Still Missing (2010) by Stevens Chevy

Author:Stevens, Chevy [Chevy, Stevens,]
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2011-01-14T19:07:08.500000+00:00

It happened in a grocery store--I only shop late at night and with a baseball hat on. I've considered Internet shopping, but God knows who they'd send to deliver the groceries, and I've had enough of reporters using any ruse to get inside my house. Anyway, a woman was bent down reaching for something on the bottom shelf. Nothing weird about that, except a few feet behind her sat her cart, unguarded, with a toddler in it.

I tried to just walk by, tried not to stare at the baby girl's little white teeth and rosy cheeks, but as I passed, one of her tiny arms waved out at me, and I stopped. Like metal to magnet, I was helpless to keep my feet from bringing me close or my hand from reaching out. I just wanted to touch that tiny hand for a second. That's all I needed, I told myself, just one second. But the baby's hand curved over my outstretched finger and she giggled as she squeezed it. Hearing her giggle, her mom said, "That's my girl, Samantha, Mommy will be there in a sec."

Samantha, her name was Samantha. It echoed in my head, and I wanted to tell this woman, who was kneeling down to choose jars of what I now saw was baby food, that I had a baby too, the most goddamn beautiful baby you ever saw. But then she'd ask how old my baby was, and I didn't want to say she was dead and see this woman's eyes turn to her daughter in relief and gratitude that it wasn't her child, then see in those eyes that she was sure--sure with a mother's necessary confidence--that nothing terrible was ever going to happen to her daughter.

When I tried to pull my finger away, Samantha squeezed tighter, and a tiny bubble of spit formed at her lips. My nostrils inhaled her scent--baby powder, diapers, and the faint sweet odor of milk. I wanted her. My hands ached to lift her out of the seat and into my arms, into my life.

With furtive glances down either end of the aisle--empty--my mind worked to calculate how many steps it would take me to escape. I knew only one cashier worked this late. Easy breezy. I stepped closer to the cart. With my heart whooshing in my ears, I noticed every one of the baby's fine blond hairs glimmering in the store's fluorescent lights and reached out with my free hand to finger one silken strand. My baby had dark hair. This wasn't my baby. My baby was gone.

I stepped back just as the mother rose to her feet in the aisle, noticed me, and began to walk back toward the cart.

"Hello?" she said with a tentative smile.

I wanted to say, What were you thinking? Turning your back on your child like that. Don't you know what could happen? How many crazies are out there? How crazy I am?

"What a happy baby," I said. "And so beautiful."

"She looks happy now, but you should have seen her an hour ago! It took me forever to get her to calm down.

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