The cluster of blonds caught Charlie’s eye the minute she descended onto the veranda the next morning. Women on a church mission, no doubt about it, with their neat, low ponytails and flowery summer dresses, still crisp in the thickening air. Had they traveled to Haiti with their teenage children, dropping in for a couple of days to pound a few crooked nails into some sub-standard shack that could have been better constructed by the Haitians themselves? Or were they here delivering boatloads of clothing and shoes, used items that the locals sometimes called Kennedys, a charitable effort that only had the effect of taking the food right out of local merchants’ mouths. Why buy something, when you can get it for free?
It was exactly what she and Robert had been talking about, over shots of rum, late into the night the evening before. The difference between do-gooders and doing good, he proposed, is knowing that you don’t have all the answers. Better for people to give cash, or come down to Haiti themselves and spend their money, than to send things or do things that may not be needed or wanted. A little can go a long way in a country where most people survive on less than two dollars a day.
Of course, Charlie was once a part of that whole do-gooder world herself. She now cringed at the memories of her stepfather forcing his dogma on people that had been following their own traditions for generations. And now, her parents pretending to be saviors when all they were doing was exploiting others for their own benefit. How low could they go? she wondered.
Charlie felt a tiny hammer pounding at her head from the inside out. If only these people would leave already, she thought, hearing the voices of the women grow louder as their numbers increased. How many blonds does it take to do good, anyway? She had to laugh at her cranky self, more than a little hungover from the rum she and Robert had consumed after an exhausted Bea, a discouraged Lizbeth, and a silent Senzey had turned in for the night. They had not found the baby yesterday. At first they had not even been able to find the orphanage on the street Senzey had been told it was on, but instead had driven around in circles through a maze of traffic, Senzey peering through the car window for the building she’d been shown in pictures. She had been shown a whole album, she told them, with photos of blans bottle-feeding and cooing over tiny bundles of warmth, drawing pictures and playing ball with smiling toddlers. Your child will be loved, she was promised.
Hours went by before Senzey finally did spy a house that she said looked something like the one she’d been shown. Charlie veered off the street and onto the sidewalk to get a closer look. It was the one, Senzey insisted, but why did it look so quiet, like no one was there? Indeed, the windows were dark, the front door blocked by trash that had clearly piled up over some time. When they noticed the padlock, Senzey had cried out as if she were in pain. “They’re gone,” she wailed. “My baby is gone.”
It had been a long day, and an even longer evening. Senzey had been using Charlie’s phone to repeatedly dial the number she had for the couple that had convinced her to leave her baby with the orphanage, not wanting to believe that the number was no longer in use, as the message kept telling her. Lizbeth kept grumbling about damn baby-finders, despite Charlie’s gentle kicks under the table. She tried to be encouraging, suggesting they all get some rest and regroup in the morning, when their minds would be clearer. But Lizbeth and Senzey must have stayed awake late in their shared room, as they had not yet appeared for breakfast. As for Charlie, her mind was not clear at all. Only Bea, who was up to something down below in the hotel garden, seemed to have any semblance of a plan, however crazy that plan might be.
The knock on the door of their hotel room had come early that morning, Charlie unlocking it sleepily to find a tall Haitian woman draped in ruffled white cotton, her head wrapped in a bright red turban, clunky beads strung around her neck like garlands on a Christmas tree, and a baby doll—the old-fashioned kind with a hard plastic face and eyes that opened and shut—in her hand. In the other hand was a dagger. Charlie rubbed her eyes and waited for the woman to identify herself.
“Madame Bea,” the woman said instead, the words a command rather than a question.
Charlie turned to her grandmother, who, to her surprise, was already up and dressed, her head covered by a wide-brimmed straw hat, her arms ringed in Lizbeth’s neon mosquito bracelets.
“Mambo Michèle,” Bea said. “This is my granddaughter, Charlie. Charlie, meet Mambo Michèle.”
Charlie stood by in her tank top and pajama bottoms and watched as the woman took her grandmother’s elbow, and the two sauntered off together like a couple of old friends.
Now she peered through the white wooden railings, down toward the spot where Bea and the mambo seemed to be setting a table for something. What the hell were those two up to, anyway? Did she even want to know? Across from her, the church women were signing for their breakfast and gathering their purses. Charlie was grateful for the coming silence, for the chance to concentrate on developing a plan of action for Lizbeth and Senzey, hopefully before they woke up. But where to start? Charlie’s only hope was that the orphanage had moved, and not simply disappeared. But even if that were true, how would she find it? It’s not as though these places listed their addresses online, or had big neon signs out in front or anything.
She sipped her coffee and watched as the group of women joined hands for a prayer, like football players in a huddle before the big game. Then they got to work, taking trips up and down the hotel’s staircase, marching back and forth from their rooms to a trio of vans waiting below, their arms heavy with bundles and bags and, Charlie noticed, plastic-wrapped mattresses small enough to fit in a crib. When she saw a carton of disposable diapers go by, she jumped up from her chair.
“Morning. How y’all doing?” she asked, borrowing a bit of Lizbeth’s Texas accent to help pave the way.
“Hey there,” one of the women answered, her eyes hidden behind a pair of giant sunglasses. “We’re doing just fine. And you?”
“Super,” Charlie answered back, her stomach still turning somersaults from the night before.
“Are you here with a group? The Belles of Mercy? Someone said they’re in town.”
Charlie shook her head. “Nope. No group.”
The woman smiled and nodded, and started to turn away.
“Where y’all going?” Charlie asked.
“We’re getting ready to visit some orphanages, to help out a bit.”
“Seriously?” Charlie flashed her famous smile. “That’s awesome.” She could not believe her good luck.
The woman nodded, and continued toward the vans.
“Mind if I ask you a favor?” Charlie said, thinking as fast as she could through the haze left by the rum.
“What’s that?”
“Could I maybe come along?”
The woman stopped, taking in Charlie’s ripped cutoffs and baggy tee.
“I’ve been wanting to find something to do down here, some way to help. You know, with all this poverty and all? It’s such a darn shame.”
The woman hesitated, looking around as though she were seeking permission from the others.
“Charity’s the name.” Charlie stuck out her hand for a shake.
“Charity,” the woman repeated. “My name’s Kathleen. Well, Charity”—she shrugged—“I suppose we could always use another pair of hands.”
Charlie ran down to where Bea and the mambo were spreading a bright red and blue cloth across a rickety table, as if readying for a picnic. There was no time to explain, or to ask them what was going on. She simply told Bea she’d be back later, and to please pass on the message to Senzey and Lizbeth to just sit tight.
Her first stop with the women was an eye-opener, but would turn out to be far from the most alarming of the half dozen so-called orphanages they visited that day. From the outside it looked not unlike the other buildings on the block, a squat structure standing behind a treeless front yard that had been concreted over, and seemed clean enough, despite the need for a paint job.
The other women marched into the place with broad smiles plastered across their faces, eager to spread some love to the boys and girls. They were met with an onslaught of skinny, raggedy children leaping through the air and into their arms, as if they’d known the women their entire lives. Charlie was stopped dead in her tracks by a pair of boys, no older than six, who’d each flung their arms tightly around one of her legs, a hunger in their eyes that went way beyond their obvious need for food.
She followed Kathleen’s lead as she and the other women tried to comfort the children with caresses and soft words in a language they couldn’t understand. She joined in as they blew bubbles and sang songs and chanted rhymes while a woman who seemed to be in charge, helped by a young boy, unloaded goods from the van. Charlie watched as the two of them carted it all down a dark hallway, past the children’s eager eyes and grabby hands. Their donations weren’t even a drop in a bucket in this place, she realized, as she took in the room’s crumbling floors and bare cabinets, the children’s hollow cheeks and dirty limbs. That is, she thought, remembering what Mackenson had told them, if those donations even make it to the kids. These children were obviously used to visits from strangers, from blans with love to spare. So where was the evidence of the toys and clothes and food that Charlie was certain had been gathered and carted down here before, by others?
They seemed to get the same reaction everywhere they went. Children desperate for attention, clawing for a hint of affection, who had to be pried from the necks and hands of the visiting women when it was time for them to move on to the next place. Charlie found herself a bit in awe of Kathleen and her crew, with their can-do attitudes and endless patience. They were so incredibly kind, their hearts certainly in the right place. But she had to wonder if a disruption of the sort they were causing—no doubt one of a series that went on regularly in places like this—might be doing more harm than good. People loving and leaving, over and over—what does that do to a child who’s already been abandoned?
But it was the sheer neglect that Charlie came to witness that shook her to her core. Most of the facilities she saw that day weren’t fit for barnyard animals. Metal cots stacked one upon the other in crowded bunkrooms, the rusty frames supporting thin, rotting foam mattresses, if any mattress at all. Crumbling concrete walls, scattered broken chairs, bins, and shelves empty of books or toys or crayons, devoid of anything at all that spoke of a child’s presence. But the children were there, an army of underfed, unloved, discounted souls, in worn and dirty clothing, with spots and rashes splashed across their tiny bodies, thick, yellow snot running down their grubby faces. What kind of abuse did these poor babies suffer when no one was around to see or hear? And how many of them were like poor little Lukson, given up by parents who were still out there somewhere, holding on to dreams for a better life than their own for their children?
Lukson. She’d hoped upon hope that by some miracle she’d find him that day, but realized very quickly that would not be the case. She’d heard babies’ cries coming from back rooms, seen a couple of kids that might be near his age being passed around during their visits, but there was no way she’d be able to identify him, let alone talk anyone into letting a blan walk away with one of their wards. The best she could do was stick to her plan and take note of every location they stopped in. Tomorrow she’d come back with Senzey, and Lizbeth.
She prayed Lukson hadn’t been stuck in one of these god-awful places, warehoused like a piece of discarded merchandise. But if he was, she would find him, and would, somehow, shout out his heartbreaking story for the whole world to hear.