Girls in Trouble (21 page)

It was Saturday morning. Eva squinted at herself in the mirror. She looked faded, as if someone had rubbed at her with a gum eraser. Her hair felt sticky even though she had washed it that morning. She had worried and worried about losing Anne, but she had never thought it would end up like this.

She had woken in the middle of the night to find George’s side of the bed empty. She had gone past Anne’s room, which was dark, and she had suddenly seen George there, sitting in the dark, one arm resting on the crib, and as soon as she switched on the light, she saw how red his eyes were. She touched his shoulder and then he started to cry, something which always surprised and shocked her. “If we don’t find her, I don’t know what I’ll do,” he wept.

“Maybe we should call the news. Make an announcement, get people to help,” Eva said. She thought of it. One of those faces on the news, weeping in front of millions, laying herself bare.
I’ll do anything if you’ll help me. Anything at all.

George nodded. “I just want her back,” he said. “I don’t even care what happened or why. I just want the baby.”

He got up and showered. Eva sat in the kitchen. She spent all her time worrying over what signs she had missed, why Sara had done such a thing. She worried what was happening now. Sara could be on her way to Danny. Sara could be doing drugs. Oh God, Sara and the baby could be dead. “Knowledge is power,” she kept telling her class. “We know!” they clamored. “We’re whiz kids!” With knowledge, you could close a door. Without it, all you had left was imagination. Stories you told yourself hoping they’d make you feel better. She thought of that poor man whose boy was snatched and then returned and no one knew why. She thought of all the days he’d have left wondering what had happened, each story he thought to tell himself more horrifying than the next.

She searched for aspirins, when the phone rang. Her hand stopped, paralyzed. The phone kept ringing. She ran into the hall and grabbed for the phone. “Hello—” Her voice sounded foreign to her. And then George came up behind her, smelling damp.

“What is it?” he asked.

Eva struggled for her voice. “They found them,” she said. “Anne was choking and a woman saved her. They’re flying them both back today. They said they should be at the Waltham police station by four.”

“Thank God!” George hugged her fiercely. He kissed her mouth, her cheek, her hair.

Eva stepped back, nodding. “The police want to know if we intend to press charges.”

George looked at Eva. “She took our baby,” George said.

They were at the police station half an hour before the police brought back Sara. Cops were standing around, talking, shouting at a boy in handcuffs who was muttering to himself. A female cop was shouting at a woman who was rolling her eyes. “Where’s my fucking phone call?” the woman snapped.

Everyone was talking at once, it seemed to Eva. And the place had an
odd smell, like something terrible had just happened and it had been quickly cleaned up and now no one wanted to talk about it. The cop at the front desk stared impassively at them. Eva said her name, she told him why they were there, and his face softened, just for a moment. “Have a seat,” he said, nodding toward the bench.

The bench was hard and uncomfortable, but Eva wouldn’t move from it, not even when she had to pee. She sat, waiting, holding hands with George, refusing the cups of coffee the cops kept offering. Every time the door opened, Eva tensed and gripped George’s hand tighter. She didn’t know what she might do when she saw Sara, when she saw the baby. She didn’t think she could be counted on to act rationally. Right now she wanted to kill her.

She was just about to give in, to go find a ladies’ room, when the door swung wide open, and there was Sara, looking exhausted and defeated and scared. “God,” George breathed. Sara looked all of twelve, a hole in her jeans, her coat stained, her hair all scrambled, and as soon as she saw Eva and George, she started to cry. And there behind her was a cop carrying Anne who was sleeping in his arms, and then Eva bolted to her feet. George’s hand fell from hers. She stepped forward and walked toward Sara. “I have a right to my baby,” Sara said in a low, defensive voice, and then something broke inside of Eva. Eva stepped forward another step and slapped Sara across the face.

Sara’s hands flew to her face. She jumped back, horrified. A triangle of skin began to turn crimson on her cheek.

“Ma’am.” The cop’s voice had a warning edge to it, but Eva didn’t give a damn.

“Give me my baby!” Eva reached for Anne. She blocked Sara out of her view, turning. Who knew what she might do to that girl? She rocked Anne. And then George was beside her, stroking Anne’s face, her arms, her back, stroking Eva.

“George—” Sara said.

“Get her out of here,” George said sharply. “Get her the hell away from us.”

Eva could hear Sara cry, but she refused to look at her.

“Come with me,” the cop said, and Eva heard Sara leaving, and then
the room was quiet again, and Eva opened her eyes as another cop came in. “You want to press charges now?” he asked.

The cop took them into a room, sat them by the desk, and pulled out a sheet of paper. “What will happen to her?” Eva asked the cop. She suddenly saw Sara’s young face, those small birdlike shoulder blades. “They wouldn’t send her to jail, would they?”

The cop shrugged. “Depends. Girl like that, good home, good family. Probation. Community service. Maybe they’d want her to see a shrink.” He tapped his fingers on the desk. “She could be out and about.”

“File the charges,” Eva said, holding Anne tighter. “And I want a restraining order.”

For the first week the baby was home, Eva and George wouldn’t let her out of their sight. George took his vacation early so he could stay at home. They brought Anne outside, they brought her shopping. Even though at five months she had just about outgrown the bassinet, they put her in it anyway, just so she could sleep by their bed.

Anne didn’t seem any different to Eva, though sometimes Eva swore Anne looked around the room woefully, as if she were looking for someone. “She’s not here,” Eva whispered. “She’s not going to be here. You’re with me, kiddo.”

They got the temporary restraining order almost immediately, but their lawyer told them it was good for only ten days, that a more permanent solution would take more time, which unnerved Eva. It was George’s idea to call a locksmith, to put in new dead bolts on both the front and back doors. To get window locks put in every window, and an alarm system. “Now we’re safe,” he said, but Eva wasn’t so sure.

Eva used to love this house, but now she could never stop feeling watched. She scrubbed the floors, scoured the walls, but it felt haunted by Sara. George would be talking to her, and she couldn’t help it, her gaze would suddenly dart to a corner.

She was driving with Anne one day and the way the car seat faced to the back began to really bother her. “You okay back there, honey?” she called. The baby was silent. Eva slammed the car to a stop. Anything could
happen at any time. Anne would vanish. Eva’s neck snapped back. She got out of the car and yanked open the back door. She looked into the car seat over at Anne.

She kept replaying everything with Sara, how and why it might have gone wrong. In theory, open adoption sounded lovely, but with Sara, it had become a real nightmare. Her daughter was sleeping and safe, so why couldn’t she relax? What was wrong with her?

George too looked more and more thoughtful. Every time the phone rang, he stiffened, the same way Eva did. He didn’t relax until he knew it wasn’t Sara. When the doorbell rang unexpectedly, he threw his napkin down, his face set. He strode to the front door, and then Eva heard his voice, low, measured, and when he came back, he looked sheepish. “Paperboy,” he said. “We forgot to pay last week.” He picked up his fork and stared down at his lamb chop.

“You okay?” Eva asked. She didn’t have much of an appetite herself.

He suddenly pushed his plate away. “I wish we could just move,” he said.

Eva looked up at him.

“I worry about you. I really do. I worry about us,” George said. “I wish I could just move my practice far away. You could teach anywhere. We could all start again.”

Eva reached for his hand and held it. “How could we do that? Eventually, don’t we have to allow some sort of visitation with Sara?”

“You’re asking me to do what’s best for Sara?” He looked at her askance. “What happens if she gets over here somehow? What happens if we’re not so lucky next time?”

Eva folded her arms tight about her body. “Next time,” she said, horrified.

“She took Anne! I read in the paper the other day about this case. A woman gave up her baby, and two years later—four years!—she admitted she had lied about who the father was. And the father came back, he wanted the baby. And Eva, they gave the baby to the mother. The birth mother. The courts said her rights superseded theirs.”

Eva’s mouth went dry. “No, they didn’t.”

“Do you remember Baby Richard?” George said. “Four years old. Photos
of him screaming, being torn from his adoptive parents’ arms. And what about that case in Ann Arbor with the two-year-old girl? The birth mother came back, got the girl. Few years later, the adoptive parents divorced. So did the real ones. God knows how that little girl’s life is going to turn out.” He shook his head, defeated. “We can’t go on like this.”

The phone suddenly began to ring and ring and ring. Neither one of them moved.

“It’s Sara,” Sara’s voice belled out. “Pick up! Please pick up!”

Eva looked at George. He stood up and yanked the phone cord from the wall.

The next day, George went back to work. “I’ll try to make it half a day,” he promised. Eva put the baby to bed when the doorbell rang, and she peered out, and then opened it.

Abby. In a pale green suit. A dark coat thrown over it. Her hair clipped back. Small gold hoops in her ears.

“Please,” Abby said. “Please, may I come in and talk to you?”

She let Abby in, motioning her to the couch. “Anne’s asleep,” Eva said.

Abby looked down at her shoes, slim copper-colored high heels, and then back up at Eva. “Please. You already have a restraining order. She can’t do anything. Please. Drop the charges. Don’t prosecute Sara. Don’t ruin her life more than she’s already ruined it. She’s smart. She could go to Harvard. She could do such great things.”

“She stole our baby,” Eva said stiffly. “She put her in danger! Can you imagine what might have happened?”

“But nothing did,” Abby said. “Sara didn’t take Anne to do evil. She’s young, she didn’t think. She made one mistake and, believe me, she’s paying for it.”

“Does she know you’re here?” Eva said.

Abby shook her head.

“How is she?”

“I can hardly bear it. She lies in bed. She cries.”

“She should cry.”

“She’ll be at college next year,” Abby said. “She won’t be anywhere near you.” Abby leaned forward. “You can’t prosecute her. Please. Don’t ruin her life. I’m begging you. I’ll do anything. I’ll make sure she goes to school in another country if that’s what it takes. She’s my daughter! You can’t imagine how we love her.” Abby folded and unfolded her hands in her lap. “The same way Anne’s your daughter and you love her.”

“Don’t compare the two,” Eva said sharply.

Abby was silent for a moment. “Please,” Abby said. “I’m begging you.”

“I don’t know,” Eva said.

“Drop the charges,” Abby pleaded. “I’ll do anything. I love her. And you did, too, once. You know you did.”

Eva stood up. She remembered how she and Sara had once laughed so hard over a movie they had both nearly wet their pants. She remembered sitting on the chaises outside with Sara, sipping lemonade and talking for hours, and Eva felt so comfortable, she could reach over and rest her hand on Sara’s belly, and then Sara would rest her hand on Eva’s. For a moment, she felt a raw pang, and then she heard Anne in the other room, and the pang vanished. Fairy tale, she thought. A fairy tale with an unhappy ending.

Eva led Abby to the door, opened it. The day felt chill, like any moment it might snow.

“You won’t have to see Sara ever again,” Abby said. “I promise.”

And then Abby was gone, and Eva realized that the whole time she had been here, Abby hadn’t asked to see the baby.

I
t felt safer for Sara to be in her room. She lay on her bed, headphones clamped to her ears. She couldn’t go to school until this was settled, but she filled out applications for early admissions to colleges in New York because her parents were pressuring her now to get away from the area, and every time she saw a required essay on “How have you changed this year?” she wanted to laugh, because how could she possibly write the truth?

That night, she ventured out of her room, just to the kitchen to get some water. Abby suddenly appeared, in her bright yellow nightgown, her red hair in curlers. “Just getting some water, myself,” Abby said, filling her glass and then barely touching it before she dumped it out again. “Dry throat,” Abby said, her fingers tapping her neck. Sara woke up in the middle of the night, padding to the bathroom, and before she even turned a corner, there was Jack, belting his flannel bathrobe, his brown hair askew. “Did you need something?” he asked. “What can I get you?”