also have an issue with taking things that weren’t his while waiting in an exam room at one of his doctor’s appointments. While I sat in a chair reading a magazine, Thorin sat on the floor pulling out the contents of his backpack. He would briefly inspect the object then set it on the floor to pull out something else. I saw diapers, a package of wipes, a Lightning McQueen glove I didn’t recognize, some loose Goldfish crackers, a sumo wrestler doll, a light blue marker I had been missing, and a crumpled piece of paper that I picked up and read. It was a note I had missed from one of his teachers at school: “Thorin really likes chicken fingers!”
I might not have given much thought to my marker or a stray glove, but next Thorin pulled out a laminated photo I immediately recognized as one of his classmates. The photo of her was the one that had been affixed to her cubby at school. I leaned down to pick it up.
“Did, you take this from Chloe’s cubby?”
Thorin smiled and grabbed it back, putting it in the bag. The next day, I secretly reattached her photo to the cubby because I didn’t want the teachers to know Thorin might be a kleptomaniac.
The following week, I found Chloe’s picture was stuck to one of Thorin’s hats as I pulled it out of his backpack.
“Please stop taking Chloe’s photo. I’m the one who will get in trouble, not you.”
In response, Thorin pretended to twirl a fake mustache.
Where did he learn that?
At another doctor’s appointment, he stuffed a handful of Viagra brochures into his bag while I was reading People magazine. I didn’t discover his haul until we got home. When I confronted him with them, he pretended he didn’t know anything about it. With all these doctors’ appointments, I wondered if “nurses’ purses” were just around the corner. I didn’t bring the brochures back, probably giving false hope to some drug rep.
Thorin would often go to work with me after I picked him up from school. He would get bored in the office and leave to visit Patty, the receptionist for our floor. One morning after Thorin had visited the day before, Patty came into my office to ask if I borrowed the master key from her desk. It was a fair question: I had locked myself out of my office several times and even once with Thorin in it. I told Patty that I didn’t have the key.
The key would be hard to miss. It was attached to a six-inch, red and white, wooden bowling pin by two feet of beaded chain. The search for the master key went on for three days. Patty talked to scores of tenants. She was getting pressure from the landlord who would soon have to rekey the locks to all the offices. Patty came back to talk to me a second time. This time she closed the door behind her.
“Listen, I want you to check Thorin’s backpack for that key.”
“You do?” I said innocently even though her question prompted me to immediately suspect Thorin of the crime.
“Yes, I do. He took that girl’s photo and all those Viagra brochures! I just bet he took that key!”
I made a mental note to never tell Patty anything ever again. Why hadn’t I considered Thorin was the likely suspect? I could imagine him eyeing the bowling pin thinking how great it would look in his backpack. Patty reminded me twice before I left to look in his bag, as did the landlord. I promised to call either way later that day.
The first thing I did when I got to the school was look in his bag. There I found the master key wrapped in a Star Wars T-shirt. I decided to confront him unexpectedly with the evidence. I thought the element of surprise might unnerve him. My opportunity came on the drive home at a red light where we were about thirty car lengths back. I would have sufficient time to interrogate him, and he wouldn’t have anywhere to go.
I reached in and pulled out the master key, turning in my seat and giving it my best bad cop tone. “Look familiar to you, Thorin?”
I saw the recognition in his eyes, and then he made the double thumbs-up sign as he kicked his legs excitedly.
“Thorin, you got your friend Patty in trouble!”
That only elicited belly laughing. When he finally stopped, he gave a contented sigh as he turned to stare out the window the rest of the ride.
After we got home and Thorin was in the other room, I put the master key on a table out of his reach and line of vision. The next morning it was gone! How did he know where it was? Had he read my mind? Crap! I had already called the office to say I would return it.
I looked in his backpack, aka his booty bag, but it wasn’t there. Where did Baby Face Nelson put it? It was useless to ask him. I knew I couldn’t break him. I had to think like him.
Okay, I’m a criminal and
