––––––––
“Something funny’s going on here. That’s for damned sure!” Ryan heard Destiny Rivera’s high-pitched voice over the din as he and Carrie got out of their car. She was the world’s nosiest neighbor, but basically harmless.
She was tall and thin, medium dark-skinned, attractive and loads of fun as long as you didn’t piss her off.
Luckily for them, they got along great with her and she often stopped by while out walking her dogs.
She was talking animatedly to some of their other neighbors who had gathered around, some of them on their cell phones. They were no doubt giving their friends and family a play-by-play of what was going on.
Seemingly, the entire block had come outside upon their arrival home from the hospital, but he was not in the mood to socialize.
It had been two days since their baby had been snatched and the police seemed to be clueless.
As if on cue, a tall African-American man made his way through the crowd, his weathered face teeming with authority. He was big, about six feet two, dark-skinned and a bit rough looking, but his light brown eyes were kind.
“Mr. Ashby?” he asked, as Carrie started to weep as she walked towards the house. Immediately, some of the women surrounded her, clucking in sympathy as they too, had tears in their eyes.
He had to get her away from all of this and into the house before she got more upset. She’d been given a sedative or two during the last two days as they tried to get through this nightmare.
“I’m sorry,” Ryan apologized, moving towards his wife. “We have nothing to say to the media right now....”
“I am Detective Chandler, from the Nassau County Police Department.” he said, briefly showing a badge as a very attractive woman with long blonde hair joined him. She was petite and dainty, like one of those old-fashioned Victorian dolls. “This is Detective Harvey.”
Ryan blinked as he looked towards the house and then motioned for the detectives to follow him inside.
The last thing they needed was to be even more of a spectacle than they already were at this point.
They came in and he ushered them into the hallway quickly, shutting the door.
Carrie was floating aimlessly from room to room and Ryan excused himself to see to her.
“Come on, babe.” He said, gently guiding her towards their bedroom.
“I want them out of here.” Carrie said quietly as she sat on the bed and then laid back, curling onto her side and facing the windows, “Get them out of here.”
“I will. You just rest for a bit and I’ll be right back.” Ryan said, pressing a kiss against her forehead as she trembled. He reluctantly left her then, and tried hard not to stare into the small bedroom they had put together for the nursery. His wife had gone all out with designing it, making sure that every little detail was just right.
Swallowing back a lump, Ryan came into the living room.
“My wife is not feeling well.” He said, right to the point, choosing not to sit so that they would get the hint that he didn’t want them there. “What do you want?”
“We’ve reviewed the security footage, Mr. Ashby and we may have a viable lead....”
“When are you going to find my daughter?” Ryan interrupted, cutting his eyes meanly at the blonde who hadn’t said a word yet, but she was jotting something down. He narrowed his eyes at the youngness of her. She looked like a teenager almost.
Her bright blue eyes met his gaze as she looked up at him, her face made-up as if a professional makeup artist had done it, her red fingernails gleaming as she tapped her pen on the notepad. It seemed to be a nervous habit, because she didn’t even seem to be aware that she was doing it.
“We are doing everything we can.” Detective Harvey finally piped up and he scoffed, turning his back on them.
“Have you spoken to Joan Addams?” he asked, in a tight voice as the hefty man nodded, his expressive brown eyes looking worn.
“We have. She maintains that she was in the hospital cafeteria at the time....”
“She’s a liar.” Ryan bit out, “That crazy bitch is behind this. She’s been acting weird ever since my wife got pregnant. Talking about wishing she had a baby and all kinds of crazy shit. Trust me....”
“We plan on speaking with her again.” Detective Harvey promised, making a quick scribble on her notepad as they made their way towards the hall. “We are doing everything we can...”
“Right.” Ryan said, moving past them to open the front door, slamming it behind them a moment later.
Idiots.
He knew in his very being that Joan had his daughter. And he was going to do all he could to prove it.
***
First thing the next morning someone was knocking on the front door, and reluctantly Ryan peeked out the narrow pane of glass on the side of the door.
It was Destiny.
“Hey, Ryan.” She said, barging past him with her two dogs in tow. “How have you two been holding up?”
“Hi, Des.” He greeted, “We’re hanging in there....”
“Anything I can do to help?” she asked, peering over his shoulder as if looking to see where Carrie was. “Where’s my girl?”
“Resting.” Ryan said, his hand on the doorknob, twisting it as he opened the door. “Thanks for stopping by, but we’re okay...”
“Are you sure?” she asked, peering up at him as her dogs sniffed around the potted palm plant near the front door. “I mean, it’s not a prob....HEY! No! NO, Peekaboo!!”
Ryan winced as she scolded the small shih-tzu as it raised its leg against the rust-colored, glazed vessel, the little black-and-white pup whimpering as it found something else to do other than pee on his floor.
“Thanks again.” He assured Destiny, who stared at him for a moment before nodding slowly.
“Well, okay.” She finally agreed, “But I’m just a phone call away. And you have my number at the salon, right?”
Destiny was a dog groomer at a pet salon on Lakeville Road. She had started the business out of her home three years ago and for the past year and a half she had moved it to a commercial rental space in a strip-mall.
You never saw Destiny Rivera without at least two dogs with her at all times, and her lawn was perpetually littered with all kinds of canine paraphernalia to the agony of the homeowners adjacent to her property.
There had been some complaints, and in true Destiny Rivera fashion, she had pretty much told them to go fuck themselves.
Her lawn.
Her right.
After she tried once more to convince him that she was there for them, she left and Ryan headed to the kitchen to throw a can of soup into the microwave. Carrie had barely eaten since this had all happened, and the last thing he needed was for her to fall completely apart.
He started to call his parents but thought better of it. They lived up in Hartford, Connecticut but he wasn’t on good terms with them these days. Carrie had never known her parents, put up for adoption at birth, and she didn’t care to know them or seek them out.
Basically, all they had was each other.
Although he felt that his parents could have done more to have a better relationship with him, but he knew it was a two-way effort.
His falling out with them had come right after he brought Carrie home to meet them for the first time. It had been disastrous, and the visit had been cut short after his father was verbally abusive towards his fiancé.
Ryan had been used to this kind of shit from his father, but he’d be damned if he would stand by and watch him treat Carrie this way.
They both made it clear that they didn’t like Carrie, and his holier-than-thou parents had forbade him to marry her.
She had cried all the way back to New York, making him feel awful for putting her through it with them.
His mother, whom he had always thought an ally once his father started in with his shit, hadn’t said a word. They told him that they would not see him until he came to his senses. And just like that, it was as if he no longer existed to them.
But he hadn’t cared.
All he knew, from the moment he set eyes on her, that Carrie was his soulmate.
His parents hadn’t even bothered to come to their wedding, and that still hurt him.
Carrie had been hurt by their absence, stating that Mary and Frank not being there was the only thing that marred their beautiful ceremony.
She had been so beautiful in her angelic white gown, her long hair coiled elaborately around her head. Almost as if it had just happened, he could remember how stunning she had looked on that day two years ago. They had gone to Niagara Falls for their honeymoon, making love the entire week they were there.
It was during that time that Carrie had gotten pregnant with the first baby, losing it soon after they came back home. Then a few months after that she’d gotten pregnant again, and lost that one too.
After the third one happened, just after the second trimester, Carrie had been beside herself and had fallen into a depression.
That was when they started seeing a specialist, and embarrassingly enough he had been subjected to rigorous testing to check his sperm count. The doctors had asked all kinds of questions about how often they had sex, and when. Did he masturbate a lot, what kind of diet did he have, did he exercise a lot or not enough. It had been endless, but he did it all without complaining because he wanted a baby just as much as Carrie did. She had gone through similar testing, and would have walked over the Grand Canyon if she had to in order to have a successful pregnancy.
They changed their sexual positions, doing it in the morning instead of at night when their minds were not so focused on making a baby. They’d been told that trying too hard sometimes hindered things. Another doctor told them the complete opposite.
It had broken his heart to hear Carrie cry night after night, particularly if she got her period which meant that she wasn’t pregnant.
He almost called his parents after the last miscarriage, because of course Carrie wanted to see the baby after it had happened.
It had been a little boy, perfectly formed but so very small.
They had been asked how they wanted the baby disposed of. Some grieving parents opted for cremation or a burial, with a small service.
They had chosen the cremation, scattering the baby’s ashes in the backyard so that they’d always have him close. He had put in a small fountain birdbath featuring a baby angel and they’d gotten a plaque with their son’s name inscribed on it, in his memory.
They had named him Carter Lucas Ashby, and he simply appeared as if he were sleeping once they cleaned him up and dressed him.
The nurses at the hospital had allowed them to hold him, even have a document of his tiny footprints and a lock of his dark hair. They still had it, in a glass keepsake box along with his hospital bracelet.
Losing Carter had almost killed him, too. But again, he had to be strong for Carrie and try to move on without the support from his parents he’d so desperately needed.
Ryan wiped his parents out of his mind, trying not to fall further into the pit of self-pity he was starting to put himself in.
He would not let his stubborn parents get to him.
They were all too stubborn, he guessed, being truthful.
As long as he had Carrie, she was all he needed.
***
Two more days went by as Carrie remained in bed, opting to take a leave of absence from her teaching job. There was no way she could go to the school and be around all those kids when she was frantic about their baby. Ryan did his best to stay on the large construction project his boss had him working on.
In all honesty, it helped him to be away from the house.
Of course, the news media continued to make their presence known. Their bright lights and cameras everywhere as they repeatedly knocked on the door or called for them to come out and make a statement.
Countless friends had stopped by or called, urging him to seek legal action against the hospital for negligence. But the case was still up in the air, and he didn’t know what to do or which way to turn.
Unashamed, he’d cried the night before as he stood in the doorway of the beautiful nursery Carrie had put together. His vision blurred as he looked at the tiny shoes, socks and other items they’d gotten at the surprise baby-shower just a few weeks earlier, thrown by Carrie’s many friends.
It had been fashioned to accommodate either boy or girl, and he’d loved it. They had stood in front of that crib for hours, imagining their child growing up in such a warm and loving home, the three of them the perfect family unit.
More than once he started to go over to Joan’s house. He had sent the police, as well as the media, over there but she never came out. And when he thought about how he hadn’t laid eyes on her since that day in the hospital, his suspicions grew.
Where the hell had she disappeared to after he had her thrown out of the hospital?
Why had she picked the precise moment after Carrie had the baby to suddenly leave the maternity ward?
Did she really think that he was supposed to believe that she wanted nothing more than to be a good friend?
Then he remembered something Carrie had told him about Joan having a miscarriage some years ago. Apparently, she didn’t like to talk about it and it was obvious Carrie hadn’t meant to let it slip out. But what other reason would Joan want their baby? And as close as his wife had been to this nut-bag, he was sure that Carrie was beside herself.
Right now he was calling the house, in the hopes that she would pick up the phone this time.
Lately, she’d been getting in these ‘zones’ where she wouldn’t even respond to him when he spoke to her. She spent a lot of time writing in the weathered pink-and-white composition notebook, unleashing her most private feelings in that book.
She’d cry sometimes while writing in it, and he knew that she was suffering. Other times she’d have a thoughtful expression on her face as she read it, sometimes even smiling as she relived a memory or two.
She’d hide it away somewhere in their bedroom, and he never tried to find it because it was a part of her meant to keep to herself.
He respected that.
The phone rang and rang, but she never picked it up.
Checking his watch, Ryan decided to make a quick run home on the guise of wanting some lunch; something that a lot of the other guys were slowly getting around to since they had worked most of the morning already.
He cleared it with his boss, and hurried to the old-battered grey Saturn VUE he’d been driving around since before he’d left Connecticut the first time ten years ago. He’d only been twenty-three then, just wanting to live his life in New York, a place he’d always dreamed of living.
The SUV was still in great shape, despite its body damage, and he didn’t mind parking it at any of the construction sites he worked out. Now, his Chrysler 300? That thing he all but rubbed with a diaper, and that’s the car he normally drove when he wasn’t on site. Carrie had one of those little cutsey-pie cars that looked like a golf-cart. He had laughed when she’d come home with the little red car last year, but she was adorable in it and it fit her personality to a tee.
Ryan made it to the house in fifteen minutes, relieved when he saw Carrie standing outside the house, pulling the mail out of the mailbox.
She looked surprised to see him as he pulled into the driveway and shut the engine off before getting out of the car.
“Ry.....” she said, softly, her deep brown eyes red-rimmed as he reached her in three steps.
“Are you all right?” he asked, engulfing her in his arms and squeezing tight. “I’ve been calling you...”
“I took a walk.” She apologized, “Forgot my cell phone.”
“It’s fine. It’s fine.” He assured her, pulling her closer as she wrapped her arms around his waist.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you....”
“No, it’s okay. I’m just glad to see you getting some fresh air.” Ryan admitted, as she walked into the house with the mail and he followed.
Carrie didn’t respond, but he knew that she would eventually start to come around.
She had to.