“Ryan…”
“Saunders, sorry.”
Boy, I’m a mess.
“OK, we haven’t gotten any complaints or needs for—”
“I know, it’s not anything from you guys, you all are great. I just, I need my son, OK?”
Ginger got the hint well enough, backing away from her desk and going into the play area where my son was. I could see him sitting on his butt—he had such a cute face with chubby cheeks and brown eyes. People often said that he had my face, which I was grateful for; the last thing I needed was for my son to grow up mirroring the monster that had helped create him.
Ginger came out after speaking to someone.
“We’re bringing him out right now.”
Oh, thank God, I thought, even though the emergency was only in my head and not something Ryan was suffering from. For now.
I paced in the hallway as I waited for Ryan to emerge through that doorway. Every second that passed…I tried to breathe, tried to focus on lowering my heart rate, but it wasn’t doing much good. Panic had, suffice to say, not just overtaken me; it had consumed me, devoured me, and changed my every action.
The door opened. I held my breath.
“Look who it is!” Ginger said. “Mommy came early!”
“Mommy!”
It was like everything in the world suddenly became normal again. The sight of my little boy, held by one of the daycare staff members, dressed and looking just like he had when I had dropped him off this morning, completely put me at ease. He was safe. We were safe. The future was murky and dark, but the present was clear and cheerful.
“Oh, Ryan, sweetie,” I said, taking him in my arms and kissing him on the cheek before I bounced him a bit. “I’m so glad you’re OK.”
“Mommy!” he said with a huge smile on his face. “Daddy was here.”
I stopped bouncing. All the joy that had started to flow into my body, all the hope…gone. Vanished. The darkness was creeping in. Here? Like…he’s here now?
“Are you sure, sweetie?” I said, even though I was now starting to believe that he was here. Malcolm was here. Oh, God…what was Malcolm doing here?
“Daddy was here!”
I looked over to the daycare staff, but none of them had concern on their face.
“We took him outside about half an hour ago with the rest of the kids and kept strict supervision of who was nearby,” Ginger said. “We always keep a close eye on who is outside the property and who might be acting suspiciously. We didn’t see anyone.”
I looked back at Ryan. He didn’t care that the daycare staff had refuted what he had said. I wasn’t even sure that a little three-year-old understood concepts like arguments and refuting and confirmation. For all I knew, he had just sung a song about Mommy and Daddy and was repeating it.
But still…
I didn’t know the science of kids Ryan’s age, so I couldn’t say if he really remembered or knew what Malcolm looked like. But the times before I had moved to Sacramento, before Malcolm had gone off the rails, Ryan was well aware of who his father was. I just didn’t know…
There were too many unknowns…
“OK, thank you,” I said, swiftly leaving.
“Ma’am?” Ginger said. “We need you to fill out some paperwork on our tablet.”
I closed my eyes, let out a long sigh, and walked back over. It was bad form for a professional like myself to blitz through the paperwork without reading the fine print. But you know what was worse form? The possibility that Malcolm was stalking my son and me.
I scribbled my signature on the few lines that I had to with my finger, pushed the tablet back, and hurried out to the car. There was something about opening the doors to the outside that suddenly left me feeling very naked and vulnerable, like being in the presence of the daycare had inoculated me to some of the dangers of Malcolm. But now?
It was just Ryan and me against every motorist, every pedestrian, every stranger, and every threat. No one was going to follow us to keep me safe.
Unless…
There was only one person I could think of right now that would take me in on the spot and protect me. I didn’t want to bring Ryan along to meet him, but…
I peeled out of the parking lot and headed home, furiously checking other cars, trying to identify any that looked like the red Mustang that Malcolm had spent way too much money on to own. I didn’t see any, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t found…
OK, let’s not be wildly conspiratorial here. Paranoid, yes, but this isn’t doing any good.
“Ryan,” I said. “How was your day?”
“Good!” he said. “I saw Mommy and Daddy!”
That he put the two of us together like peanut butter and jelly made me feel strangely better, like he only mentioned Daddy because Mommy was there; maybe he was referring to some game. It probably made me a bad mother, but I didn’t want to find out.
“And what did you do when you saw Daddy?”
I couldn’t help myself.
“I saw Daddy!”
Now I didn’t know what to think. But the questions had shown me I could pause my sprinting mind for just a few seconds long enough to collect myself.
When I got home, I put Ryan down in the living room, locked all the doors, examined every nook and corner of the apartment, checked all the windows and doors for signs of forced entry, and let myself slump onto the couch when I finally felt like I could relax.
And now it was time to see if I could have some safety.
I pulled up Nick Ferrari’s number. Was it even fair for me to do what I was about to do?
