Somewhere Out There (16 page)

I counted the few bills I had left in my pocket—fifteen dollars and some change. Enough to take the bus to a nice suburban area where it was less likely a park would be patrolled at night. During the summer months, before I’d had Natalie, I used to take Brooke to Lincoln Park in West Seattle—we’d spend the afternoons playing on the jungle gym and splashing around in the wading pool, eating peanut butter sandwiches, and then spend the nights in our car. It was as good a destination as any, so I left the motel parking lot and hiked over to Third Avenue and Pike Street, where I knew the number 118 bus had a stop that would take me where I wanted to go.

A little over an hour later, I was there. The park was off Fauntleroy Way, near the Vashon ferry dock. It was heavily wooded but also had a large, brightly hued jungle gym, several sets of tall swings, and picnic tables scattered across the lush, vibrant lawns. I made my way to one of the empty benches that surrounded the playground and dropped down on it, my shoulders hunched. I felt lost.
No one knows where I am. No one cares if I live or die. My daughters will grow up without me. I’m only twenty-one, and I’ve already ruined my life. I should have kept the phone number O’Brien gave me. At least then I’d have a way to make money.

A little girl’s voice jerked me out of my thoughts. “Mama!” she cried, and every hair on my body stood on end. I’d been so preoccupied, I had barely registered the other people in the park.

Oh my god. Brooke.
My eyes shot like pinballs around the immediate area, looking for my daughter. For her mass of black curls.

“Mama, look!” the girl’s voice said, and I stood up, my heart thumping loudly enough that it echoed inside my head. I performed a frantic search of the children’s faces around me. It sounded just like her.
Could she really be here?

“I see you, honey!” I looked over toward the swings and noticed a tall, dirty-blond-haired woman standing with a group of other mothers, and then back in the direction that she waved. A young girl with long, brown hair waved back, jumping up and down on the curved bridge that connected one part of the jungle gym to the other. She wore yellow Salt Water sandals and a black-and-white polka-dot sundress.

“Mama! I’m on the bridge! Do you see me?” She did a little dance, causing the bridge to jiggle. She looked to be about five years old.

“I do!” her mother called out. The woman made her way over to the climbing structure, and as she approached it, her daughter ran across the bridge to a platform, where she stood with her arms outstretched, bent at the knees, bouncing up and down.

“Catch me, Mama!” she cried, and her mother stood close to the platform’s edge. The little girl leapt with assurance, locking her tiny legs around her mother’s waist and her arms around her mother’s neck, the same way Brooke had often done with me.

My eyes blurred and my stomach heaved. I put my face in my palms, chest burning and shoulders shaking.
Oh, god. My girls. Where are my girls?
I hadn’t considered what it would feel like, seeing other children out in the world. In jail, I’d been protected from this particular brand of torture. What I felt in that moment was a prison all its own, with walls built out of shame, self-loathing, and blistering regret.

When I looked up again, I saw the blond-haired woman set her child on the ground and make her way back toward the group of parents she had been talking with at the swings. I watched as the little girl spun in circles, her head down, giggling as her dress whirled out from her body. She gave a small jump, and then did it again, spinning and spinning and spinning, only to finally stumble and fall over. Her head bounced on the black rubber mat of the playground.

I raced over next to her and squatted down. “Are you okay, honey?” I asked, pushing back the fine hair of her bangs from her sweet face. She was whimpering and tearful, though not loudly. I glanced over at her mother, and saw that her back was to us; she was busy talking with her friends. She hadn’t seen the fall. “Did you hurt yourself?” I asked the girl, and she nodded, pushing out her tiny and pink, chubby lower lip.

I gathered her into my arms and lifted her up. Her skin was warmed by the sun. She smelled sweet, like strawberries, tinged with just a touch of summer sweat. I squeezed her to my body, then started to feel dizzy, and my heart began to race. I closed my eyes and felt as though I’d been sucked through the dark vacuum of a black hole, back to that small room with my babies, holding them for the last time.

No,
I thought.
No, no, no.

The child struggled against my embrace, pushing at my chest with her small hands, but not with enough strength to break free. I held her tighter. “Shh,” I murmured. “It’s okay, baby. I’ve got you.”

This time, when the little girl cried out the word “Mama!” all I could hear was Brooke’s voice. All I could think of was getting away, saving my daughter, not letting anyone take her. Blinking fast, I shifted my eyes toward the blond-haired woman, and at the same moment, she turned and saw me. “Hey!” she called out. She strode in my direction, arms swinging at her sides. “Hey!” she said again, louder this time, and with more urgency.

A river of discordant noises raged inside my head—a jarring, crashing cacophony of sound.
I can’t let them take her. I can’t.

Before I knew what I was doing, I spun around, the little girl still safe in my arms, and headed toward the woods, running as fast as I could.

“Mama, Mama, Mama!”

“Shh, honey, shh,” I said. I had one arm wrapped around her body, holding her to me. With my other hand, I cupped her head, pushing her face into the curve of my neck as I ran, trying to protect it from the whip-sharp sting of the branches that scratched at my bare arms. I felt the heat of her tears on my skin, her tiny rib cage heaving against mine.

We’ll be okay. We just have to get away. Then no one can take her.

Each step I took crunched atop the pine needles covering the ground. There was no path. No easy way to snake through the trees. But I didn’t think. I didn’t stop. I had no idea where I was going or how far I’d already gone. The only thing I could do was run.

“I want my mama!” the girl cried, and a chunk of her straight brown hair flew up and blinded me.

Wait. Brooke’s hair is curly, like mine.

I wasn’t carrying my daughter. The realization reverberated through me, like a church bell being struck inside my head.

It took only this brief moment of distraction for the tip of my toe to catch on a thick root. My foot twisted, sending a sharp spike of pain from my ankle, up my shin, and into my knee. Both of us tumbled, and the girl flew out of my arms, landing hard against the trunk of a tall evergreen a couple of yards away.

Her cries got louder then, and despite having the air knocked out of me from hitting the ground, I managed to crawl over to her. She had a large cut on her forehead; it gushed bright red blood down the left side of her face.
Oh, god,
I thought as I took in her unfamiliar features.
What did I do?

“It’s okay, sweetie,” I said, managing to sit up. I ripped off the bottom of my shirt and pressed it as hard as I could over the wound on her head. I heard people shouting behind me, though I couldn’t make out what they said. “I’m so sorry,” I told her. “Let me take you to your mama, okay?”

She was hysterical, screeching so loudly I couldn’t be sure that she’d heard what I said. I stood up, and the piercing agony in my right ankle almost took me down again. Ignoring my own injuries, I helped her stand so I could inspect hers. Her hair was a mess, and her legs and arms looked as though they’d been attacked by an angry cat; no matter how much I’d tried to protect her skin, the razor-tip ends of the tree branches had had their way with her, too. A river of tears ran through the mess of grime and blood on her face as I put more pressure on the cut on her head. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her mouth was open wide. Her sundress was dirty and torn.

Seeing all of this—knowing I was responsible for her injuries and her tears—I started to cry, too. I heard a dog bark and knew I had to get her back to her mother just as quickly as I could. I felt dizzy and sick, bells going off inside my head, but I picked her up, keeping the makeshift bandage pressed against her forehead as I limped in what I hoped was the direction of the play area. My ankle screamed at me with every step. After only a moment, I saw her mother and several other adults charging toward me.

The girl’s mother sped up until she reached us. She yanked her daughter from my arms and held her close. “Shh, shh, baby,” she said. “I’ve got you. You’re all right. Everything’s going to be fine.” She gave me a fierce glare. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

I took a step backward, almost stumbling again because of the pain in my ankle. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m so, so sorry.” My eyes widened as two men—fathers who had been playing with their children at the park—pushed past the woman. Each of them grabbed one of my arms and squeezed them, tightly. “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m so sorry, but she’s okay. We fell. I don’t know what happened.”

“My wife called the police,” one of them said to the woman.

“Wait,” I said, feeling panic rise in a wave inside my chest. “You don’t understand. It was a mistake. I thought . . . I saw her fall and heard her crying and I thought she was mine.” A sob tore at my throat. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “Please. I’m so sorry.”

The woman said nothing. She simply held on to her daughter, whipped around, and walked away. The men who held me led me back through the woods, never letting up on their grip.

The gravity of what I’d just done sank down deep in my body, melting into a dark, rancid ink, staining my insides black. Before I knew it, my stomach heaved and emptied its contents on the ground. I straightened and tried to wipe my mouth as the two men still moved us forward.

I saw the red and blue flash of police lights as we exited the woods. The woman and her daughter were already with the paramedics, and when the officers saw the two men holding me, they marched in our direction. When they reached us, the two men finally let go, only to have one of the officers tell me to put my hands behind my back.

“Wait, please,” I begged. “Let me explain.”

The officer took my arms and forced them behind my back, securing my wrists together with handcuffs. “There’s nothing for you to explain,” he said. He was a muscular black man with a strong jaw and a bald head. “We have multiple eyewitness accounts that describe how you grabbed the child from the playground and ran into the woods.”

“I didn’t mean to,” I said, choking on my tears. “It was a mistake. I thought she was my daughter. I didn’t realize what I was doing.”

“Tell it to your lawyer,” said the other officer, a stocky woman with pale skin and black hair, shorn short against her head. “Right now, you’re being placed under arrest for attempted kidnapping.”

“You have the right to remain silent,” the male officer began, and as he continued reading me my rights, my mind went blank, and I didn’t hear anything else. I couldn’t take my eyes away from the mother as she stood next to her little girl, who the paramedics had now placed on a gurney. The mother had her hand on top of her daughter’s head as she also held one of her small hands. She only glanced up at me once, and it was with so much bitterness, so much hate in her eyes, I looked at the ground. I wondered if there was something really wrong with me. There had to be, for me to do something so unthinkable. Why else would I have grabbed that little girl and run? Why else would I have thought I was holding Brooke?

After the officer finished speaking, he asked if I had any identification. “In my back pocket,” I said, and he reached for my wallet, pulling out my driver’s license, which had expired two years before. He took it and walked over to his vehicle, then climbed inside the driver’s seat. A couple of minutes later he returned and spoke to the female officer as though I wasn’t standing right there.

“Jennifer Walker,” he said. “Just out last week from Skagit Correctional.”

“Really,” the female officer replied. “What was she in for?”

“Several counts of petty theft and child endangerment and neglect.” The officer looked at me and frowned. “Guess they let you go too soon.”

I didn’t respond. To him, I was just a criminal. A repeat offender. Nothing else.
Maybe that’s the truth,
I thought.
Maybe I’ll be better off in jail. I’ll never get my daughters back anyway, so what does it matter?

The female officer held me by my elbow and led me to the police car. I was still limping— my ankle felt like it was on fire—but I didn’t care. I deserved whatever pain I was in. The officer opened the back door and helped me turn so I could get inside. She kept her hand on top of my head so I wouldn’t knock it into the roof as I sat down.

Once the door was closed, I looked over one final time and saw the little girl sit up and hug her mother. She had finally stopped crying and had a clean white bandage on her forehead. I leaned my own head against the window, trying not to be sick again, hoping she would be okay. I hoped I hadn’t traumatized her too much.

I waited a long while for the officers to finish taking more statements from the other people in the park, and when they both finally climbed into the seats in front of me, I was more than ready to leave.
At least I know where I’m going,
I thought as we drove out of the parking lot and onto the street.
At least now, I have a place to stay.

•  •  •

The next day, after hearing my side of what happened, my public defender, a short, heavy man with dark pouches of skin under his brown eyes and a thick, Tom Selleck–style mustache, suggested I enter a not-guilty plea. “You had just found out you can’t get your children back,” he said, as we sat together in a small room in the King County jail. “The judge might feel sorry for you.”

“No,” I said. I’d picked up the girl and run away with her into the woods. I was guilty. There was no point in trying to make excuses.