What Was Mine (5 page)

Fhuair mi lorg na h-eal' air an t-snàmh

The song quieted her. I took my eyes from the road to see how the baby was faring. She was admiring her tiny fists, opening and closing them as if trying to catch the words in the air.

Then, I was looking for someplace to pull over. I wanted time to think. Also, I wanted to talk to her. At that point, I thought our time together would be temporary and I wanted to make the most of the moments we had left. But where could we go? The Garden State was a busy artery. I couldn't veer off the road, onto a shoulder, without a police car or Good Samaritan stopping to investigate. I wished the car could lift into the hills that rose from the highway, taking us into secluded swells of green where we could enjoy the time allotted to us, in private.

It is hard to find solitude in the suburbs. This surprises city dwellers, who imagine counterparts in the suburbs lead a solitary, sylvan existence, but it couldn't be further from the truth. Suburbs are built on a bedrock of belief in the bettering aspects of community:
community
parks,
community
pools,
community
beaches and halls and grounds. Almost no provision is made for private withdrawal, even behind the doors of your home. Neighbors think nothing of ringing a bell without notice, as do purveyors of everything, and hawkers of religion or political candidates.

Where was I going? I couldn't think straight. It was as if a jack-hammer was drilling into my brain. But when I saw signs for Maple-wood, I suddenly knew. I nosed the car off the highway and onto an
exit that led to a hidden trailhead where Warren had once brought me. He'd liked to walk. He'd had many pairs of shoes (perhaps he still does) each suited to a different sort of walking: a pair for hiking rocks, a pair for walking flatlands, a pair for climbing hills. He'd counted 119 trails in New Jersey and had set out to do every one. The one he liked best led to a waterfall and he'd taken me there several times. There was a back entrance to a trail you'd never know was there. I turned off into a covert indent by the side of the road, parked, and, after gently unraveling the belts around her, took the baby out of the car.

It was blisteringly hot in the sun, and I shielded her head with my hand until we reached the dark shelter of trees, and the temperature grew cooler by many degrees. I held the baby on my hip, securing her with both arms, as I navigated bumps in the trail, glad I'd gone out that morning wearing sensible shoes. I hoped a place I remembered was still there: a grove of pines around a redwood table. I crested a hill, and my heart leapt—the table was still there.

The air was heavy with sweetness as I sat with the baby on a sturdy bench at the table. I took a few deep breaths, to make my heart stop beating so fast. Then I began to talk to her. I didn't speak gibberish as I've heard mothers do. I spoke in words that revealed my heart while she regarded me with a wise, sympathetic expression, like a friend who knows you need someone to listen. I talked to her of the majesty of nature, pointing out the beauty of birdsong, the slices of blue between boughs that rose like arms of giant sentries guarding us from the rest of the world. I told her how much I wanted a baby. I said what a beautiful baby she was. I confessed that I longed to keep her, but assured her I was bringing her back to her mother. I couldn't endure the thought of her mother's sorrow. I told the baby I was sorry I couldn't keep her, and when I said this, she began to fuss and I wondered if perhaps she was telling me something: that she wanted me to keep her, not to bring her back. I
thought of the baby Warren and I had lost and wondered if possibly, impossibly, that baby was this baby, redirected to me. Perhaps her mother was mean to her, inept, or cruel, or otherwise unfit. But the baby's fat, healthy cheeks and neatly ironed lace bib assured me that was wishful thinking on my part. She began to cry. A small, restrained whimper. I picked her up and stood swaying back and forth over the soft carpet of fallen pine needles. I sang to her. This seemed to console her. There was an echoing chorus of birds singing sad songs, as if in solidarity. I waited until she fell asleep on my shoulder, until her breathing was raspy and regular. Then, I carried her, stepping carefully to avoid rocks in the path, back to the car.

I laid the baby, still sleeping, on the front seat, nestled her in the impression she'd made in the towels. I secured her again with the belts and the bungees.

With a heavy heart, I closed the passenger door, walked to the other side of the car, and slid behind the wheel. Our journey together was over. It was time to bring her back.

The key glittered as I held it above the ignition and maybe it was this flash of brightness in the dim car that pierced my brain fog, returning me to my senses. How could I bring her back? Walk in the store and look for
Returns
? I'd be arrested as soon as I walked through the doors. The baby's disappearance must be a news story by now. Had the woman with half-glasses taken note of my license plate? Had the police traced the number? Was I being hunted already, my name on the news? My hand went for the knob of the radio, but I decided not to turn it on. Not only because the baby was sleeping and I didn't want the noise to wake her. I didn't want to hear news about the baby's disappearance. I didn't want to hear the name I hadn't named her. This would make the fact that I'd taken her real.

When I was in school, a nun read us a story about a soldier on a train. I don't remember who wrote it, but the narrative has stuck
with me all of these years. The soldier has gotten leave to visit his sick wife and receives a telegram just before he boards. He knows it's bad news, but he doesn't open the envelope. He spends the trip talking people's ears off about his wife—how beautiful she is, how kind, generous—all the while feeling the unopened telegram in his pocket, knowing as soon as he opens it, she'll be gone. It was like that, for me, in that moment. I wanted to isolate myself from reports of what I had done, extending time, being outside of it, beyond the point where laws of our universe obtain, pretending for as long as I could that the small being on the seat beside me was mine.

Without consciously deciding to do so, I drove the rest of the way home to Montclair. Where else could I go? I would figure out what to do, once I got there. I cruised past signs for the Oranges, then for Bloomfield. Sweat trickled down my neck. It was so hot in the car that my shirt stuck to my back. Beads had formed on the baby's temples and upper lip, but she continued to sleep peacefully on the seat beside me. I reopened the windows, letting cool air rush in.

The only time I took my hand away from the baby, besides opening the window, was driving up my own driveway, to press the button on the remote to open the garage. When the garage door went down behind us, shutting us off from the bright, exposing midafternoon light, it felt like we'd entered the safety of Ali Baba's cave.

I put my head down on the steering wheel and wept. I was physically spent, as if I had just run a marathon. I sat there, needing time to gather my strength, to figure out what I should do next. I cried quietly, not wanting to wake the baby, not wanting her to know my distress. Her little arms were a halo around her head.

I
struggled with whether or not to take her into the house. Taking her into the house seemed a crossing almost as momentous as
taking her out of the store. Somehow, staying in the car with her seemed not as damning to me as taking her into the house. If I'd been caught with her in the car, I could say I had found her somewhere and was returning her,
Just trying to do the right thing, Officer
—but no. I couldn't lie about not having taken her out of the store.
Jasmine, Security
would surely recognize me. I'd say I'd taken her out of the store for her own good—it was freezing in there and she'd been dangerously cold—and now I was on my way to bring her back. The lapse in time could be explained by . . . my lack of a sense of direction—I had just gotten lost. Anyone who knew me—coworkers, my ex-husband—would confirm that I had a terrible sense of direction. As long as I was in the car with the baby, I was still in transit, destination unknown, intentions improvable. But once I took her out of the car and brought her over the threshold, well, then my intentions would be undeniable.

The car grew hot and airless. The baby woke up. There were beads of sweat on her upper lip. I bent toward her and she studied my face as if trying to place it. Then, she smiled in recognition. My chest flooded, as if a dam had been broken. Her smile turned to a grimace. Then came a stench. She began to cry and suddenly the complications of my dilemma faded away. I knew what to do next. It became very simple. The baby needed something. I needed to do something for her. And I acted on what would guide my actions for the rest of my life: giving her what she needed. What she needed now was a new diaper. What I should do next became clear. And that is the reality of taking care of a small child—there is so much they need from moment to moment, so many decisions to make on their behalf in the course of each day, that you rarely have time to stand back and consider the big picture, which is something I succeeded in ignoring for years.

I got out of the car and went around to her side of it. I opened
the door and unstrapped her from the seat. I took her into my arms and walked, without doubt or question, through the passageway that led from the garage to the kitchen door. But as I stepped from cement to linoleum, a queasiness came over me. My feet were acting out a decision the rest of me hadn't agreed to yet.

S
tore security called the police and I called Tom and a storm of blue uniforms made real what was impossible—my baby had been kidnapped.

They took me to a room in the back of the store. A door opened and the store stopped being shiny aisles of colorful merchandise and turned into grim, gray surrounds. The room was airless. There were no windows. I felt as if I were unable to breathe. A detective asked questions: When did I realize my baby was missing? When had I last seen her? Had I ever lost her before? My mind was already crowding with horrible visions. You can't imagine what it's like to be tortured by thoughts of what is happening to your child as you are being grilled as if you are a criminal, while whoever took her is being allowed to get farther and farther away.

I know now that questioning a lost child's parents as if they are the kidnappers is standard procedure, but I didn't know it then and it was agony to be made to account for every minute of my day to an angry-looking detective who'd sat me in a room separated from Tom, who was being asked the same questions, to see if our answers matched. At a certain point, I stopped talking, stopped being able to understand what was being asked of me. Voices went too soft to hear, then came at me deafeningly loud. I had to focus on lips to get the meaning of words.

They dusted the rubber duck—the last thing I gave my baby—for prints. A man in a white coat, wearing plastic gloves, pushed long Q-tips into our mouths and swabbed saliva off the duck, to match DNA with the samples they got from the Q-tips, to confirm that Tom and I were her parents. They said most abductions involve a biological parent, and this about sent me over the edge, because even in my agitated state, I knew they were referring to abductions that happen when parents have separated and Tom and I were still together, which should have been obvious to them.

Then the press showed up. So many people with notepads and mics wanting to talk to us. We were told it was best to give an exclusive, that would get us the most airtime for our plea. We chose Connie Chung because our lawyer said that CBS had the biggest audience. We wanted to spread the word as fast as we could. This was before social media, before AMBER Alerts. We were told that most abducted children who come home are returned to their parents within twenty-four hours. The alternative was unthinkable.

How I regretted not having a better photo of Natalie. Babies change fast. The picture we had of her at two months looked nothing like how she looked at four months. But this was before digital. People didn't snap away at their babies like they do today. I'd made appointments at Olan Mills Studios, but had canceled them because things always came up at work. I could have sent her with Charu, but I wanted to bring her to the studio myself. I didn't want my sitter to do it. We had plenty of time for a session, I thought. The Christmas-card deadline was still weeks away.

That TV appearance! I'll never forget the horror of it. Lights shining on us bright as kliegs as we sat there trying to look like good parents, not crazy, having to plead for mercy from the monster who took our baby, hoping the monster was watching Connie Chung.

I
t felt as if I were walking into someone else's house, so different did it seem with a baby inside it. The air was strangely charged. The light in the kitchen seemed brighter, sharper. Objects I saw every day acquired new luster, new clarity. The toaster gleamed, vivid in its dark corner. Pastel Fiestaware deepened to the colors of rainbows. Little painted teapots danced on the walls. The house was no different, yet everything had changed. It felt both larger and smaller, shape-shifting around the baby's presence, her small weight on my shoulder somehow expanded to fill up the space. The narrow corridor widened as I brought her to the nursery. Its windows were street-facing, and once there, I pulled the blinds shut. Not because I was afraid some neighbor might drop by unexpectedly. I barely knew who my neighbors were; I spent most of my waking hours at work in Manhattan. I took the precaution because I didn't want to risk the chance that anyone—landscaper, postman, salesman—might peep in and see me walking around, suddenly endowed with a baby.

Gently, carefully, I took her from my shoulder and laid her down on the changing table. She looked around, taking in the mobiles, the stars on the ceiling, the ducks on the wall, the sconces, which were in the shape of sheep, smiling as if in appreciation of the decorating efforts I'd made on her behalf. For years, I'd imagined a baby in that outfitted room. In my mind, she had long been a presence there. But
now I realized that tending to a baby was different from imagining one. How vulnerable, how trusting she was in my care, and how little I knew about taking care of her. Changing a diaper, which I'd done only a few times as a sitter, now loomed as a terrifying prospect. What formidable responsibility. My ignorance could cause her injury, perhaps even death! What if I made the diaper too tight, cutting off her blood supply? What if I missed a spot with the cream and she got infected? How much more was at stake when the baby was yours. Holding her with one hand to keep her from rolling off the table, with the other I tore into the package of disposable diapers on the shelf below. In my nervousness, I dropped the first diaper. How far from my reach it looked on the floor. Rather than bend down, which would require removing my steadying hand from the baby, I retrieved another from the package. I saw that the diaper was too small for her.
For babies up to ten pounds,
said the packaging. I unsnapped the crotch of her sunsuit, which was now stained brown from the seepage, unpeeled the sticky tabs of tape at the sides of her diaper and marveled that such a tiny, sweet-looking body could have produced such a mess. But I didn't find the foulness offensive, which was strange because I didn't have a strong stomach for that kind of thing. I hadn't been able to deal with my mother's incontinence at the end. My sister had rolled her eyes at my squeamishness. But she was a nurse.