I can’t do it anymore, Carole.”
Carole glanced up from the kitchen table and looked across to her husband. The dark circles under his eyes now dipped below his cheekbones. He was drawn; streaks of gray were showing up in his hair; and he had the hangdog look of a man at death’s door.
“George, you just have to keep the faith.”
“I can’t,” he said. “And I don’t want to either. It’s been six weeks, and she’s not coming back. She’s gone and I have to admit that. It’s easier to think of her as dead than alone, frightened, maybe abused.”
“George …”
“No, Carole, don’t try to find any words to lift my spirits. I don’t want them lifted. I want to face the facts. I failed as a father. I failed as a husband because I didn’t protect her for you. I’ve let everyone down. The world would be better off if I’d never been born.”
She pushed her chair back from the table and walked over to a spot behind the man. Placing her hands on his shoulders she whispered, “I need you, George. I couldn’t go on without you here. And you didn’t let Rose down. What happened was beyond your control. If anyone should be feeling guilty, it’s me. She was with me when she was taken. I was the one who didn’t protect her.”
She’d thought those thoughts a hundred times, but she’d never said them out loud before now. And facts were facts. She was the person Rose had depended on that day to make everything all right, and she was the one who let her daughter down in the worst way a parent could.
“Maybe we need to call Reverend Morris,” she suggested.
Jerking to his feet and pushing her hands off him, George roared, “I don’t need a preacher! I don’t want to hear about this being God’s plan. If there is a God, I hate Him for letting this happen!”
“George …”
“Don’t go there, Carole! I mean what I said, and I’m tired of pretending I don’t.”
Through horrified eyes she watched him stomp out of the kitchen, through the living room, and out the front door. A few seconds later, she heard the old Dodge they’d bought a few weeks before start up. She knew where he was going, but she tried to pretend that she didn’t. She couldn’t stand the thought of him drowning his anger and frustration at a tavern. Yet the fact was, he spent more time there now than he did at home. And perhaps, in a strange way, that place offered him something she couldn’t—the ability to forget.
She dragged herself into Rose’s room. It was just as it had been the day she’d been taken. Her pajamas were still lying on the foot of the bed, and the stuffed lion she so loved was still in the rocking chair. As she inventoried the room, her eyes filled with tears. George was right. Rose wasn’t coming back. Yet, unlike her husband, Carole did not hope Rose was dead. In fact, the only prayer on her heart was that somewhere Rose was with a woman who would love her and give her all the things that Carole had planned to give her.
Picking up the yellow lion from the chair, she adjusted the ribbon collar and then hugged it. If only there were a way that she could somehow hold her daughter the very same way. But George was right; it was time to admit the obvious. It was time to let go, even if she couldn’t pick up the pieces and start all over. And to do that, she was going to have do something she dreaded doing.
Dropping the stuffed lion onto the bed, she walked out to the garage. There were three empty cardboard boxes at the back. She retrieved them and retraced her steps back to Rose’s room. Opening the top drawer of a chest, she began to pull each tiny outfit out one at a time. She quickly studied them, tracing a button or a stitch, before dropping them into the box. This trip down memory lane was the most painful journey in her life. There was a story behind each piece of clothing, each shoe, each toy, and each book. And putting those stories into boxes was like sticking a coffin into the ground and covering it with six feet of dirt. She was burying her daughter one item at a time.
When the last thing was packed and the bed had been stripped, she carried the boxes back to the garage and placed them in the corner. Stepping back, she studied her forty-five minutes of work. In the harsh light of a single one-hundred-watt bulb was the sum total of Rose’s life. It seemed to be little to show for a child who’d brought her so much love.
Glancing down, she noted another empty box sitting against a far wall. Tears began to stream down her face as she studied it. That box held the memories that would never be made and the dreams that could never be realized. That empty box, much more than the full ones, represented what she’d lost.
Falling to her knees, Carole began to sob. “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”