“When do you get off shift?” I asked when the waitress had left.
I was counting the hours since I’d first walked into that police station. It seemed like a lot of hours in a row for her to have to work.
“About an hour and a half ago.”
“Then why were you still there when I got there?”
“I didn’t want to stop looking for your little girl.”
That just sat on the table for a minute. This amazing, shiny thing that I could only stare at in awe. I opened my mouth to express gratitude, but she beat me to speaking.
“Tell me more about her. About what she means to you.”
“Etta.”
“Yes.”
“Does that help?”
“It doesn’t help us find her, no. But sometimes it helps the grieving parent. And I really do want to know.”
I took a big, deep breath and started to cry again.
“You have four of your own,” I said. “Don’t you need to get home to them?”
“Oh, honey. They are so grown and gone it’s not even funny.”
Part of me had been genuinely concerned for her. And them. I think. Another big part of me was just avoiding steering the conversation to my own truths.
Then I went there anyway.
“She means everything to me. She’s all I have.”
“You have your mother.”
I snorted and rolled my eyes. “That’s a net minus.”
“Got it.”
I pulled another deep breath. It shook going in. Wavered.
I was going to tell her real things. I could feel it. Even though I hardly knew her. Because she had asked for real things. And because this disaster had stripped away everything fake. It was not a time in my life for small talk.
And because this tall, lanky officer was suddenly one of the most important people in my world.
“I always wanted kids,” I said. “Always. Ever since I was a little girl myself. But I married a man who didn’t want them. It was so stupid, looking back. We were in love, and we thought the problem would take care of itself somehow. He thought I’d change my mind, I thought he’d change his mind. Neither one of us did, of course. I mean, other than us, who didn’t see that coming? Finally I could feel how much my time was getting short. You know. My biological clock. I was in my late thirties. I didn’t want to miss my chance. So I just went ahead and got pregnant. Purposely. Even though I knew it would ruin the marriage.”
She waited. Respectfully. In case I was just winding up to say more. But I had never felt so unwound in my life.
Finally she spoke.
“Did you tell him what’s happening with his daughter?”
“No. He doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want any part of raising her. Or fatherhood. You know. In general. He feels like I tricked him. I guess in some ways I don’t blame him. I stopped using birth control and didn’t tell him. I guess he was tricked. And I don’t even have a way to justify myself. Except that desperate people do desperate things. Which isn’t a very good justification now that I hear myself say it out loud. We don’t speak at all.”
“He’s still the father. He still might want to know.”
“Oh, no. You weren’t there. He is not the father, according to him. I had to let him off the hook completely on that. I had to assure him that this child was one hundred percent my daughter. My responsibility.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Yeah. Well. I guess life is just a series of our own choices catching up with us.”
We sat silent for a moment. I wondered how what I’d just said applied to this moment. What had I done to deserve what was happening now? I felt as though if I’d ever made a mistake that big, I would remember it.
An uncomfortable thought rose up out of me. I could feel it stick in my throat, wanting to be said. I was too tired to hold it back.
“I heard somewhere . . . some statistic. About how if a child isn’t found in the first twenty-four hours . . .”
“I want you to get thoughts like that out of your mind,” Grace Beatty said. Her voice was firmer now. “I know it’s not easy to avoid going there, but do your best. Statistics are for big groups of people. They don’t mean much to the individual. Some people get their kids back after longer searches. Why couldn’t you be one of them? Besides, it hasn’t been twenty-four hours.”
“That’s true,” I said. “It hasn’t been twenty-four hours.”
My food came.
I couldn’t seem to taste it.
I drowned the eggs in ketchup the way I’d done as a child. I forced down what I could.
“I want you to remember one thing,” she said a few minutes later.
I was pushing the last of my eggs around on the plate. So I wouldn’t have to eat them. She was watching me do it. So I don’t know who I thought I was fooling.
Meanwhile I sensed a pep talk coming. And she wasn’t going on with it, so I figured she was waiting for me to confirm that one was welcome.
“What do you want me to remember?” I asked, still staring at the uneaten food.
“It’s just now getting light. If he put her out of the car in the dark, this is the time somebody might notice. She might have gone unnoticed in the dark. This is when we’re most likely to get the break we’ve been waiting for.”
I said nothing.
I guess I was supposed to find it encouraging. In fact, I’m sure I was.
But all I could think of was my precious little girl all alone on a dark street. All night. Would she be wandering around? Or still strapped into her car seat? She would be terrified, wondering where I was. No question about that. Would she ever be the same after a night like that one? Would she
