When the Lights Go Out(70)

And in time, she’d come to think of it as her given name.

“I don’t have a booster seat,” I said as we approached the car, “but that’s okay for now. The seat belt will do just fine.” And as we closed in on the car I extended a hand toward the handle, reaching out to open the back door for Olivia to climb through. “It will only be a short drive after all,” I promised her. “I’m sure your mother is here somewhere.”

In a single moment, I thought this through. I made a plan and it went like this. Once Olivia was in the car I would speed off the opposite way, far from town, away from her mother, not stopping until we’d passed Sturgeon Bay. There I would stop only to buy Olivia ice cream, something to soothe her, to make her not be scared, to quiet her certain tears. Ice cream and a stuffed bear or a toy from a gas station store, something she could clutch to her chest to make her feel safe. We’d drive all night, as far as we could go. Far away from here.

And that’s when I heard it.

Olivia’s name screamed urgently, emphatically through the cold air.

It was a high-pitched screech, whiny like a whistle. A distressed sound. What followed were the footsteps of a stampede, thousands of wildebeests running down the street. That’s what it sounded like anyway, and as I peered up, hand still six inches away from the door, I saw Olivia’s mother and her herd hurrying toward me, eight ladies with seven little ballerinas in tow, shouting commands.

“Olivia, come here right now.

“What do you think you’re doing?

“Get your hands off my child!”

My hands grew slick. My heart beat quickly, more quickly than it was already beating. Under my arms there was wetness. Sweat. My head suddenly hurt. My brain thought quickly to manufacture a lie, as one of the ladies pointed at me and said, “I’ve seen you around here before,” and I ransacked my mind for words, any words, but the words wouldn’t come. My mind was holding them captive, detaining my words from me, though what it did do was measure the distance—computing the distance from the ladies to me, the distance from me to the car—doing the math, figuring it out, whether I could get Olivia inside the car before her mother and the other ladies reached us.

I could, I decided. But there needed to be no hesitation.

I needed to go.

Go!

I needed to go now.

But my feet wouldn’t work properly, and my hand, slick with sweat, let go of Olivia’s hand and suddenly she was running in the wrong direction, running toward her mother and away from me and away from the car.

“Who in the hell do you think you are?” Olivia’s mother asked pointedly as she gathered Olivia into her arms and hoisted her to her chest. “What did you think you were doing with my child?”

And though I was completely tongue-tied, it was Olivia who did the speaking for me, who struggled in her mother’s arms to be set free and there, once her feet were firmly planted back on the concrete while twirling her red leaf in her hand, she said, “You forgot me, Mommy.”

And with that she took six tiny steps away from her mother’s reach and extended her leaf to me. A parting gift.

I took it in my hand. “She was helping me find Mommy,” Olivia crooned, smiling a toothless grin, but still, I could muster no words.

And then Olivia’s mother changed tact, and her tone softened. The lines of her face disappeared and instead of reprimanding me or calling the police, as one of the ladies in the backdrop suggested she do, she thanked me. She thanked me. She thanked me for helping Olivia. Her cheeks turned red and her eyes filled with tears, and in that moment she believed were it not for me, she may have lost her child.

“You should keep a better eye on your daughter,” I threatened, my voice and hands shaking like the leaves in the trees, clinging to their branches for dear life.





eden

May 11, 2016

Chicago

I sit on the front stoop, hands pressed between my knees to curb their shaking. I stare expectantly down the street, searching for that first glimmer of yellow to come bobbing along, the school bus, with Jessie on it. I check the time on my watch, knowing down to the minute what time the school bus arrives, but not having the tenacity to wait another three, because if I have to wait much longer I might get cold feet.

I need to get this over and done with. I need for this to be through.

I’ve combed and curled my hair. I lathered blush onto my cheeks for color, not so that I’ll look nice, but so that I look alive, my current pallid tone far more synonymous with death and dying than with vigor. If I look healthy and robust, then maybe Jessie won’t be as concerned. I wear a nice shirt. I plaster a smile to my face, one that sours the longer I wait.

I practice the words I’ll soon say, saying them aloud so that I can get control of my cadence and rhythm, so that my voice doesn’t shake the way it often does when I’m scared. Truth be told, I am scared, yes. I’m absolutely terrified. Though I won’t dare say that to Jessie; for Jessie’s sake, I’ll put on a brave face.

The braking of the school bus sounds to me like the screech of a barn owl. I watch as Jessie clambers down the massive steps on the heels of her classmates, eyes lost on the ground as they often are these days. Her backpack is heavy; she slumps forward to counter the weight of it and I force back tears, knowing that my days of watching Jessie emerge from the school bus are coming quickly to an end.