The Unknown Beloved(2)

Two police cars were in front of her house, parked in haphazard fashion, their lights on and their doors open. As she watched, another car pulled up and three more officers tumbled out to join the two already standing in the yard. Daddy’s car was there too.

The front door of Dani’s house was open. Mrs. Thurston from next door was talking to the officers, hunched against the cold but gesticulating wildly.

“Oh no,” Dani cried. They were looking for her. Mother would never let her have a kitty now.

Nobody had seen her. Not yet. Dani raced across the neighbor’s yard and slipped quietly through the back door of her own house, the one that led into the kitchen, hoping she could find Mother first. Then mother could tell them all to leave because Dani had returned.

But the police were already inside. One man stood in the door between the kitchen and the sitting room. He wore a jaunty cap on his big head, and his long overcoat hung open, revealing two rows of brass buttons that marched down his big belly. A gold star peeked out from behind the lapel.

Someone had turned on the lamps in the house. All the lamps. The house blazed with light. Mother wouldn’t like all the lights on and the doors open. The heat from the stove would be whisked out into the January evening.

The policeman was looking down at the floor, and his cap shielded the upper part of his face. He didn’t look up when she entered the kitchen. The clanging from the front yard was enough to deafen the entire neighborhood.

Where was Mother?

Dani took another step and craned her neck, trying to see beyond the table between her and the policeman, to the sitting room and the front door.

Then she saw them.

Mother wasn’t in her bed anymore, but she was still asleep. She and Daddy both were—lying in a tangle of limbs on the kitchen floor.

Mother would be so glad Daddy was home. She’d said he wouldn’t be back for days.

Mother wasn’t wearing any shoes, and Daddy still wore his overcoat and his hat, like he’d run in from outside and picked Mother up and spun her around, kissing her and swinging her until they both fell down. Maybe Daddy had left the front door open.

He was lying across Mother, and Dani couldn’t see his face. She couldn’t see Mother’s face. Only her pretty, bare feet and the hem of her red dress. Mother’s dress had ballooned around her, around her and Daddy both, framing them in a big, red heart.

The policeman lifted his head.

“Ah hell. I found the kid!” he shouted. “Malone, get in here.”

Another officer in a matching uniform, this one younger and darker, appeared behind the first and strode through the kitchen, avoiding the crimson heart and the sleeping couple. He reached out a hand and set it on Dani’s shoulder, urging her to turn away from the confusing display on the kitchen floor.

“Keep her outside until we can sort this out,” the big-bellied policeman said, pointing toward the back door. “And see what she knows!”

Several more police officers entered the house through the front door. She heard their steps and felt their presence behind the first officer.

“Come with me now, lass,” the young policeman said, and though his voice was low and kind, his big hand on her shoulder was insistent.

Sometimes Daddy called her lass like that. The policeman named Malone didn’t have a voice like Daddy’s, though. His voice was softer. Rumbly. Like he didn’t use it very much. Like he didn’t sing at the top of his lungs and shout whenever he spoke. He was much younger than Daddy too, though he seemed older somehow. He had a serious mouth and dark, drooping eyes that made him look a little like Mrs. Thurston’s hound dog, Reggie.

“I need to tell my mother,” Dani said. Her voice echoed oddly, like she was shouting in the church. “I already left once without telling her where I was going.”

Malone crouched down so she wasn’t looking up at him anymore, though he still blocked her view of everything else. She saw his momentary surprise and knew he’d noticed her eyes. The reaction was always the same.

“What’s your name, kiddo?” he asked softly.

“Dani Flanagan.” Again, the echo, and now she couldn’t feel her toes. Her feet were cold and her chest was hot.

“I’m Officer Malone, Dani. We won’t go far. Just out the back door. So we aren’t underfoot.”

“Will you tell her I’m here?” she said and clapped her hands over her ears. Something was wrong with her. Something was wrong with Mother and Daddy. The heat in her chest was rising to her eyes, and the ache in her toes was climbing up her legs. She didn’t know if she could walk.

“Jaysus, Malone. Get her out of here,” the first policeman yelled, and Officer Malone’s mouth tightened. She didn’t think he liked the big policeman.

“Come with me now, Dani,” Malone urged.

She tried to move her feet, but she couldn’t.

“Malone!”

Without another word, Malone scooped her up and stomped out into the cold night. When he reached the backyard, he stopped and looked around for some place to set her down.

“Here you go, Dani Flanagan,” he said, and placed her on the bench where Daddy smoked.

She was stiff and cold on the outside, but inside she was on fire, and the fire was crackling and hissing like the logs in the stove. She began to shake, and Malone sat down beside her and shrugged out of his overcoat and wrapped it around her. He didn’t tell her she was okay. He didn’t pat her back or stroke the curls on her head the way Daddy did when she was upset. But his coat was warm and big, and it distracted her from the darkness in and all around her.