The You I've Never Known(96)

I can’t work. What little brain I have left thinks only of you. I can’t eat. If I try, it churns in my stomach, comes right back up. I can’t sleep. If I do, I dream of you, and when I wake up to an empty house, I tumble down into a deep, dark pit.

I sit by the phone, hoping for news, holding the baby blanket that’s perfumed with you. A few of your toys are scattered across the floor. I leave them there, hints of you. Sometimes I swear I can hear you in the other room. But I know it’s just a ghost, laughing inside my head.

Oh, Casey. Where are you? Are you afraid without your mommy? Tell Daddy to bring you home.





March 2002


You’ve been gone almost three months now. It seems like longer! It seems like forever! Everything is different. Everything is crazy. Everything is lonely, even though I’m living with Auntie Tati in Texas. I still can’t believe you’re gone. Still can’t believe your daddy could just drive away with you, disappear without a trace.

Well, not exactly without a trace. Detective Morella located your daddy’s Chevy. He tracked down the license plate when the guy Jason sold it to changed the title. That was in Virginia. Maybe that’s where you are. The man remembered you and Boo, so guess that means you’re safe. At least I have that to hold on to. He said your daddy had his eye on a different car and sold the Chevy cheap for cash.

Detective Morella is with the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department. I had to go off-base to find help, and even there the law’s complicated because your daddy and I are still married, and so there was no custody order in place. I filed for an emergency order and was granted temporary custody until things can get settled. That means you belong to me. All I have to do is find you!

Good thing your daddy was stupid and left that note. It’s evidence that he planned to conceal you. That’s how the law reads in North Carolina—with or without custody, it’s kidnapping if the parent who takes a child out of state tries to keep her hidden from the other parent.

Now your daddy’s not just AWOL. He’s a deserter. That happens at thirty days of unauthorized absence. So the federal database has his name. If he gets stopped for a traffic ticket or has anything to do with the police, they’ll know to arrest him. That’s my biggest hope of getting you back quickly. But it’s three months already. Actually, ninety-six days, emptied of you, each lonelier than the last.

I didn’t want to leave North Carolina, in case your daddy changed his mind, but his paychecks stopped right away, and they wouldn’t let me stay in base housing. At first they even believed I might have been part of his plan to disappear. Like I’d send my baby off to God knows where with a man who is obviously crazy. He must be crazy.

Tatiana came and helped me pack everything and put it in a U-Haul truck. The Christmas tree was still up. I left it there, decorated. Those ornaments would only remind me of how temporary happiness can be, and of the weight of sadness. Some days I can barely find the strength to drag myself out of bed in the morning. But I know I have to so when you come home I can be the best mommy ever for you.

I’m taking classes to get my GED. I thought about going back to high school and doing credit recovery to earn an actual diploma, but one trip to the campus made me realize I’m not a kid anymore, and that goes way beyond being twenty. Besides, I hated school when I was sixteen. Pep rallies and proms? What are those to me?

Tati says college is different from high school, and I hope she’s right. But even if I hate it there, too, I’m determined to get my degree. For you, yes, but also so I’ll never have to rely on another person to make my way in the world. I want to be independent, at least financially. I need to be able to take care of myself. And you.

It’s weird being in Texas. I thought I’d never come back to this place. At least my mother’s gone—moved out to California, and that gives me a small sense of relief. I couldn’t stand running into her, and having to admit how wrong I was about your daddy. She warned me he was no good. But even she couldn’t see he was evil.

A couple days after I arrived, I drove out to your grandparents’ ranch, the one your daddy said he was taking you to. They swore they hadn’t seen him. Hadn’t heard a word. But my visit put them on edge, I could tell. I think they were lying. I gave them my number, begged them to call if he contacted them. They promised they would. I think maybe they’re scared of him.

I have a place to live, and someone who loves me. I love Tati, too. But without you, everything’s gray. You were the light in every one of my days. Sometimes I see other mommies get mad and yell at their kids. I want to tell them to stop and think about how empty their life would be if something bad happened to their babies. What if their angels flew away?





April 2004


Please forgive me for not keeping up with your journal. You’re not a baby anymore. It’s been more than three years since you vanished. That makes you six. What do you look like? Is your hair still the color of a bright copper penny? Does someone put it up in a ponytail, like I used to once in a while? I hope it isn’t cut short. When I dream of you, I see it down in soft waves around your giggling face.

I do still dream of you, my Casey. And you are mine. It took months of work and too much money, labored for and borrowed, but I won custody of you and legally divorced your father. There are ways to do that without actually serving papers on the person who disappeared from your life. It was complicated and time-consuming, but it’s done.