Carli
Carli lay on her side, staring through the slats of the empty crib and out the window. As the morning wore on, a shaft of sunlight crept across her room. Dust motes fell through it to the floor. Soon, the sun would reach her face and she’d either have to get up and close the curtains or let go of the crib, roll over, and face the other way.
Her sleep the night before had been choppy and sloppy with half-awake dreams of Andy sweating and grunting over her and her own sweating and grunting in the delivery room. She felt like she was pushing all over again. She felt split open. And then she was pulling back, trying to suck the baby back inside her. She kept seeing the baby’s face, half hidden by that pink blanket, with those slits for eyes, and that tongue poking from between thin blue lips. And the service officer kept asking the same question: Why did you change your mind? Why did you change your mind? Why did you change your mind? Around dawn, she went to the refrigerator to get one of Marla’s Mountain Dews and brought it back to her room—not because she wanted to stay awake, really, but because she could no longer bear what came with sleep.
Carli wanted to blame Gail and Jon for disappearing with Maya. She wanted to blame Paige for telling her that the baby was coming and then screwing it up somehow. She wanted to blame Marla for forcing her to look at that wrinkled face and smell that vanilla cream soda. But she knew who to blame. As that baby grew, she had carefully built a wall around it and she didn’t touch that wall, didn’t even look at it, and she didn’t allow herself to become attached to what was on the other side. That wall protected her from the empty place after she gave eight pounds of herself away, and she had counted on the idea that the empty place would grow smaller and smaller until she would only feel it when she wanted to. But then she let Marla kick the wall down, and she found that space behind the wall wasn’t empty at all. It took Carli a while to recognize love for what it was, but then love was all she could feel, and it hurt. And after she talked to Paige, and Paige told her she’d bring the baby back, and they bought the diapers, and they set up the crib, she allowed herself to wedge hope alongside it. And while she waited with Marla in the front room, she was stupid enough to pack that space that wasn’t empty with new ideas—ideas about having a daughter and being a mother and building a family, and that space beneath her ribs grew full and stretched tight. But then, of course, everything had melted into a bloody mess and she was afraid to move, because everything fucking hurt.
The front door opened, and Carli heard the familiar sound of keys dropping into the mason jar next to the TV. She closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep, breathing heavily and slowly. She heard her bedroom door open, but she kept breathing steady, hoping that Marla would go away, knowing that she wouldn’t.
“Get up,” Marla said.
Carli opened her eyes but didn’t roll over. “Why aren’t you at work?”
“I took the rest of the day off. Get up.”
Marla tugged the blanket off, but Carli clung to the sheet. “Why?” she asked.
“I need help with the computer.”
“Why?”
Marla smacked her on the back of the head, and Carli realized that she’d been bracing for the blow.
“Because I fucking said so.” Marla’s voice rumbled. “It’s time to tell your side of the story to someone who will listen.”
Jon
Jon gripped the wheel, eyes on the rearview mirror. A bead of sweat rolled down the center of his back and slipped into the crack of his ass.
“What’s he doing?” Gail asked.
“I don’t know,” Jon said. The cop had been sitting in his car with the lights flashing for almost fifteen minutes. “Running the plates, maybe?”
“Why’s he running the plates?”
“I don’t know, Gail,” Jon snapped. And then, more gently, “It’s probably standard procedure.”
Jon hoped it was standard procedure. Surely the cops hadn’t been notified yet. Surely there was no APB, no nationwide alert, no manhunt. Not yet. He was expecting a week of confusion and inaction. Counting on it, really. Finally, the cop got out of the car and put on his trooper hat. He walked to the driver’s side, his hand on his gun. Also, standard procedure, Jon hoped. He rolled down the window.
“Hello, Officer.”
The cop bent warily. His hair was cropped tight. His eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses that reflected Jon’s own nervous face. “Mr. Hendricks?”
Hendricks? “No. No, sir. Reynolds. Allen Reynolds.”
The trooper peered into the back of the car at Gail and Maya. “Registration for your plates says Wayne Hendricks.”
“Really?” Jon said. “We just bought the car yesterday. Guy who owned the lot was named Wayne.”
“Usually doesn’t work that way.”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Jon said. “Why would he put the plates in his own name?”
The cop looked to the back seat again, and then back at Jon. “Beats me.” A smile finally flickered. “Illinois is a strange place.”
Jon laughed, but it sounded false even to him. “Car died just before you pulled up. Maybe Wayne can keep it in his name.”
The cop’s smile broadened. “There’s a couple of shops up in Fergus Falls.”
“I already called one of them. They’re sending a tow truck.”
The cop checked his watch. “I’ll give you folks a ride into town.”
Jon looked up at the sunglasses but found only his own reflection. “Thank you, but that’s really not necessary. They should be here shortly.”
Maya started to cry again.
“They won’t have room for all three of you. I’m headed that way anyway.”
“We should be fine.” Jon didn’t care if he had to ride on the back of the tow truck, in the trunk of the Camry if necessary. “Thank you, though.”
The cop cocked his head and looked into the back again. “How old’s that baby?”
Why was that relevant? Jon considered adding a week or two, but the truth came out instead. “Seven days.”
Another pause as the cop looked through the back window. “I can’t leave a newborn on the side of the road. My wife would kill me.”
Jon studied the glasses, looking for a seam, a way to wriggle free, but there was none. He nodded and climbed out of the car. They loaded the car seat and the diaper bag into the back seat of the patrol car. Gail, stone-faced, got into the back with Maya and strapped her in. Jon climbed into the front with his backpack.
“I’m Lathan,” the cop said after he settled into his seat and radioed his plans to the dispatcher. “Lathan Jennings.”
“I really appreciate this, Officer.”
“Not a problem.” After he pulled onto the highway and gained speed, he glanced in the rearview mirror at Gail. “Mrs. Reynolds, what’s your name?”
Gail didn’t respond at first. Jon looked back through the metal grate at Gail, who was staring out the window. He wasn’t sure whether she didn’t hear the question or couldn’t remember her new name. He considered answering for her, but Lathan repeated his question more loudly.
“Kim,” Gail finally said.
“And the baby?”
“Emma,” Jon blurted at the same time that Gail said, “Maya.” Shit. He hadn’t yet told Gail Maya’s new name.
“Whoa.” Lathan looked in the mirror again. “There two babies back there?”
“Emma’s her first name, and Maya’s her middle name,” Jon said quickly. “We’re still arguing about which to use.”
Lathan nodded, looking unconvinced. “I been married for fourteen years and have two kids.” He cast a look at Jon, smiled a tight smile. “I highly recommend you lose that argument.”
They drove in silence. Jon hugged his backpack, tried to think of something to say, but Lathan beat him to it. “Where you folks headed?”
“Grand Forks,” Jon said quickly, before Gail had a chance to say Winnipeg.
“Grandparents?”
“Huh?”
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br /> “You visiting the grandparents?”
“Oh. Yeah. Right.”
“Where in Grand Forks?”
Jon squeezed the backpack. “Northwest side,” he murmured.
“Really? I grew up near there. What neighborhood?”
Shit. “I’m not sure,” he said, and looked out the window. “I left the address in the car.”
Long pause. “Your parents or Kim’s?” Jennings’s voice had changed, the friendliness had fallen away. He now sounded a bit like a cop interrogating a suspect.
“Mine,” Jon said. He guessed at the next question. “They just moved there.”
“North Dakota instead of Florida?”
“My dad took a new job.”
“Who’s he work for?” Lathan asked immediately.
Jon’s mind scrambled for an answer specific enough that it wouldn’t spawn more questions, but vague enough that he wouldn’t be caught in a lie. “State Farm.”
They drove the next several miles in silence. Jennings alternated his attention between the road and Jon and Gail in the mirror. Jon couldn’t help but get the feeling that he was tallying up the inconsistencies in the story, memorizing their faces, crafting his next question. If Jennings asked for his license, Jon would tell him he lost his wallet. If he asked for Jon’s parents’ names, he’d say Carol and Mark Reynolds. If he asked for their phone number, he’d give him one of the burner numbers that he’d memorized. The trooper opened his mouth to start in again when Gail spoke.
“How old are your children?” she asked.
“Ten and twelve.”
“Those are fun ages. Boys? Girls?”
“One of each.”
“They play sports?”
For the next twenty minutes, Gail interrogated Jennings, who dutifully answered her questions about wrestling and soccer and braces and ballet. By the time they arrived at Advanced Repair, he and Gail had agreed that the offside rule was incomprehensible, dance recital costumes cost too much, and orthodontics was a racket. After they unloaded the baby gear into the shop’s dingy waiting room, Gail took Maya to the bathroom to change her diaper. Jon shook Jennings’s hand and thanked him again. Jennings took his sunglasses off and appraised Jon with cold gray eyes. “Allen Hendricks, right?”
Jon shook his head. “Reynolds.”
“Right.” He took out his notebook. “Why don’t you give me your phone number, Mr. Reynolds? I’d like to check in with you later. Make sure everything turns out all right.” He nodded to the restroom. “You know. With the baby and all.”
Paige
Paige hung up the phone and crossed Allison Markham off the list. Allison didn’t know anything more than the rest of Jon and Gail’s friends. It seemed that they didn’t even tell anyone but Gail’s parents that Carli wanted to reclaim. It was as if they had known from the very beginning what they were going to do.
Paige had arrived at the agency at seven in the morning. She made herself coffee—tea wouldn’t cut it—and then she shut her office door so that nobody would bother her. She spent the first hour paging through Jon and Gail’s home study, highlighting names and looking up phone numbers. For the last four hours she’d been making calls, asking questions, listening for the hesitation, the strained response that would tell her someone was hiding something. Usually, home studies are useless—just paperwork to cover the state’s ass. But Jon and Gail’s served as a nice directory of all the important people in their life. A list of informants. Potential witnesses. Soon the home study would be collected as evidence in a criminal investigation. Paige knew before she drove to Morris to tell Carli, even before she left the Durbins’ porch, that she was dealing with a crime.
She didn’t find the right word for it at first. After she left Carli’s house—after she was thrown out by Marla, really—Paige drove directly to the Elmhurst police station. When she asked to see a detective, she called it a disappearance. She cooled her heels in the waiting room for almost two hours. Disappearance wasn’t quite right, but that other word felt so overly dramatic, extreme, harsh on her tongue. Finally, she walked back up to the desk and told the clerk that it was more than just a disappearance—it was a kidnapping.
She talked to the detective for more than an hour. She had all the documentation—the birth certificate, the adoption statute, the reclamation filing. The detective kept asking why Carli had changed her mind, and Paige kept asking him why that was relevant. It might help him gain context, he said. By the end of the hour, the complaint was filed, but Paige felt certain that it would fall to the bottom of his pile. Something in the way that the detective closed the folder, the way that he avoided eye contact with Paige, told her that he had already chosen sides.
On the way home from the police station, she called Henry, the agency’s lawyer, to see if he could connect her with someone. He said that he had a friend from law school, a federal prosecutor, who undoubtedly knew agents in the local FBI field office, and he promised to call. She checked her watch. If she didn’t hear from somebody soon, she’d call the FBI directly. As she dialed the number for Jon’s aunt, she tried to push her own culpability from her mind.
“Hello. This is Carol.”
“Hi, Carol. This is Paige Wellington, the social worker for Jon and Gail’s adoption.”
“Yes?”
No hesitation, just curiosity cut with confusion. Before Paige even asked the question, she knew the answer. “I’m wondering if you’ve heard from Jon or Gail in the last couple of days?”
“Jon called on Saturday. Why? Is something wrong?”
Everyone who Paige called asked the same question. She made the mistake of telling the first few what was going on. She spent thirty minutes answering questions, and most of those questions centered around why Carli changed her mind. They had, of course, chosen their side.
“No. I’m just trying to tie up some paperwork. Can you give me a call if you hear from them?”
Paige gave her phone number and then hung up as quickly as possible. She had learned long ago not to take sides. Adoptions, even the successes, can get complicated. She learned during the first dozen, that with so much emotion involved, with so much at stake, there wasn’t room for favorites. Everyone talked about the best interest of the child. Until the shit hit the fan. Then everyone screamed about the best interest of the child. There were laws and processes and procedures, though, and when people started yelling at her, Paige would purr in her smooth-jazz social-worker voice and take them through the process. She tried to be empathetic to everyone, but she never steered the outcome. She never took sides.
Last on the list: Jon’s mother. Even during the home study—a process designed to hash through every detail of a couple’s life—Jon’s mom remained a mystery. Whenever Paige asked a question about her, Jon would look down at the table, and then Gail would say something vague before changing the subject. Before she could pick up the handset, though, the phone rang. A downtown number.
“This is Paige.”
“Hi, Paige. This is Agent Bradford from the FBI. I was asked to call you.”
Finally. Finally, it would begin. It had been almost twenty-four hours since Paige went to the Durbins to pick up Maya. She would use the right word this time. And she had chosen sides. “Thank you for calling, Agent Bradford. I’d like to report a kidnapping.”
Gail
Gail emerged from the cramped, fetid bathroom and found the car seat on a chair in the car repair shop’s lobby. She settled Maya into it and sat down next to her. Jon was discussing their situation with a man behind the counter who wore greasy coveralls and a blank expression. It did not seem to be going well.
“What do you mean you haven’t sent the truck yet?”
The man—he was really no more than a chubby boy—spoke slowly and loudly, as if Jon were hard of hearing or from a foreign country. “We haven’t. Sent. The Truck. Yet.”
“When? When will you send the truck?”
The boy shrugged. “By end of the day.”
“Are you kidding me? I called more than an hour ago.”
The boy arranged some papers on the counter. Gail had seen this particular movie too many times, and she knew how it ended. Jon always lost his mind with people who reminded him of his time in the trailer, reminded him of where he might have ended up if his aunt hadn’t plucked him from that life. Gail thought about standing up, stepping in, but she worried that might only make things worse.
“Maybe I should go to the other shop.”
The boy’s lips flickered. “Roy’s?”
“Yeah. Roy’s.”
The boy chuckled. “Good luck with that.”
Jon turned and looked at Gail and Maya. He pulled out his wallet, leaned against the counter. “How much?” he muttered.
“Huh?”
“How much? To get it towed now?”
The boy shrugged again. “Hundred bucks might expedite things.”
“What the fuck does might mean?”
The boy said nothing, straightened the papers again. Jon counted out a stack of twenties and pushed them across the counter. The boy swept up the bills and crumpled them into the pocket of his coveralls.
“We’ll call you soon as it gets in.”
Jon glared at him as he hefted the car seat. Gail grabbed the diaper bag and waited until the door closed behind Jon.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
He looked at her for a moment and then nodded ever so slightly. Gail pushed through the door and hurried to catch up to Jon.
Other People's Children Page 17