I heard another text come through a few minutes later, but I was driving, so I didn’t dare look.
As I pulled into my mother’s driveway I stopped and read. There was more than one. They were fairly long.
I’ll never understand this fascination with the street. Had one guy tell me it was addictive. Can you believe that? Homelessness. Addictive. He said it was because you had zero responsibilities. Nothing to do all day. He couldn’t hack having any structure in his life. Makes no sense to me at all.
Then the second one:
If you still want to try to find her, I’ll give you an address. I’ll find it and send it in the next text. Ask for a young man named Denver Patterson. He might know something regarding her whereabouts. Bring ID.
She hadn’t yet sent the text with the address.
I didn’t get out of the car. I sat there typing an answer. Even though I could hear Etta getting squirmy in the back.
I typed: This young guy needs me to bring ID before he’ll talk to me?
Her answer was nearly immediate:
No, but his jailers will expect it.
I sighed and took Etta out of her car seat. Carried her into the house.
“Where Molly?” she asked me.
“I don’t know, honey,” I said.
But I couldn’t hide my irritation from her. I wondered how long it would be before she forgot to ask. Or at least stopped asking. Whether she forgot or not.
I stuck my head into the kitchen. My mother was not around.
I breathed a huge sigh of relief and carried Etta upstairs.
I heard another tone from my cell phone and looked down at it. Grace Beatty had texted me the address.
I set Etta in front of her toy basket and sat on the edge of the bed.
I don’t know about this, I typed in reply.
What don’t you know?
I don’t know about going to a jail. See, this was my problem with the whole situation to begin with. These were not the people I meant to bring into my life. If you know what I mean.
Then, while I was waiting for her answer, I worried that she would know what I meant. Or that I would. Because, if you really dissected that statement, I did not come off well for making it. I also wondered how true my statement had been. The homeless youth aspect might have been a problem with the whole thing. But I’m not sure it was the problem.
A tone made me jump.
If it helps or changes anything, this kid is in jail for stealing about seven dollars’ worth of food. Everybody has to eat.
I sat for a strange length of time, waiting for the whole situation to settle inside my gut. It never did.
I’ll sleep on it, I typed back to her.
But it turned out to be a mostly figurative statement. Because bedtime came and went that night, and I didn’t get much sleep at all.
When I told the lady at the jail I was there to see Denver Patterson, her eyebrows arched up high. Then she laughed a short little burst of a laugh.
“What’s funny?” I asked.
I had the baby on my hip, even though I didn’t want to bring her into a jail. Because I hadn’t wanted to leave her at home with my mother. I figured she’d dump her at preschool.
Hell, I might as well be honest: I didn’t want to leave her. Period.
“Just surprised he’s such a popular guy,” she said.
I filled out a form and showed her my driver’s license.
She buzzed me through a door into a stark-looking hallway. There was only one open door, and I walked through it. It led me into a room full of tables, most empty. A guard was watching over a woman and child sitting with a man who was clearly an inmate.
I sat for a time, feeling more nervous than the situation likely required.
Then I heard a voice, and it made me jump.
“Hey there, girl! Good to see you again!”
I half stood, Etta and all, and looked around. A young man was standing behind me. Hair buzzed short. Clean shaven. He was wearing a jumpsuit, but it was not the inmate orange the movies had conditioned me to expect. More of a pea soup green. His face looked bizarrely cheery. You know—under the circumstances.
“We’ve never met before,” I said.
“I was talking to the little one.”
He reached out to pat her on the head, but I flinched us both away. He got the message and took his hand back.
I found myself surprisingly furious that someone I’d never met or even seen before could claim to know my baby daughter. It made me feel as though life had spun hopelessly out of my control.
“Sit down,” he said. Expansively, with a sweeping gesture to go along. As though he were a host making me welcome in his home.
Reluctantly, I sat.
“How do you know my daughter?” I asked him.
If that girl had brought Etta down to the jail during the time she claimed to be hiding, I would be furious. I would abandon trying to find her. Or maybe I would try to find her just to tell her I was furious.
“I was there,” he said. “Right after Molly found her. I swiped her a bottle of apple juice and a box of goldfish crackers. That’s why I’m in here.”
Then I felt stupid. Because it was quite obvious who he was. He was the friend of Molly’s who I read about in her statement to Grace Beatty. The one who went off to call the police and never came back. I guess I hadn’t connected the two because this boy was in jail. It hadn’t occurred to me that his incarceration had begun so recently. And then, of course, there was the name difference to throw me off.
“Wait a minute,” I said.
“Okay.”
He had a quirky grin on
