Not Her Daughter

by Rea Frey

  Fifteen minutes of pacing and checking in on Robert later, two officers stood at the door: protruding bellies, puffy eyes, grayish teeth, wrinkled beige uniforms.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Townsend? May we come in, please?”

  Kidnappings didn’t happen in their community. It was as vanilla as subdivisions came. Big news was about price increases at the local market, an overpriced hipster café, or the occasional automobile break-in. Not this. Not ever this. Not as long as they’d been here.

  Richard found his voice and ushered them inside, flipping on lights as they went. Had they been standing in the dark this whole time? She couldn’t remember. She kept her ears primed, as if Emma might pop out from behind a chair and say, Surprise! I’m right here. She wasn’t that playful, and she wasn’t behind a chair. She’d get in trouble if she pulled a stunt like this, and Emma knew it, so she rarely jumped, shouted, or hid.

  “Would you two like something to drink? Water? Coffee?” That’s right. Nice host, nice mother, nice wife, nice life.

  Barry, the tall one, and Stan, at least five inches shorter, moved into the kitchen, their eyes casing everything. “Coffee would be wonderful, ma’am. Thank you.”

  Of course they wanted coffee at 10:30 P.M. Of course she’d have to busy her hands and not hear the entire conversation. They’d distract her, get her to slip. She already felt like a suspect.

  They all stood in the kitchen. Barry scratched his head and extracted a small pad. Their lack of urgency annoyed her. They were here, so this was obviously something more significant than Emma just wandering off in the backyard. Her child was out there somewhere! Where were the detectives? The FBI? A search party?

  “So, we just need to go over the details of what happened, so we can get all of the facts straight.” Stan studied the kitchen floor as he said it. Her muddy footprints covered the tile.

  “I was searching for her. In the woods. That’s why there’s mud everywhere.”

  “In the woods? Is that where you suspect she went?”

  Amy looked to Richard, who’d grown conveniently mute. She was going to fall on a sword, all right. All by herself. “Yes, I suspect that’s where she went.” She poured the water into the carafe, sprinkled in some cheap coffee, and pressed start. “She’s run off a few times before—in the woods, I mean—but she’s always come back.”

  Barry shifted, his gun holster hitting their oven. “Is there a place we can sit to go over details?”

  Amy led them to the dining room table and shut the door leading into the hall. “We have a little one sleeping in the back, so if we could keep this quiet.”

  “Oh, of course, ma’am. Though we will have to search the house.”

  “Search the house? Why?” Richard asked.

  “For clues, evidence of foul play, to obtain the child’s DNA. Completely standard. I’m sure everything is fine.”

  “Why don’t we just start with what happened?” Stan folded his hands on the table while Barry was primed to take notes.

  “Okay. Well, Emma was playing outside in the backyard, as she normally does after school and—”

  “Approximately what time was this?”

  She looked at Richard. “Well, she has a babysitter bring her home, so I assume she was outside before we arrived home from work.”

  “What’s the babysitter’s name? His or her full name, please?”

  Amy gave it to them. “Why do you need her name?”

  “At this point, ma’am, anyone who has a direct connection to the girl could be of help. Go on.”

  Amy heard the last gurgle of coffee hiss into the pot and wanted to get up and busy herself with pouring multiple cups. “So, when we both got home, I went outside to tell Emma it was time to come in.”

  “And did she?”

  Amy looked at the table. “No, she didn’t want to come in. We argued about it.”

  “Was this a verbal argument or a physical one?”

  Amy opened her mouth, looked at Richard, and closed it. He didn’t know she’d slapped her. Could she leave that detail out? If someone found Emma, would her cheek be bruised? Would she be able to place blame somewhere else? She’d watched enough shows to know that if they suspected physical abuse, this preliminary investigation would shift to her. The only important thing was to find her daughter, not muddy it up with irrelevant details. “No, it was verbal. I was very tired. She was being difficult. She’s five, so…”

  They nodded as though they understood. “That can be a difficult age, sure.”

  “So, I came back inside and Richard was feeding Robert, our son. I went to the bedroom, and I fell asleep. I didn’t mean to, but I was tired and frustrated, and the next thing I knew, it was nine.”

  “And what time did you go back to your room?”

  “I don’t know. Six, maybe?”

  “And did you get your daughter in from outside, sir?”

  Richard turned the color of a beet and squeezed his hands together. “No, I didn’t. I … I was on toddler duty and got him ready for bed and did the bath. I didn’t know Amy had fallen asleep. I thought she was with her. I went to put Robert down, and I fell asleep with him too. Amy woke me up once she realized Emma was gone.”

  Barry and Stan looked at each other. “So, you’re telling me you fell asleep while your husband took care of the baby, and then he fell asleep and forgot your daughter was outside? You don’t know if she ever came back in?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Was the door unlocked or locked?” Stan asked.

  Amy had relocked the door. Richard hadn’t seen her do it.

  “Sir, did you lock up before bed?”

  “I … no, I don’t think so. The back door was unlocked. I just thought she would come in.” He scratched his head and let his hands fall into his lap. “I thought they were working out their argument. That’s what they normally do.”

  Amy looked at Richard, appalled. If she could have sliced him in half with one look, he would be in stringy, clumpy chunks at her feet.

  Barry jumped all over that. “So, you two argue a lot? Is that accurate, ma’am?”

  Amy stood and moved to pour them all coffee. “I wouldn’t say a lot, but sometimes, yes. It’s been a very stressful transition with the new baby, juggling work, bills, kids, you know. Would anyone like cream or sugar?”

  “Black for me.”

  “I’ll take sugar,” Stan said.

  She prepared their cups and brought them over, a little liquid sloshing over the top. “Sorry about that.”

  “You’re fine, ma’am. Thank you.”

  “Can I have a cup too?” Richard asked.

  Get up and get one yourself! Amy grimaced and went back to pour Richard a cup.

  “Can we get your daughter’s full name, weight, height, and what she was wearing tonight?”

  Amy had no idea how much she weighed or her height. She was wearing what she always wore. She’d conceded to let Emma wear just one or two outfits, always some variation of red dress and red shoes, because the arguments about what to wear just weren’t worth it. She gave the information as best as she could.

  “Any distinguishing marks, such as a birthmark or scars?”

  Richard looked at Amy and ducked his head to sip his coffee. “No, no real distinguishing marks. Other than a birthmark. On her hip.” Why was she the one answering all the fucking questions?

  “We’ll need a written statement from both of you as to what she was wearing, any personal items she might have had at the time of the disappearance, as well as any specific mannerisms or identifying characteristics that could help us find her.”

  “Do we do that now, or…?”

  “At the station, ma’am. We will also need a list of friends, acquaintances, or anyone else who might know where she is. We’ll start with the neighborhood. Does your daughter go to school?”

  “Yes. It’s just the Montessori on the corner, actually. We walk her there every day.”

  “Great, that’s great.”
Barry’s pen worked feverishly. “And we’ll need a recent photo as well in case of distribution.”

  “Distribution?”

  “Yes, in case the agency needs it, the media, or the NCMEC. Don’t you worry about any of that now. Hopefully, we’ll find her before it comes to that. Kids tend to run off and come home, especially in a safe neighborhood like this.”

  Richard looked back and forth between the two men. “Are you two related?”

  Amy scoffed at Richard’s inane, random question. What did it matter if they were conjoined twins? They just needed to find Emma.

  “We are, sir. Brothers. Born and raised in Longview. We come from a long line of officers.”

  “What a small world.”

  “Richard, really?” She turned her attention back to the officers and drummed her fingers on her coffee mug. “What next?” She was a clichéd nervous wreck, but if she sat here one minute more, she’d combust.

  The brothers stood and scraped their chairs against the hardwood. She winced.

  “We are going to need to look at Emma’s room and check the surrounding area. Can you show us to her room? We would also ask during this time that you not touch or rearrange anything.”

  Amy was shaking, her head fuzzy and full of details and questions. Her entire body felt cold, but she was sweating. She led them down the hall to Emma’s room, which was bare and boring: a mattress on the floor, a few stuffed animals, a dresser—no happy, homemade art. Amy never let her keep toys in her room, because she inevitably destroyed it, tossing dolls and stuffed animals everywhere. It had been such a constant source of animosity between them—Amy always on cleanup duty, and Emma always destroying what she’d just cleaned up—that she’d made the official rule that bedrooms were for sleeping, and that was it.

  Looking around now, she could see it through the officers’ eyes, and she was embarrassed. In this day and age, kids’ rooms often looked like shrines pieced together from Pinterest. Every time she opened a children’s catalog and gazed into all those beautifully designed rooms, she felt wildly inadequate.

  She stepped out of the room as they rifled through her daughter’s personal things. They lowered their voices as they rummaged, sorted, and tagged. Amy poured herself a cup of coffee while Richard sat at the table with his head in his hands. Could anything in her daughter’s room be a clue to where she’d gone? This hadn’t been a deliberate act. There was no one in their lives who would ever take Emma, was there? The list of their friends and family was minuscule. It revealed their sparse, tiny life in this small town.

  As Amy blew the steam off the top of her cup, she wondered if there was some secret part of her daughter’s life that would give away the truth of her whereabouts. A journal with drawings of a faraway place. A stranger who’d offered her candy after school. Some crazy adventure where she’d stuffed a backpack full of toys and snacks and then set off through the woods—a child heroine in a beloved storybook tale. It didn’t seem likely. None of this—the evening, the fight, the slap, the confession, the door, the sleep, the disappearance, the men in her daughter’s room now, shuffling, tossing, and jotting—seemed real. Yet it was all real. And it was her fault.

  As she sipped her coffee and watched Richard, who stared blankly at the wall with tears in his eyes, she knew she had to keep the slap and the deliberately relocked door to herself. Those acts looked intentional. Those acts appeared to show a woman at her breaking point. And a mother at her breaking point could do horrible, unspeakable things: drowning her child in a bathtub, driving them both off of a cliff, smothering an unsuspecting child while she slept. It was in the best interest for all of them if they actually found Emma instead of fixating on Amy as a possible suspect.

  Nobody knew the entire truth, and she wanted to keep it that way.

  * * *

  It was well past midnight. Robert had stirred once. Amy’s whole body throbbed with adrenaline. The three-hour nap coupled with the coffee made her feel she could trek through the entire length of woods faster than any detective could. Richard was still in with Robbie, probably passed out cold. He didn’t handle emergencies well, and his emotions were all over the place. Amy had just two speeds: turned off or angry, neither of which would benefit her here, with this.

  The officers called a detective, Frank Lewis. He’d obviously been woken from sleep when he arrived at their door. Dark scruff dotted his jaw, and his hair looked full of static. Barry and Stan led him into her home, as if they were now the hosts, and briefed him on what info they had collected.

  Frank raked a hand over his face as he listened, a succession of rapid blinks as he nodded or murmured. He acknowledged her with a handshake and then combed their entire house before circling back to her.

  “So, you said Emma was outside, but you don’t know if this dining room door was locked for her to get back in?” His voice was filled with gravel and boomed across their quiet house. He opened the door, and there, all along the back of the grimy glass, were small, muddy handprints. They all stopped as the truth sunk in. Her daughter had been banging on the door, but she hadn’t been able to get in because Amy intentionally locked it. The lie coiled in her throat, in battle with the awful truth.

  “Like I said, I fell asleep accidentally, and Richard was taking care of Robert. She often bangs on the door when she wants to show me something.”

  “Is the door usually locked when she wants to show you something?”

  “No, it’s not usually locked.”

  “But it was locked tonight?”

  She shook her head no, but didn’t say the word. If they knew she locked her out, they’d crucify her. If they knew she’d slapped her, they’d think she had something to do with this. She hoped the warmth in her skin wasn’t giving her away.

  Frank kneeled down to the glass and brought out a swab. “I’ll need to see the girl’s hairbrush and toothbrush.”

  “Why?”

  “DNA. Hopefully we won’t need it. It’s standard procedure.”

  Amy showed him the bathroom and followed Barry and Stan back to the dining room for more questioning.

  “Is anyone searching for Emma? Anyone at all? Why are we all just sitting here?”

  “Ma’am, there’s a very specific protocol. I know it’s hard, but you have to trust that we’re handling it. We just have to get all the facts first.”

  “What facts do you need besides my five-year-old daughter is missing? Every second we sit here, someone could be getting further away. At this point, it’s been hours,” Amy said. The panic tinged her voice.

  “I promise, Mrs. Townsend, we will find her.”

  Amy nodded because she didn’t know what else to do. She heard the drawers of the bathroom scrape open and closed, as Frank collected DNA from her missing child. Amy closed her eyes as Barry and Stan asked more questions. The room was spinning. She felt sick. Every emotion circulated through her system: worry, fear, anxiety, resignation, indignation, guilt. She gripped the table and willed all of this away. She just wanted to wake up, to start this day over, to do everything different.

  Just bring her back, and I’ll do better, I promise.

  Just bring her back to me.

  before

  Amy pulled in to the shady lot and rechecked the address scribbled on the back of an envelope. The numbers were carved into a black sign hanging on a white door that was wedged between a few other businesses—a dry cleaner, a law office, and a bridal store servicing the lesbian community.

  She hoisted herself from the car, already damp and craving cheese. She’d read so many books on past-life regression therapy that she felt electrified by the prospect; she’d be able to find out who she’d been and what she’d been doing in her last life. Possibly her last three lives, if she was lucky. Maybe she was a thin, wealthy socialite who sat around drinking wine all day? Maybe she was a dog, a janitor, one of the respected presidents? Even the thought of lying on a couch to be transported somewhere else felt like a vacation.

  And sh
e needed a vacation. She couldn’t go to the spa (mortifying), on a real, relaxing vacation (kids), or find even a spare moment to herself (no proper lock on the bathroom door). So this was it. She smoothed the front of her pants and felt her underwear knotting up and into her cheeks. She scanned the lot and fingered out the fabric.

  She stopped before opening the door. Maybe she shouldn’t even do this. What was the point? What if she got laughed out of the office, or offered help for her weight and not past-life regression? She thought about what was waiting at home—kids, chores, chaos, him—and decided to just go through with it.

  “Hello.” A set of bells chimed as she stepped inside. “Welcome to Back in Touch. How may I help you?”

  Amy braced herself for judgment but saw only a friendly, professional smile and a cup of what looked like green tea steaming beside the woman at the front desk.

  “I have a one o’clock with Barbara?”

  The woman checked the computer. “Yes, Amy Townsend? Welcome. You can just wait right over there. Barb is finishing up with someone and will be out shortly. Would you like some tea, coffee, or cucumber water?”

  Did she look like the type of person to drink cucumber water? “No, I’m fine. Thank you.”

  The office was small, white, and smelled like lavender. She scooped up a magazine from the coffee table and pretended to flip through. At two minutes before one, a scruffy man of about sixty exited the only door leading to the back, his eyes red, his cheeks blotchy. Several bunched Kleenex bulged against his chest. Behind him emerged a short, slightly overweight woman with an arm working his back in soothing circles.

  “Take care, Brian. And drink lots of water, please.” He pushed through the door to the outside, bells tinkling, head down, as Barb whispered something to the lady at the front desk before turning to focus on her.