Mother May I(12)

The ringtone was calypso music, tinny and shrill, so cheery that it made me want to scream and smash the phone with my fists, my wrath, a hammer. Instead I picked it up. The screen showed me the caller’s name.

Robert

A number and his name had already been programmed in, so that now it was as if my own baby were calling for me. God, how long had this been planned?

I pushed the green talk button and then hit Speaker, leaving the phone flat on the counter. My hands were shaking so hard I wasn’t sure that I could hold it.

“Please, where is my baby?” But she was already talking, too, over me.

“Did you call anyone? Your husband?” Creaky. Growly. Old. She had a southern accent, thick and rural.

“No. Where is he?” I strained to listen for some sound, a snuffle or a sleepy gurgle, that would prove Robert was with her. All I heard was muffled traffic and the faint hum of an engine; she was driving. With every passing second, he was farther away.

“Or the police? Are you having someone trace this call?” she demanded.

“No, no, I swear,” I said, glad to hear the way it rang with truth. I was glad I hadn’t called, so I could please her. This woman, this stranger, had my baby.

Her words were still coming at me in a rush, tumbling over each other. “You could still call the police on your own phone. Right now. I’m going to talk as long as I need to, and what with technology these days, I’m sure they could find me. But I have your baby in a sling, tied to me. Can you hear him breathing? We’re going to stay this close, me and him, until you and I are done. You do everything right, I’ll give him back. But if sirens or lights come on behind me, I will finish this here and now. I’ll break his flimsy neck. When I get where we’re going, if they breach my door or throw in a gas canister, I’ll twist his little head right around backward.”

I was swamped in so much fear and hatred then that I could barely breathe. My whole body yearned toward an unknown place where my baby was in a moving vehicle, bound to her body.

“I didn’t call the police.” Talking to her made me feel so cold. My teeth wanted to bang together. “Can you please at least put him in a car seat?”

She ignored that. “Who did you call.”

Not a question. Did she know, or was she guessing?

“Are you watching me?”

“My daughter has eyes on you.” I blinked, surprised she would tell me that. It was too bold, almost careless, like the way she’d stared into the camera. I didn’t want the woman who had my baby to be careless. I was even more surprised to hear her say “my daughter.” She was a mother? What mother could do this to another parent? “Who have you talked to?”

“I called a friend to take my girls. I didn’t tell anyone about you, I swear. Is Robert all right?” I could barely pull air into my twisted-shut lungs. I needed to become another woman, one who wasn’t too afraid to breathe. One who could think and be so careful and make all the right decisions.

“Please,” I said, and I meant a thousand things. Please give him back. Please tell me he’s okay. Most of all, Please don’t hurt him.

“He’s fine. Sleeping.” Then she added, “He’s . . . a good baby.”

Her words were grudging, but it almost sounded as if she liked him, or at least liked babies. And now I knew she was a mother, like me. This was good, a good thing to know about her. It might be hard for a mother to actually hurt him. I wanted to believe, so much so that it was dangerous, that it would be much harder than she’d made it sound when she talked about his fragile neck. I appealed to the only part of her that I could fathom.

“He’ll be hungry soon. He’ll want my arms, my smell, my voice.” Any mother would understand these things. “Just tell me what you want. I’ll give it to you.”

I meant, How much? but asking that way turned my baby into a commodity, a thing that could be bought or sold or thrown away. He was a person. A tiny person, so helpless and so dear. My person I had made inside my body, who had only been separate from me for ten short weeks. I could almost still feel him, kicking and spinning at my center. It felt as if she’d torn him out of me.

“We’ll get to that,” she said. “First I have to tell you the rules.”

When she said that, I heard more than age in the shake and creak of her voice. I heard fear. She was afraid. Like me.

I wasn’t sure if this was good or bad. Good, because it made her human. She had my child; I needed her to be human. Bad, because frightened people do such stupid things.

Which meant I had to stop being afraid. For Robert’s sake. I had to help this woman—this other mother—not be scared, too. That almost made me laugh. It was as if I’d seen a way out, and all it would take would be for me to leap up in the air and fly. I did the only thing I could do.

I pretended I was a different woman. One who was not afraid. I pretended it so hard my hands clenched into fists, my nails digging painfully into my palms.

“The rules,” I echoed. Rules were good. Rules made everybody safer.

“One. Tell no one. We keep this between us. I’m giving you a chance to get your baby back, but if you tell anyone, I’ll end this. You understand?”

I didn’t understand. Not what “end this” meant. I could not allow myself to know what she was saying. I was still building this new, less frightened character over myself, someone calm and helpful. A woman who could be trusted to keep rules. “Yes.”