by Matayo, Amy
I watch the kid out of the corner of my eye, resisting a smile when her curious gaze slides to mine. Aha—caught. With children, layering on the dramatics usually works, especially if you make them extra ridiculous.
“Do we have a deal?”
At her barely perceptible nod, I continue.
“Okay but remember, I get the first bowl. And maybe even all of it. I’m a pretty good guesser.” Her head comes up slightly she gives me a ghost of a smile around that thumb, but it’s all the encouragement I need. Please God, let her talk.
As for Riley Mae, she leans against the counter to watch this unfold, the ice cream all but forgotten. It doesn’t take a genius to know she doesn’t believe I can get the girl to talk. Skepticism is difficult to hide. Truthfully, I don’t believe it much either, but I do believe in second chances. Trauma tends to drag people inside themselves, particularly when you’re not old enough to know how to cope. I saw it happen firsthand a long time ago with that kid at my front door. It won’t happen now, not if I can prevent it.
“Let’s see…” I drag the words out, making a big effort to sound dramatic. “Is your name…Big Bird?”
A slight giggle. I’m on the right path.
“No?” I frown, tapping myself on the chin. “I’m usually really good at this. Let’s see…” I pretend to think intently. “Is it…BarneyThePurpleDinosaur?” The name sounds funnier when you run it all together.
Big smile. Score one for me.
“Still, no? I hate it when I’m wrong.” I sigh long and slow, palms up like I’m just so lost. “I could have sworn your name was Barney since you’re all purple everywhere.”
“I not purple.”
I work to maintain a calm expression, though I can tell Riley Mae is excited about those three words. She leans forward and props her chin on her hands, her enthusiasm palpable. She has blue eyes the color of sapphires. I can see them clearly from up close.
I drag my eyes away and focus on the girl. “You’re not purple. Then what’s this?” I flick her brown hair and make a face as though it’s the color of a grape popsicle. “Looks purple to me.”
“It not purple.”
I rub my eyes dramatically and say, “I think I need some glasses.”
She giggles.
“Are you…Dora the Explorer?”
“I wike Dora.”
I smile at her willingness to open up a bit. It’s the first thing she’s shared about herself, other than her affinity for chocolate. I share a smile with Riley Mae. “I like Dora too. I especially like her purple backpack. Perfect since you’re all purple, too.” I don’t like Dora, but being agreeable seems to be the best route to take. Score another when she laughs again.
“I not purple.”
“You sure?”
“I Bella.” She pats her stomach, and I glance at Riley Mae. A smile has taken over her whole face, and I feel another pang in the center of my chest.
“Your name’s Bella?”
When she nods, I tap the counter. “I win all the ice cream!”
Riley Mae laughs while Bella shakes her head emphatically. “No, I get it too.”
Now I’m convinced there’s nothing cuter than a kid’s voice when they’re missing both front teeth. How have I never noticed it before? Affection runs through me, but I cover it up by moving my attention to the counter.
I nod smugly at Riley Mae. “You might want to get to work on the ice cream. I have big plans for it in about three minutes. And don’t forget the cupcake. Make one to match my personality. If making them is your claim to fame, I feel like I shouldn’t be left out here.”
Riley—I decide from here on out her name is just Riley, at least to me—walks toward the kitchen with a grin on her face. “I’ll make one to match alright.” Her agreeableness surprises me. I get the feeling Riley prefers to battle.
“Good. Just don’t bring me a princess crown, because I’m a boy.”
Beside me, Bella giggles. “No princess.” I drop my mouth open in mock offense.
“Okay, I’ve changed my mind. Boys can wear pink crowns too, you know. And now I want one. Make it bigger and better than Bella’s.”
“Figures that size matters to you,” Riley says. My eyebrows shoot up at the suggestion in her words, and she blushes. Something tells me she didn’t mean it the way it sounded. But then she bites her lip, and suddenly I’m not so sure.
“Size matters to everyone, especially women. Even if they pretend it doesn’t.” I’m a guy. Not making a comeback to that comment would have been an insult to my sex. Riley laughs before disappearing through the double doors again. Something about the sound makes my heart tug a bit. Guilt maybe? Or simple appreciation. There’s so much work to do, and Riley is offering to make me a silly cupcake rather than get started on her own repairs. This place is a nightmare under the worst circumstances. Every square inch of the wood floors is warped, and the front door doesn’t even latch. Worse, it appears Riley is doing everything by herself. The first thing I’ll do after we solve the problem of this little girl is offer to help Riley fix her much bigger one.
Turning back to Bella, I say, “I still have to guess your age. Are you…forty-seven?”
She laughs, and we begin the game again.
I stare at the cupcake in front of me and try to formulate something to say. As far as size goes, it’s enormous. I decide it’s proof of a coded compliment because this is my cupcake and I can translate it how I want. I’m just not sure she’s translating it the same way. I pick it up and turn it over, then set it back on the plate.
“Plain vanilla? It isn’t even frosted.”
“Just like you. Plain. No frills.”
“You only just met me. How could you possibly draw that conclusion already? These pants are Michael Kors.” I try not to take it personally. I’ve been referred to as plain vanilla before, but never this quickly. And never by a woman that I find slightly—and only slightly, just so we’re clear—attractive.
“Michael…whatever means nothing to me. And you’re wearing them with a plain white shirt. That says it all.”
“Clark Kent dressed like this too, you know. We both know he was hiding a lot under his clothes.” There’s so much innuendo wrapped around these those words, I could break a sweat.
When she reaches up to play with the ends of her hair, I know I’ve hit the right mark. “Not everyone can be Superman,” she says. It’s a weak protest, but it deserves to be shot down anyway.
“But a few of us are.” I pick at the cupcake, happy to hear her sigh.
“Whatever. Did you find out anything?”
I did find out some very important things, in fact. Like that Bella is four, and her birthday is October eleventy-nine, and that one day she’ll be seven and be able to drive a car, which I thought was especially cool. Aside from those things, if her birth month is correct, she’s one month away from being five and way too young to be walking the streets of Springfield alone. I tell Riley as much, though I’m stumped for what to do, and she is beside herself with indecision. I barely know the chick, but I worry she’ll bite a hole in her lower lip from anxiety.
“One of us is going to have to do it,” I say.
“I know.” There’s so much sadness in those two words.
Calling the police is the right thing to do, but I don’t want to. Parentless children all wind up in the same place, and that place isn’t pretty. And no, Bella isn’t necessarily without parents, but I don’t see anyone busting down the door to find her either. The odds don’t look good. No one with a heart wants to send a child into that willingly.
From the ashen look on Riley’s face, she is no exception. But is there a choice? So many people have lost so much. If there’s any comfort to be found in that, at least Bella won’t be walking through it alone. I wanted to call the police years ago to help save that little boy. This is my chance at redemption, paying it forward retroactively, so to speak. I wish I could feel a sense of peace, but I don’t.
&nbs
p; Bella has already polished off her cupcake and has nearly finished her ice cream, which means we’re running out of time.
“Do you want me to call, or you?” It’s like sending a kid to walk the plank, knowing a sea of sharks may be waiting in the waters below. It feels wrong. Only four years old, and the path that leads to the rest of her life is already aiming sharp teeth in her direction. Everyone knows the statistics for fatherless kids, children of divorce, and those put up for adoption. It sets you behind the starting line, at a disadvantage before the race even begins. Of course, plenty of success stories abound, but coming from behind isn’t fair for a child.
Even so, this feels worse.
Does data even exist for kids whose parents die without warning in a natural disaster? What if no family shows up to claim her? Abandonment and divorce may not exist in Bella’s situation, but that doesn’t mean she won’t end up feeling unwanted, or at the very least, the recipient of a very unfair and cruel life.
None of that changes the fact that one of us should make the call.
The latest news reports put the current death toll at one hundred seventeen. Dozens more are still unaccounted for. There’s no telling where Bella’s parents fit into the mix. And what are the odds of a child surviving a storm of that magnitude without anyone else making it? Worse, has she just been walking the streets unnoticed this entire time? That’s over twenty-four hours of unsupervised, unassisted survival; impressive for even the strongest adult, utterly heartbreaking for someone so young.
Still, what else can we do?
I push my empty bowl away and reach for my phone, only to feel Riley’s hand on my wrist.
“Wait, let’s talk about this for a second.”
I look up into her panicked eyes and wonder at her reaction, but turn on the phone anyway. “There’s nothing to talk about. We need to take care of her, and there’s no other way to do it.”
I glance at Bella on the barstool next to me, happily licking her spoon. The bowl is empty, and she seems content. Visions of her possibly spending the last twenty-four hours alone may haunt me forever, especially considering my biggest worry last night centered around what clothes to pack for this trip. The ability for life to drop a bomb on a normal routine has never felt more real to me.
“You can’t just come into my store and decide to call the police like it’s no big deal. It could ruin her life.”
“What would you propose? That you keep her to raise yourself?”
She sucks in her bottom lip as though actually considering it. I stare at her, waiting for common sense to kick in. Riley doesn’t strike me as the ridiculous type.
“No.” She says it as a question.
“Good, because it’s a terrible idea,” I say, dropping my voice to a whisper that I hope Bella can’t hear. “Look, I don’t like it either. There’s no telling what is out there waiting for her, and I’m certainly no stranger to crying kids.” Again, the boy on the porch is right there in my vision. “But calling the police is non-negotiable. Her parents have probably been looking for her all day.”
I watch for her reaction, but she’s staring at the countertop, then at Bella, then back down in an internal war with herself. I can see fear all over her face and something else. There’s no good reason to be afraid to call the authorities unless you’ve had a bad experience with it yourself. The idea that Riley was ever there fills me with a fierce desire to protect. I know nothing about Riley, but clearly, she’s been hurt.
I’m about to ask her about it when she looks me in the eye.
“Fine, call the police. But for the record, I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I.” My shoulders sag, the words pressing heavily on my shoulders. In only a few short minutes, I’ve grown fond of Bella and even a little intrigued by Riley. The idea of not seeing either one of them again after tonight depresses me more than I’ll admit.
I pick up the phone and dial 911.
CHAPTER 7
Riley Mae
There’s a line in a famous song that goes something like this: “I don’t love drama, but drama loves me.” And you know how companies have mission statements and cute little taglines to describe their purpose for existing? Well, there’s nothing cute about the tagline, but if my life were summed up in one brief but succinct statement, this would be it: I don’t love drama, but drama sure loves the heck out of me.
I somehow fall into it the same way other people fall in love or fall into money or fall and twist an ankle. So far, those first two have eluded me because I’ve found men to be generally self-centered and because my parents didn’t think ahead to buy life insurance. That last one, though? Consider my ankle broken, wrapped, and propped on the sofa for all eternity. People are signing my cast in ballpoint BIC pens they quit making in the nineties.
Okay maybe I can be a bit dramatic, but my heart is currently breaking and I don’t know how to handle it. Paul is among the missing, and James is dead. The idea that both men fell to tragic circumstances while under my roof…I can’t bring myself to think about it. Men generally do two things around me: they get irreversibly hurt, or they leave. A person can only handle so much of that in her lifetime before everything seems cursed. I’m currently walking that thin line. The tiniest nudge will send me over the edge, and there’s no telling on what side I’ll fall. It took me years of therapy, prayer, and positive self-talk to climb out of the depths last time, and I still carry the scars. Now I’m careening downward all over again.
“I never wanted to raise another kid. You should have asked me before you took her in. She’s ruined everything.”
I push the long-ago words away and bend down to Bella’s level, bringing her to my chest, quietly attempting shushing noises, making sure to pat her back, her arm, her head. Anything that might remotely soothe the anguish spilling from her insides and onto my shirt. It was only a matter of time before she cracked, and we found the breaking point.
Two police officers wearing uniforms, badges, and gun holsters flank us. Of course, she can’t be soothed, because she’s scared. I was scared once too. I’ve grown up enough to know they aren’t going to shoot, but I’m still scared.
“It’s okay, sweetie. These nice men are going to help you find your parents.”
Bella hasn’t stopped screaming since Chad made the phone call, as though she sensed bad news ahead, a downward-spiraling day. This week has gone so far south I’m fairly certain the only thing below it is hell itself. I have every ache imaginable—head, heart, body. There’s not much worse than a screaming, wiggling not-much-older-than-a-toddler that you can’t get to calm down.
“Don’t you want them to help you find your mommy and daddy?” I ask her again, painfully aware that I’m not helping. “Then you’ll be able to see them again, and don’t you want that?” I’m babbling out of deep desperation to make everything go away. The wailing. The sadness. The memories. Chad must sense my despair because he stops me with a hand to my wrist. His touch is gentle; his fingers encircle my skin in a silent question to let him take over. Considering his success rate with Bella so far, I stop talking and sit down, barely holding the tears in check myself.
“Hey, hey,” he says in a voice like the softest pillow, warm and quieting. He reaches for Bella and pulls her into his lap, tucking her into his chest and resting his chin on her head. It has an immediate effect on both of us. I fall just a bit; into what, I’m not sure, but my insides go soft. As for Bella, her wails grow a bit muted. Her breaths come in short hiccups and gasps. Her entire face is wet, but I resist the urge to grab a cloth and disturb the moment. “It’s okay. You’re okay.” He says this over and over into her ear while the officers pace and talk on the phone. For a moment, it’s easy to pretend he’s talking to me.
My heart tears a bit when Chad chucks Bella under the chin and tilts her head up to him. It cracks when she looks up at him with watery, trusting eyes. “You are going to be okay. And we…I mean, I will check on you tomorrow. I promise.”
&
nbsp; “I’ll come too,” I pipe up, surprising myself. It doesn’t seem right for Chad to go alone since I found her first. It has nothing to do with my sudden desire to see him again. Nothing at all.
Chad looks at me like he’s amused, then addresses Bella again.
“See? They’re going to help you find your parents, and we’ll come see you tomorrow.”
Her thumb slips out, wet and stringy with saliva, and she’s still sputtering to breathe. “Mommy asleep. Daddy go away.” Her brief, innocent, matter-of-fact description turns my stomach. Only one mental image comes to mind, and it isn’t a pretty one.
I lock eyes with Chad, and then he looks away to give an officer a knowing stare. The man nods toward the doorway, and Chad takes it as his cue to stand up.
“Okay, well maybe these men can find your dad and wake your mommy up.” It screams of false hope, but what else is there to say? “Do you want to go with them and see?”
Bella nods, her hand still tucked in Chad’s hand.
“There’s my girl. Tell you what, maybe we could bribe Riley into giving you another cupcake for the road.” His words take on a teasing lilt, but I can see the sadness in his eyes. He clears his throat. “Maybe she could make this one pretty, better than the plain vanilla one she gave me. So mean of her. So, so mean.” His voice is so pathetically dramatic that Bella giggles. I’m so relieved; I could kiss him.
Figuratively, of course.
Unless he says my girl one more time, then I might literally kiss him. Those words nearly turned my legs to butter.
“Yes, I’ll wrap up one for you to take. But none for Chad. People who complain don’t get seconds.”
Bella laughs full-out, and I exhale the stress from the last ten minutes. “Give me one second and I’ll get them ready.”
It takes only a few minutes until I’m walking back into the main room with a foam container in my hands and a better outlook on the situation. It was good, making the phone call. Bella will find her parents, and everything will work out the way it’s supposed to. I feel lighter, like there’s a purpose for today, even if I’m still unsure what it is. That is what I’m thinking up until the officer says, “Ready to go?”