oatmeal and a banana on the quiet.
When I got home from the bank that evening, the house had a dead-aired, empty feeling. I went to Liza’s room and saw the closet standing open.
There were a few empty hangers in the center. Both pairs of her favorite jeans were gone. The big red backpack she’d planned to use as a diaper bag was gone, too. I opened her drawers and saw gaps in the stacks of socks and underpants and T-shirts. The baby’s yel ow blankie was no longer in the bassinet, and neither was her stuffed duck with the bel in his gut that slept beside her teeny feet.
I dropped to my knees by the square of carpet that used to hold Liza’s silver footlocker. Al her keepsakes had been dumped out of it and left in a heap on the floor: notes from school friends, pressed flowers, the birth certificate that said “Baby Girl Slocumb,” with “Liza Slocumb” typed in the space for the momma’s name and nothing at al typed in the space for the daddy. Liza’d said it was a tal , pretty boy who’d run the Ferris wheel at a weekend carnival she’d gone to with her so-cal ed friend Melissa Richardson. Liza said she couldn’t remember his name, but I found I slept easier if I pretended that only meant she wasn’t tel ing it.
I didn’t know Baby Girl Slocumb’s name for more than two years, not until Liza showed back up, her red-gold hair dul ed down and flat with filth and her tilty eyes so tired. She had a long, skinny-legged girl child with a round bel y and an earnest gaze slung up on her hip. That little critter clung tight to Liza like a solemn monkey baby. Liza looked like she’d already dialed herself to four past desperate. She had meth sores al around her mouth, her cheekbones so sharp I thought any second they would split and let her tired skul peek through. But the baby—a toddler now—was relatively clean and didn’t look underfed. She had one hand fisted up in Liza’s hair and was resting easy in her arms.
Liza said, “Big, can I please come home?”
I stared, hope and sick warring at the heart of me, while my angry brain was yel ing that before they crossed my threshold, there would have to be a deal. If Liza wanted home, there would be rules, and there would sure as hel be rehab, and I would have to have a legal stake in this child’s life, because if rehab didn’t work and Liza fel back off the world, I could not lose this child again. She wasn’t safe with Liza; I could read more than two years of a hard-road life with drugs and men and God-knew-what-al in the defeated downtilt of Liza’s once-mighty mouth and the paper frailty of her skin.
I said, “I don’t even know her name. You left here, and her birth certificate stil says Baby Girl.”
Liza said, “This here is Mosey Wil ow Jane Grace Slocumb, and, Big, I’m so tired. We are both so tired. Can I please, Momma, please, please come home?”
Mosey Wil ow Jane Grace Slocumb stuffed a thumb into her mouth, and her lids dropped in a sleepy blink. I was lost in such a rush of pent-up love that my vision pinholed and al the rest of the world grew dark around her. Deals and details could come later. I swung the door wide open for them, right then, because it was al that I could do.
Now I was looking at the keepsake box, ful of bones. The baby dress. The old stuffed duck. I knelt down and laid the dress down over the bones like they were cold and it was their smal blanket. I couldn’t keep myself from understanding. I tried to stand up, but my legs were al atremble. I rocked back on my heels.
“You okay?” Tyler asked. He’d come up behind me with Rick Warfield. I looked over my shoulder. Officer Joel, Immita’s only other cop, was with them. Rick was taking this serious, and I had no idea how long I’d been kneeling in the churned earth where the wil ow used to stand, clutching the sad rag of dress. Warfield squatted down beside me and made a thoughtful hmm noise.
“I’m fine, Tyler,” I said. I was watching Rick’s
When I got home from the bank that evening, the house had a dead-aired, empty feeling. I went to Liza’s room and saw the closet standing open.
There were a few empty hangers in the center. Both pairs of her favorite jeans were gone. The big red backpack she’d planned to use as a diaper bag was gone, too. I opened her drawers and saw gaps in the stacks of socks and underpants and T-shirts. The baby’s yel ow blankie was no longer in the bassinet, and neither was her stuffed duck with the bel in his gut that slept beside her teeny feet.
I dropped to my knees by the square of carpet that used to hold Liza’s silver footlocker. Al her keepsakes had been dumped out of it and left in a heap on the floor: notes from school friends, pressed flowers, the birth certificate that said “Baby Girl Slocumb,” with “Liza Slocumb” typed in the space for the momma’s name and nothing at al typed in the space for the daddy. Liza’d said it was a tal , pretty boy who’d run the Ferris wheel at a weekend carnival she’d gone to with her so-cal ed friend Melissa Richardson. Liza said she couldn’t remember his name, but I found I slept easier if I pretended that only meant she wasn’t tel ing it.
I didn’t know Baby Girl Slocumb’s name for more than two years, not until Liza showed back up, her red-gold hair dul ed down and flat with filth and her tilty eyes so tired. She had a long, skinny-legged girl child with a round bel y and an earnest gaze slung up on her hip. That little critter clung tight to Liza like a solemn monkey baby. Liza looked like she’d already dialed herself to four past desperate. She had meth sores al around her mouth, her cheekbones so sharp I thought any second they would split and let her tired skul peek through. But the baby—a toddler now—was relatively clean and didn’t look underfed. She had one hand fisted up in Liza’s hair and was resting easy in her arms.
Liza said, “Big, can I please come home?”
I stared, hope and sick warring at the heart of me, while my angry brain was yel ing that before they crossed my threshold, there would have to be a deal. If Liza wanted home, there would be rules, and there would sure as hel be rehab, and I would have to have a legal stake in this child’s life, because if rehab didn’t work and Liza fel back off the world, I could not lose this child again. She wasn’t safe with Liza; I could read more than two years of a hard-road life with drugs and men and God-knew-what-al in the defeated downtilt of Liza’s once-mighty mouth and the paper frailty of her skin.
I said, “I don’t even know her name. You left here, and her birth certificate stil says Baby Girl.”
Liza said, “This here is Mosey Wil ow Jane Grace Slocumb, and, Big, I’m so tired. We are both so tired. Can I please, Momma, please, please come home?”
Mosey Wil ow Jane Grace Slocumb stuffed a thumb into her mouth, and her lids dropped in a sleepy blink. I was lost in such a rush of pent-up love that my vision pinholed and al the rest of the world grew dark around her. Deals and details could come later. I swung the door wide open for them, right then, because it was al that I could do.
Now I was looking at the keepsake box, ful of bones. The baby dress. The old stuffed duck. I knelt down and laid the dress down over the bones like they were cold and it was their smal blanket. I couldn’t keep myself from understanding. I tried to stand up, but my legs were al atremble. I rocked back on my heels.
“You okay?” Tyler asked. He’d come up behind me with Rick Warfield. I looked over my shoulder. Officer Joel, Immita’s only other cop, was with them. Rick was taking this serious, and I had no idea how long I’d been kneeling in the churned earth where the wil ow used to stand, clutching the sad rag of dress. Warfield squatted down beside me and made a thoughtful hmm noise.
“I’m fine, Tyler,” I said. I was watching Rick’s
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