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The mall was packed. The girls and I spent most of the morning picking out gifts for their mother and a few of their friends. I had never been shopping on Christmas Eve, so this turned out to be the most unpleasant shopping experience I’d ever had. Krissy’s attitude didn’t make it any better. She’d gotten up in a bad mood and it seemed to get stanker every hour on the hour. By lunch time, I’d had absolutely had all I could take of her sour mood.
I was glad I’d invited Ebony to join us for lunch. Her husband and the boys were seeing some movie she had no interest in, so she was glad for girl-time. Plus, she wanted to meet the girls. Her presence was the only thing that kept me from jumping on Krissy.
We had just finished our meals when Krissy excused herself to the restroom. I could see the door from where I sat, so I let her go on her own. I was glad to see her back.
“Guuurl...” Ebony purred the word.
I looked at Mary and Destiny and was careful with my response. “I don’t know what it is. It’s not usually this bad.”
“There must be a trigger,” Ebony said taking my cue and making sure to talk in code as well.
I suppressed an eye-roll. “I feel like going old skool with a shoe.”
“She’s sad,” Mary inserted.
I raised an eyebrow and tried to fake the funk. “She who?”
“You talking about Krissy right?” Mary cocked her head confidently. “She’s sad. We always saw our dad at Christmas. Sometimes on the computer and sometimes he was home. Last Christmas was when he came out the army for good.”
I sighed. “I didn’t know that.”
“That’s why my mama is sad too. Last year was our first real Christmas with my daddy in a long time.”
I nodded and now I understood. “Thanks for telling me.” Mary flashed her toothless grin. “But how did you know we were talking about your sister?”
“She mean as a snake. When you talked about a shoe. My mama uses a shoe. I knew you was talking about her.”
“That was a bad thing for me to say. Please try to forget it.”
Mary giggled and shrugged. “I know it was a joke.”
I picked up my cell and noted the time. We’d had a leisurely lunch and we still needed to visit Darlene. “Krissy has been in the restroom for a while. Would you go get her Mary?”
Mary stood and I watched her head in the direction of the restroom. After a minute, she came back and sat down.
“I don’t see Krissy in there.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I called her, but she didn’t answer me.”
“Is one of the stalls closed?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t see her shoes under the door.”
My heart stopped. I jumped up and went to the restroom. There were only three stalls and just as I entered, a woman exited one of them.
“Krissy,” I called. I knew the bathroom was empty, but still...
“Did you see a little girl when you came in here?”
The woman was washing her hands. “No,” she replied.
“But...” I whirled around and then exited the restroom, hoping somehow she’d managed to pass me and was back at the table, but she wasn’t.
Ebony stood, her face asking the question and then like me, she began to look around the restaurant for the missing child. I went outside to the parking lot and walked around the entire thing looking for her. She was gone. How could she be gone that quickly and more importantly where was she and what was I going to tell her mother?
I panicked. I called the police first and then Mekhi. He was running to the car to get over here as fast as he could. I got in my car and drove up and down the street looking for her, but there was no sign of the child. It had been nearly twenty minutes since I’d last seen Krissy. I had been holding out hope that I’d spot her or that she would come strolling back into the restaurant. I couldn’t imagine where she had gone. There was nothing in the vicinity, but a church that was closed up tight, a few residential homes and a cemetery.
A policeman questioned me and suggested that she had probably run away. “Kids get stressed this time a year and walk off.” He was emphasized that Krissy’s situation was one in which a child might take a walk.
The officer’s partner made sure there were no registered sex-offenders in the area and then did a house to house visit to the few homes on the block. I was sick. I couldn’t leave the restaurant. I couldn’t not be here if she came back, but it felt useless standing here doing nothing.
Mekhi arrived and I fell into his arms. “I lost her, Mekhi. How could I?”
“She dodged you, Sam. This was her decision.”
I moaned. “I should have gone to the restroom with her.”
Mekhi took my hand and squeezed. “They’ll find her.”
I pulled my hand out of Mekhi’s and spun away from him and the police officer, squinting as I looked down the road for a sign of her. “I don’t even know how she got out without my seeing.”
“The knee wall,” a police officer interjected. “If she was trying sneak out, she’d just scoot down and walk along the wall. It leads to the exit.”
I nodded. I got that, but why and where was she? This was not supposed to be happening.
“I have to call her mother,” I said to the officer. I looked at Mekhi. “It’s been over an hour.”
Mekhi nodded. “She might know where she would go.”
I moaned again and crossed my hands over my stomach. “In this cold with no coat. No money.”
“Are you sure she doesn’t have money?” one of the officers asked.
I shook my head. “If she does, its change. Her family’s money situation isn’t good and I paid for everything today on a credit card.”
I reached in my bag for a cell phone. I don’t think I dreaded ever making a phone call so much. Darlene was going to lose her mind.
Darlene’s cell went right to voicemail, so I called the main number for the hospital and asked for a connection to her room. After a minute, she was on the phone.
I froze. How did I tell her? How could I say it? I had no idea.
Mekhi took the phone, put it on speaker and did it for me.
Darlene wailed. I thought I’d never heard anyone scream so loud and then I remembered I had. I remembered how I’d cried when I lost my baby. That howl, half human, half animal that only a deep pain could stir.
After she grilled Mekhi and myself for a while, the police officer took over the phone to ask her some questions.
Mekhi pulled me away from the officer’s conversation. “I’m going to drive around a little. Maybe I’ll spot her.”
I hated to see him disappear into the car. I was weak from fear of what could have happened to that child. Here I was trying to protect her from a child molester uncle and now I had lost her completely.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Ms. Johnson.” The police officer’s words broke through my thoughts. “If a child wants to run away, they do it. She could have done it at night while you were sleeping.”
“Yeah, but at least then she’d have a coat.” I crossed my arms. I was sick. Sick. Sick. Sick. I stood there waiting for the other police officer to finish talking to Darlene. He was asking her a ton of questions while he made notes on his pad.
Mekhi’s car came back into the parking lot. The driver’s side window came down and my heart sank when I didn’t see Krissy on the other side of him. “I might have an idea where she is,” he said.
The police officer that had been talking to Darlene handed me my cell phone. “If your husband is thinking what I’m thinking, he might be on to something.”
Hope rose in my chest. I climbed into Mekhi’s car and we followed the police car a short distance. Short as in across the street.
“Why are we over here?” I asked.
Mekhi raised a hand to stop my questions. “I don’t want to get your hopes up.”
My hopes up. That she would be hiding in a cemetery? What child ran away to a cemetery...and then it hit me what child. A child that lost her father.
“Is this?” I asked.
Mekhi nodded. “I remembered something she said this morning at breakfast, so I came back and thought we should call Darlene, but the officer already had what we needed.
We rode up and down hills and around curves. This was a massive cemetery. I hadn’t been to many cemeteries, but I didn’t even know they got this big. After a few minutes of driving we turned right. We passed a few graves before I saw her. She was sitting Indian style in front of a headstone.
Our car came to a stop at the same time that the police car did. Krissy’s jacket in one hand and my cell in the other, I leapt from the vehicle. I called Darlene’s room. She answered on the first ring. “We’re in the cemetery. She’s here. Let me talk to her and I’ll call you back.”
I put my phone in my pocket and approached Krissy. She had to be aware of my presence, but she just sat there. I stepped closer and put her coat over her shoulders. She looked up at me. Tears stained her face and her ten year-old eyes looked much older than they should have. She slid her arms into the coat and stood.
“He doesn’t belong here,” she cried. “He should be with us. We should all be at the hospital with my mom and the new baby, but instead, he’s here and we’re with you and everything is wrong.” Her eyes cut to where Mekhi and the police car were waiting. “I’m sorry.”
I was so relieved we’d found her, it didn’t even matter what she’d done. But I was curious about one thing. “Why didn’t you just ask me to bring you over here?”
She sniffed and swiped under her running nose. “You might have said no.”
No wasn’t an option. I understood, but it concerned me. Krissy reminded me so much of myself at her age. Angry most of the time and determined to have my way when I could, even if I had to break the rules to make it happen.
I extended my hand and she slid hers into it. “Come on. Let’s go get some flowers for your dad.”
With bloodshot eyes, she thanked me and we walked to the car.