Kiss Mommy Goodbye (35 page)

The store was beautifully appointed, large indoor murals lining the walls, fruit trees seeming to spill their colorful produce directly from the pictures onto the cleverly arranged trays that were placed in front of them. And so it was throughout the store, a careful, loving blend of style and substance. The best of all worlds. It took a large dose of talent, she found herself thinking as she walked aimlessly
up and down the aisles, to turn what was essentially an everyday grocery store into something as pleasant as this place was, to make it as unique as this place was, to make people want to come here from all over Carmel, as this place obviously did. The store was crowded with shoppers—women, a surprisingly large number of men, quite a few children.

She first saw the little girl as she was walking up one aisle and the child, sitting in the small front seat of a shopping cart, was wheeled by at the far end of that aisle. The child had been staring at Donna. Even at a distance of approximately fifteen feet, there was something extraordinary about that child’s eyes.

Donna felt her heart beginning to race. Her legs seemed frozen to the floor. Stop it, she told herself. This has happened before. So many times, so many children who looked like either Adam or Sharon. So many mistakes. So much wishful thinking, as this was. Victor was no longer in Carmel; he had taken her children and fled in the night.

“Excuse me.”

“Pardon?” Donna asked, turning around to face a young, pleasant-looking woman, a baby wrapped in a cotton Snugli around her chest.

“Can I get by?” the woman asked.

“Oh, of course, I’m sorry.” Her voice trailed off. “I hadn’t realized I was blocking the aisle.”

But perhaps it hadn’t been Victor, she thought suddenly. Perhaps it was someone else who had fled. Someone in the same predicament as Victor; someone in his own kind of trouble. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that Marfleet
could be wrong! What mattered was the child she had just seen wheeled by directly before her eyes.

Her feet suddenly released her from the floor, pushing her forward so that she all but crashed into the young woman she had only seconds before let pass. “Sorry,” she muttered, reaching the top of the aisle and walking slowly, so as not to attract unwanted attention, past the next aisle. The child in the shopping cart was not there. Had she been an illusion? Donna dismissed the thought and walked toward the next row of canned goods.

They were there. The child, clutching a small packet of Jell-O instant pudding to her chest as if it were a prized teddy bear, and the woman. Donna looked hard at the woman while pretending to be looking equally hard at the shelves. Donna had never seen her before. She was dark-haired and tanned, though not overly so, and Donna estimated her age at around fifty-five. Too old, obviously, to be the child’s mother. A grandmother, perhaps. Or a housekeeper.

Donna focused her attention on the little girl. It had been eleven months since she had seen her, but eleven months can only alter, not completely change, a person’s face. While the little girl who sat singing in the shopping cart had thinned out in places and matured (an odd word for a child not yet three years old) in others, she still had the same basic little features—the small upturned nose, the mouth that formed a natural pout just like her father’s, the curly hair, now longer though no less curly, and the enormous witch’s eyes that looked right through you. Donna caught her breath as the child looked over in her direction. There was simply no mistaking that face. In
the year since she had last seen the little girl, the child had come to resemble even more than before the woman she had been named after. My mother, Donna thought. My mother—my daughter.

“Oh, darn,” she heard the woman say to the child. “I forgot the potatoes.”

“Tatoes?” the child asked.

“I’ll just be a second,” the woman said. “Don’t worry. I’ll be right back.”

Donna kept her head lowered and directed at some canned fruit, as if carefully assessing each tin’s individual merits, as the woman walked past her up the aisle. The second she was gone, Donna rushed toward the child. What do I do? she wondered furiously. What do I do? Do I just pick her up and run? What if she fights me? What do I do? What about my son? Where is my son?

“Hello,” she said quietly.

The child looked at her warily, her eyes penetrating Donna’s skull. Can you see me? Donna asked silently. Can you see who I am? Do you remember me?

The little girl smiled. “Hi.”

I found you, Donna thought incredulously. I found my little girl!

“Sharon?” she asked tenuously.

The child’s face hardened into a frown. “I’m not Sharon,” she pouted. Donna’s heart sank. “I’m Big Bird.”

“What?”

“I’m Big Bird.”

Donna felt her body starting to shake. “Oh. Oh, I see.”

“Please, can I be Big Bird?” the child pleaded, her voice suddenly soft.

“Of course you can. Big Bird is a lovely name.” She touched the child’s hair. “You have beautiful curly hair, Big Bird.”

“No,” the child whined, the threat of tears suddenly close. “Not hair. Feathers!”

“Uh, feathers, of course, they’re feathers.” Donna’s mind was running around in circles inside her head. She didn’t want to scare the child; she didn’t want to cause a scene; people here, the cashiers, perhaps they knew this woman who was looking after her child, perhaps she came here often with Sharon. If she tried to grab the girl and Sharon resisted, then others might restrain her, hold this mad raving lady while the other woman fled with her child. She couldn’t allow that. Better to confront the woman once she had left the store, with Mel hopefully at her side, force her to tell them where Adam was. Get both her children back.

Donna heard footsteps approaching and instantly withdrew, returning once again to the stack of canned pineapples she was pretending to examine. Out of the comer of her eye, Donna watched the woman put a five-pound bag of potatoes in with the rest of the groceries.

“Your father would be very upset if we forgot the potatoes again,” the woman said, checking inside her basket. “I think that’s everything.” She took a small piece of paper out of her purse and ran through the items she had listed on it. A list, Donna thought with some wonder, a list. “Okay, that’s it. We’ll go pick up your brother and go home.”

“I want an ice cream.”

“After supper.”

“A pink ice cream.”

“After supper.”

Donna followed a few paces behind the woman to the front of the store. The woman had to wait in line. Donna, having made no purchases, walked ahead to the front of the store and stood waiting by the front window. From where she was, she could see the wine store—was Mel still inside? Had he returned to the car? Please Mel, be there. She looked back at the woman—she was third in line but another cashier looked like she was about to open her line, and so Donna was afraid to run out and try to find Mel. She couldn’t afford to lose her child again. My God, she thought, I’ve found her. I’ve actually found my little girl! It’s over. The nightmare is over.

Not quite, she thought. Nightmares weren’t over until you woke up. She wouldn’t be fully awake until she had both her children under her protective wings and was flying out of California.

The other cashier opened her line, and the woman moved directly to it, quickly unloading her items onto the moving countertop. Donna looked back and forth between the woman and the window. Where was Mel? What was taking him so long?

She looked through the maze of cars, and after several seconds was able to spot the white Buick they had rented in L.A. Mel was not there. She looked back toward the wine store. Nothing. Back to the woman. The cashier was still ringing up items. Hurry up, Mel. You have to help me!

And if not, she thought with sudden terror, if Mel didn’t return from the wine store in time. The store was supposed to carry all sorts of rare and exotic wines—it was entirely possible he bad gotten caught up in the wonder of it all. He
was unaware of any urgency—Victor and the kids had fled to the Los Angeles airport early this morning!

Except that whoever had fled had not been Victor. Carol and Tommy, whoever they were, were definitely not her children. Her children were here in Carmel. One of them was here in this grocery store. Right in front of her. And she would not let her get out of her sight. No matter what. No matter if Mel was there to help her or not. If need be, she would confront this woman alone, scream for the police. She would not let this stranger get away from her if she had to single-handedly take on the entire combined force of all who shopped and worked at this shopping center.

The checker loaded all the groceries into bags until four were filled.

“Could I have someone help me carry these to my car?” the woman asked.

Donna felt renewed fear breaking into her fresh resolve. She hadn’t been prepared for anyone else being part of the initial confrontation. Again, she looked toward the window. Mel was nowhere in sight.

The woman walked past her holding tightly onto the little girl’s hand. As they were going out the door, the child turned abruptly to Donna and stared up at her, wordlessly.

“Come on, don’t dawdle,” the woman said, pulling on the child’s arm. The grocery clerk followed close behind her with the cart full of newly bagged groceries. Donna took a final look around and followed the teenager, a mini-parade gone hopelessly out of step but still persisting gamely.

The woman walked slowly, the child an obvious encumbrance to what Donna guessed was her usual brisk style of walking. Still, this woman looked at her child with great
tenderness. She was not simply a caretaker; she was obviously a woman who cared. Donna was, at least, grateful for that.

The woman’s car was parked in the next row and at least six cars up from where Mel had parked the white Buick. Donna watched the grocery clerk from a safe distance as he loaded the four bags of groceries into the trunk of the beige-and-green Volare, license number NKF 673. She made a mental note of the number—NKF, NKF—Nikita Khrushchev Fucks, she said to herself, supplying her memory with the necessary key.

The keys. Keeper of the keys. She had the car keys.

The woman tipped the clerk, who subsequently held her car door open while the woman tucked Sharon into her infant seat in the rear. Oh God, Donna thought, they’re going to get away! She moved forward just as the boy held open the woman’s door, and watched the woman maneuver her body behind the wheel before the clerk then closed the door. My God, they were going to get away! Was she just going to stand there and let them go?

Donna looked frantically over in the wine store’s direction for Mel. He wasn’t there. Goddamn it! The woman started the car.

No! Donna thought, suddenly grabbing at the keys inside her purse. She would not let them drive away from here. She would not let them get away. Instantly, she ran through the rows of cars, her eyes still glued on the beige-and-green Plymouth. She found her row, found the car, took one last desperate look around for Mel, then thrust the keys into the lock, opened the door and jumped inside.

The woman was having trouble angling herself out of
her parking space. Donna felt her whole body trembling, as if it had been newly invaded by thousands of ticks. She felt simultaneously sick and euphoric. She couldn’t stop the shaking.

It was as if the whole scene had taken place that very afternoon and not almost four years ago. The night of the party. Getting ready to go out. One word flowing into another. One nightmare becoming yet another. All of it so intricately interwoven, one thread of the design inseparable from any of the others. Your face Donna it looks like Emmett Kelly your dress strictly bargain basement look out for Christ’s sake you almost hit that trash can where are you going Donna you passed the turnoff three blocks ago how fast are you going anyway watch out you almost missed that stop sign what the hell are you trying to kill us you drove through a red light you drove through a red light get out of the car Donna I’ll drive I don’t know about you but I’m going into the party and have a good time and what about Adam do you intend on divorcing him too I’ll have you committed blow your nose Donna shut up Donna just shut up for a change his body pounding against hers invading her insides invading her sanity I am a dead woman I will not fight you anymore.

She watched the beige-and-green Volare as it made its final maneuver to freedom, watched it angle into its proper position, watched it proceed cautiously down the aisle.

Victor’s face seemed to jeer grotesquely at her from her front window. Her child was disappearing with each passing second. The car was almost at the exit.

I am not dead, Donna heard a voice say from deep inside her. She touched the bandage on her side. I am not dead
yet,
and you have been inside me long enough! Victor’s image feigned surprise. “Get out, Victor Cressy!” she screamed, her hand pushing the key into the ignition and pulling the driving shaft into reverse. She pushed her foot down on the gas pedal, backed the car deftly and quickly out of its temporary home and threw the Buick into drive. As the car sped to a halt behind the beige-and-green Volare, she caught sight of Mel through her rearview mirror, his arms loaded with undoubtedly vintage wines, a dazed and puzzled look on his face. I’ll explain later, she thought, her eyes returning to the car directly ahead of her. Right now, I haven’t got any more time to wait.

A second later, staying several feet behind the car ahead, she turned the white Buick onto Carmel Valley Road and started heading west back to U.S. Highway 1.

T
he woman proceeded north along U.S. Highway 1 with Donna right behind her. Several times the woman checked her rearview mirror. Each time Donna lowered her head and held her breath. Was this woman aware she was being followed? Did she recognize Donna from the supermarket? Had Victor shown this woman her picture? Told her to be careful if she ever thought she saw her?

Donna checked her own rearview mirror. Although she was doing just over the speed limit, a chrome-colored sports car was trying his best to pass her, first on the outside, then on the inside lane. After several seconds of cat and mouse, Donna angrily gave him the finger, and watched him instantly slow down with surprise. She relaxed only to find he had merely slowed for a second wind and was now determined to pass her even if it meant going right through her. Damn you, she shouted to herself as he suddenly roared past her on the inside, quickly maneuvering his small, sporty bulk between Donna and her child. Then he
slowed down. Deliberately. Painfully. He slowed right down to a crawl.