Is it that I haven’t displayed any sense of urgency myself in the past? They must know that my injuries and all that medication made me feel as if I was in a fog. My thoughts are clearer now. I can’t think of a more serious word than kidnapped and so kidnapped is the word I use.
He doesn’t believe me. I must make him believe me. ‘I locked the doors! No one could’ve come in – I’m sure of that. I know I should’ve … but I wasn’t … I never left the door unlocked! I checked every night.’
‘They’re looking for your daughter as we speak.’ He closes the cover of his notepad and slides the pen in his suit pocket. He lifts himself off the chair, sighs heavily, and pinches his lips as his kneecaps make a cracking sound. ‘We don’t understand your reasoning, Mrs Paradise. Why didn’t you get help immediately?’
The headache that started behind my eyes has moved to the back of my head. It’s paralyzing, and the odor of disinfectant is overwhelming. There it is again. The image approaches like a set of oncoming headlights, blinding and painful, and I’m unable to look away. The blood. The memory just won’t quit. Mesmerized by the vision of crimson patches the shape of tiny feet, soaked into the sheet, I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
‘Please, somebody must have seen something. I can’t remember anything but I know I’ve never been in Dover. I’m bad at reading maps, I wouldn’t know how to get there. I don’t think I’d just drive up there for no reason. It’s all very confusing.’
‘Maybe you just drove and you decided to stop there. It may not have been your destination. Just a place to stop.’
‘Stop for what?’
He ignores my question. ‘We’ll need a photograph of your daughter.’
‘Hundreds. I have hundreds of pictures of her. At my house. They are in a black camera bag, on memory cards.’
‘We found those.’ He pauses ever so slightly, then continues. ‘We need a recent portrait, you know, with her face. A likeness of her that people can recognize.’
I must think about this carefully. ‘The flash startled her and I haven’t taken any photographs, not lately. She’s been so fussy, I didn’t want her to …’ I must be vigilant. Speak slowly. I must make sense. I must convince him. ‘I don’t have any recent photos of her. She’s only seven months old. The doctors said, they told me she … she … she’s a colicky baby. The doctors told us there was nothing wrong with her. Just a colic. It was going to pass any day.’
‘How old did you say she is?’
‘Seven months.’
‘Babies are colicky at that age? I have three kids. I can’t say I took care of them, but my youngest was colicky. They usually grow out of that pretty quickly.’ His brows are raised. So are his suspicions. ‘Did you take her to a doctor?’
Pacifier, warm baths, soft blankets. Burp the baby. Hold the baby. Rock the baby. Walk the baby, drive with the baby. Soothe the baby.
‘They did a couple of tests for reflux disorders. She gained weight, never had a fever. He said she was fine and to wait it out.’ They also told me if I ever felt that I couldn’t cope, to go to the nearest emergency room, but I don’t mention that part to the detective.
‘All right,’ he says and scribbles something in his notepad. ‘How about DNA – a brush maybe? Or a bottle she drank out of? Or a handprint or a footprint? You know, those kits you buy at a department store, where you use clay and take an impression of a foot or a hand?’
I shake my head.
‘A hair brush? A toothbrush? You know those little plastic things you attach to a finger and brush their teeth?’
I shake my head.
‘A diaper? There must be a dirty diaper somewhere?’
Again I shake my head. ‘It all disappeared,’ I say it so softly that I don’t know if he heard me.
‘It disappeared,’ he repeats as if I just told him the day of the week.
Why isn’t he alarmed?
‘Yes, everything disappeared, her clothes, her bottles. All of it, everything’s gone. Her closet was empty, her diapers were missing, her formula, her bottles. Everything.’
‘We are aware of that fact.’ He sits up straight and crosses his arms in front of his chest. ‘So, someone took her and that person also took her things?’ He puts his notebook away as if the ramblings of a madwoman are no longer significant enough to be written in his precious pad. ‘That’s a very odd crime. If the doors were locked all night and were still locked the morning you found the empty crib, there must be another explanation. I have to be honest with you, that doesn’t make sense at all.’
My story not making any sense is a cruel statement. ‘I know how it sounds, but that’s all I can tell you.’
Daniel’s face relaxes, he leans forward. ‘I can only find her if I know where to look.’ He pauses and then adds, ‘Where should I look for her?’ His voice is gentle as if he is trying to convince a child to tell the truth.
‘What are you trying to say? That I know where she is?’
‘You knew she was gone and you didn’t ask for help.’
He’s right. I don’t know how to respond to that.
‘If you know where she is you have to tell me,’ he continues. ‘She’s so little, helpless, she is cold, hungry. She’s all alone out there.’
I wonder where his out there is. I pinch my lips to keep the tears in check. I don’t want to cry in front of him. When I cried in front of Jack it made everything worse.
‘Did you ever feel you were capable of hurting your baby?’
Was I capable of hurting her? I shake my head for I dare not speak out loud.
‘Did she cry a lot?’ he asks.
There they are, the images emerge as if the detective hit a button and they splatter against the wall like photographs from a slide projector: Clenched fists, legs pulled up to the stomach, a baby’s tearless rage directed towards me. My love for her powerless, incapable of easing her pain.
‘She was a colicky baby, you know, very fussy … but I would never hurt her. She was my life.’
Something in his eyes twitches, then he nods as if I said something he expected to hear.
He abruptly turns around and leaves the room, as if everything I just told him is beyond what makes sense.
Then I realize I spoke of Mia in the past tense.
Mia Paradise Connor and I were released from the hospital five days after the delivery. Jack went back to work, took over the night feedings on the weekends, and I slept, ate and showered whenever possible.
I was in awe of what I had created. I stared at Mia, her plump cheeks, her little bird mouth twitching in her sleep. I bathed her and padded her dry, gently rubbing lavender lotion all over her. By then she was far from the puffy-eyed, bowlegged newborn. Her curvy legs had straightened, her cone-shaped