The Trouble with Joe

by Emilie Richards

  But she hadn’t brought a can opener, because that had felt like stealing. She was going to have to hit the can with a rock or something. Just as soon as she found a place to sleep.

  She had brought something else. Bear. She hoped Mr. Joe wouldn’t be too mad that she’d taken him. But Mr. Joe had told her that the mandolin was all fixed. She thought that maybe he wouldn’t care because she wasn’t going to be living there anymore, anyway. She had Bear, the cans, what was left of her lunch and her sweatshirt. She had even brought a can of root beer, but she had already drunk that.

  She was thirsty again, and hungry. She remembered that Miss Sam had said she was going to make fried chicken for dinner. The thought made her sad. She had left Miss Sam a note in the kitchen, right before she went to school that morning. She didn’t want her to worry.

  She heard dogs barking somewhere in the distance, and she wondered if there was a farm with a barn nearby. Once Miss Sam had read her a book about children who lived in an old boxcar. They didn’t have any parents, but they had been so smart they had known just what to do. They had never gotten hungry or cold. She was going to be just the same. She was going to find a warm place to stay and make a little home for the night. Then she and Bear could wait until morning and start walking again. The tuna fish would last a long time. If she needed more food she even had some money Miss Sam had given her to buy Christmas presents.

  She wished she had bought Miss Sam a Christmas present and left it behind. She even wished she had bought something for Mr. Joe. She thought about the way he had messed up her hair that morning, and the funny way he called her Brown Eyes. Whenever she thought about her father, she thought maybe he looked like Mr. Joe. Maybe someday her father would call her Brown Eyes, too.

  She stopped for a moment. Her cheeks felt wet, even though it wasn’t raining anymore. She was tired, and it was getting darker every minute. She took off her backpack and unzipped it to take out Bear. Then, holding him tightly, she trudged on.

  * * *

  “DINAH, SHE WAS on the bus going there. We know that much. Nobody remembers seeing her after that.” Joe gripped the telephone tighter. “Yeah. I’ve already called the police. They’re organizing a search party to fan out from the factory.” He listened. Sam watched the distracted way he brushed his hair back from his forehead. “Yeah, I’ve told them she’s a foster child. They know to contact you when she’s found.”

  He said a few parting words and hung up. Sam wanted to go to him to offer comfort, but she was fast growing numb.

  “That wasn’t the talk I’d planned to have with Dinah,” he said.

  She went to him then, and slipped her arms around his waist. They were alone for the moment. The principal had lent them her office to make the call to Dinah. “Where could she be?”

  “I’m going out with the cops. Harlan’s coming, too, and somebody’s calling my faculty to see if they’ll volunteer. Dinah suggested you go home and wait. It’s possible Corey will call there or even find her way home.”

  “I want to search, too.” Sam moved away from him.

  “I know. But you need to go home and wait.”

  “No!”

  “Please go home first and check around really well. Then if you can find somebody to stay by the telephone, you can come. Please?”

  He was making sense, even though she wanted nothing more than to start searching. “All right.”

  He clutched her to him again. “We’re going to find her.”

  “It’s cold out there, and wet. How is she going to manage? What if some maniac took her?”

  “It’s not likely somebody took her from the factory parking lot with all those people around. It looks as if she’s run away.”

  “But why?”

  “We’ll find out when we find her.”

  “When?”

  “I’m not coming home until she’s found.”

  She could feel tears starting. She fought them. “I feel so helpless.”

  “See if you can get some people to come to the house to make sandwiches and coffee. Then you can bring them when you join us. The search team’s going to need refueling.”

  She pulled away again. “What if she heard us talking last night? What if she doesn’t want to live with us forever, and that’s why she left?”

  “You can’t second-guess a child, Sam. You know that.”

  “I couldn’t get through this if I didn’t have you.”

  He touched her cheek. His voice was rough. “You’ve got me. And so does she. We’ll find her. We’ll get through this.”

  Chaos reigned outside the closed doors of the principal’s office. Four teachers volunteered to go home with Sam to begin making sandwiches and jugs of coffee. Polly planned to come over as soon as one of her older children arrived home to stay with Mary Nell. A small search party had already formed in the hall. The police were working on another, and someone was organizing volunteers at the high school. In only a short time there were nearly fifty people ready to begin the search.

  Sam watched Joe drive away, then she started for her car. The other women planned to follow after a stop at the grocery store for bread and lunch meat.

  The house seemed unforgivably empty when she walked in. She called Corey’s name, expecting no response. The sound echoed off the walls, but there was no answer. Even Tinkerbelle seemed to have gone into seclusion.

  She checked upstairs first, going from room to room, checking closets and under beds in case Corey was hiding. Then she started downstairs. She almost missed the note. It was on the memo pad beside the telephone. She picked it up to turn over a fresh sheet so that she could keep track of any calls that might come in from Joe or the police. Printed neatly at the bottom was one sentence. “I gone to find my fahter and I took bear.”

  Sam held the note to her heart as hot tears spilled down her cheeks. Corey hadn’t run away because of unkind words on the bus that morning, or because Miss Simpson still hadn’t moved her to the apple reading group. She had run away to find her father. She had planned carefully enough to leave this note.

  She was still crying when Joe called to see what she had found. And after she managed to tell him, she thought there were tears at the other end of the line, too.

  * * *

  THE SEARCH WAS called off at two in the morning. Fog had rolled in, and visibility was near zero. In the interest of safety, the men and women who had volunteered to comb the woods along the highway were sent home. A fresh shift of police continued to search the outbuildings of farms in the area, but no one expected to find anything until the sun came up the next morning.

  “It’s still in the high forties,” Sam said, repeating the one fact that had given her hope throughout the long night.

  “Her jacket’s warm.” Joe’s response was just as familiar. He had tried not to picture the little girl huddled under the bulk of her jacket, shivering and crying. But the image had tormented him all night.

  He opened the front door of their house and stepped back to let Sam pass. Most of Sam’s co-workers had long since gone home. There were only so many sandwiches that could be made and eaten, so much coffee that could be drunk.

  They found Polly asleep beside the telephone. Sam woke her gently and sent her on her way. School would open as usual in the morning, and Polly needed her sleep to cope with the questions of her students.

  “We’re going to bed,” Joe told Sam after Polly had left.

  “I’ll never sleep.”

  “We’re going to bed. Why don’t you take a shower and change into whatever you’re planning to wear tomorrow? Then you can get up and get going right away if we get a call or as soon as the sun comes up.”

  He made the suggestion because he knew it was the only way he could get Sam to sleep. He had agreed to come home for that reason alone. Pale and drawn, she nod
ded. His heart broke when he looked at her. “We’re going to find her,” he promised.

  “I wanted to keep looking.”

  “There was no point.” Roughly he pulled her to him, clutching her tightly. Then he pushed her away. “Go get in the shower. I’ll be right behind you.”

  “I wish it was me out there.”

  “Sam, please...”

  She started up the stairs. He wandered the house looking for—what? For clues? That was a joke. The letter had been clue enough. Corey had gone to find her father. And she had taken nothing with her. Sam thought there might be some cans of tuna fish missing, but she wasn’t sure. Other than tuna and one missing bear, it was as if the little girl hadn’t wanted anything he and Sam had given her.

  He heard the shower running. In the kitchen he flopped down beside the telephone because he was too tired to stand. He put his head back and closed his eyes. The sound of the telephone edged him awake.

  Groggily he lifted the receiver. “Yeah?” He tried to make sense out of where he was and why. Somewhere in the distance he could hear water running. Then he came awake suddenly as the voice on the other end began to speak.

  Upstairs he was waiting for Sam when she emerged from the shower. “They found her,” he said with no ceremony. “She’s fine.”

  “Oh, my God.” Sam’s legs buckled, but Joe had foreseen that possibility and he grabbed her.

  “When it got dark she found a nice warm spot in some farmer’s hayloft. Apparently she told the cop who found her all about some book you read her....”

  Sam began to cry.

  He hugged her. “It’s all right. I’m going to go get her right now.”

  “You’re going to go? We’re going to go. I just have to get dressed.”

  She definitely wasn’t dressed. She was also wet and shivering. He held on to her, but he didn’t know if he was giving strength or seeking it. “I’m going,” he said. “This is between me and her.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That was Dinah on the phone. The sheriff called her first. She’s with Corey at the emergency room.”

  “Emergency—”

  “Standard procedure. Dinah says she seems to be fine but hungry. She’s working on a bowl of soup.”

  “What did you mean when you said this was between you and Corey?” Sam grabbed a towel and began to wind it around her.

  He watched her glowing skin disappear under the folds of the towel. Suddenly he had enough adrenaline pumping through his bloodstream to wish he had the time to unwind it again. “She told Dinah I didn’t want her, Sam. She thought maybe she’d have better luck persuading her real father to take her.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Between that and what you told Dinah yesterday, now Dinah’s trying to decide what to do with her. She’s afraid if she sends her back here, Corey will just run away again.”

  “No. Joe...”

  “I’m going to persuade her otherwise.”

  “But we can do that together.”

  “No. This one’s on me. I’m the reason Corey left. I have to be the reason she comes back. Trust me on this.”

  Sam stared at him. Then she nodded. “Yes. Go on. Do it.”

  He smiled, his battle half won. “Get her bed ready. I think she’ll be one tired little girl.”

  “I will.”

  He hesitated. “Wish me luck.”

  “I don’t think I need to. It’s going to be all right.”

  He kissed her hard and made plans to unwrap the towel—or whatever was equivalent—as soon as Corey was safely at home asleep in her own bed. He left the bathroom, and quickly, the house.

  The hospital where Corey had been taken was at the border of the next county. On the telephone Dinah had said that the deputy who found the little girl estimated that she had walked nearly ten miles.

  Joe’s little girl was a real trouper.

  He made the trip as fast as he safely could in the fog, glad that he had succumbed to Killer’s lure. At the first opportunity he planned to trade the sports car in for something larger, like a minivan, but in the meantime he appreciated the way Killer covered the miles. He parked in a doctor’s private parking space and took the yards to the emergency room at a jog.

  Inside, Dinah Ryan was waiting near the cubicle where a nurse told him an exhausted Corey lay sleeping. As he approached, Dinah stationed herself in front of the curtains that separated the little girl from the rest of the noisy room. “We have to talk first, Joe,” she said.

  He was impatient, but he understood paperwork and details.

  “Shoot.” He crossed his arms.

  “She doesn’t want to go home with you.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “She says you don’t want her.”

  “She’s wrong.”

  Dinah’s expression softened. “I understand what you’ve been through tonight. You’ve been out of your mind with worry. You’re a good man. You like kids and you don’t want to see one hurt. But that’s not the same as wanting to keep her forever. Sam told me yesterday how you feel about adoption.”

  “Sam was wrong. And I called on and off most of the day to tell you so. Long before I knew Corey had disappeared.”

  “Be that as it may, you haven’t convinced Corey you want her.”

  “We only found out yesterday that her father was out of the picture, Dinah! For Pete’s sake, you couldn’t expect us to tell Corey we were going to keep her last night, before we’d had a chance to discuss everything with you. We were afraid Sam had given you second thoughts about me. We didn’t want to take any chances you’d say no.”

  “She heard me talking about her father yesterday.”

  Joe’s anger drained away. “Poor little kid. Does she understand?”

  “As well as any kid can. It’s not like she ever knew him. I think I’ve convinced her that he’s out of the picture for good.”

  “And what’s in the picture?”

  “I guess that will be up to you. And Corey.”

  Joe saw the curtains parting. An inch at a time. He saw a small hand with plastic rings on every finger peek out from between them. He wanted to grab that small hand, enclose it in his, but he didn’t move. He was as still as he had ever been in his life. He pulled his gaze back to Dinah’s face.

  “I love Corey.” He heard what he’d said and knew it was true. He was shaken by his own announcement. Yesterday he had realized he wanted Corey as his daughter, but he hadn’t come this far. He and Sam had needed a child; Corey had needed parents. Sam already loved Corey. For the first time in almost a year everything had seemed simple and right. Now it wasn’t simple at all.

  He loved Corey and probably had for some time. If he couldn’t convince her to come home with him, he was going to lose her forever.

  He swallowed, but his voice still sounded suspiciously husky. “I love her because she likes bright colors and puzzles and bears better than dolls.”

  Dinah frowned.

  He was picking up speed now and couldn’t stop to reassure Dinah. “And because she has trouble with cursive, but her printing’s great. And because she likes to read and she remembers everything that’s on the pages.” He spoke a little faster, determined to get it all in. “See, Dinah, I love Corey because she sneaks into my study sometimes when she’s not supposed to, just so she can look at the pictures in my encyclopedia. I know she does it, because she doesn’t always put them back in the right place.”

  “What are you talking about, Joe?” Dinah looked puzzled.

  “And she’s a kid who knows how to call a lake a lake, never a pond.”

  “A lake? Joe, are you all right?”

  “And I love her because she eats fried chicken like a veteran. And because when she’s sick, she doesn�
�t want to bother anybody.”

  The curtains parted, and a little face squinted out at him. “Well, you woke up anyway that time I was sick!”

  “That’s because nobody should have to be sick alone.” He squatted slowly so that they were eye to eye. But he didn’t move toward her. At the periphery of his vision he saw Dinah step aside. “And I love Corey because she has brown eyes like mine and blond hair like Sam’s. Of course, I’d love her if she came in shades of purple, too.”

  “Purple?” She stuck her finger in her mouth.

  “And I love her because even when things get really bad, she’s brave and she tries not to lie and she tries to think about how other people will feel. I love her for about a million other reasons.” His voice caught. “But that’s a start.”

  She dragged her foot on the ground in front of her. He didn’t move, and neither did she.

  “And because I wrecked your car and burned the fort and broke your mandolin?” she asked at last.

  “Those wouldn’t be my best reasons.”

  She frowned. “As much as you love Miss Sam?”

  “Different.”

  She nodded. That seemed to make sense to her. “Like Mr. Harlan loves Mary Nell?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And you want to take me home again?”

  “I want to be your father. Your forever father. Will you let me?”

  “Does Miss Sam know?”

  “Yeah. She says it’s okay if I’m your father as long as she gets to be your mother.”

  Corey looked up from the ground. There was a space between them that seemed like a million miles. “I heard your voice. You woke me up.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “And I hoped...maybe you liked me after all.”

  He opened his arms. She took one step and she was enveloped in a bear hug.

  Joe wrapped his arms tightly around her. Corey’s arms threatened to choke off his air supply, but he didn’t care. He stood and looked straight at Dinah. “You ever heard the expression that possession is nine-tenths of the law?”