Both Melanie and Jenny look out through Ryan’s streak-free plate-glass window. In the spaces between the large gold-leaf letters of his decal, the strollers — or, more accurately, the canvas hoods — are dark blocky shapes that look like garbage bins or thunderstorm clouds. There are now only two toddler conveyances. The wide gap in the middle corresponds to the gap between the Ryan’s and the Bakery peel-off words.
“I’m parked in front of you,” Melanie says. “Under the R.”
“Yours are enviably quiet. How do you manage that?”
“Pure luck of the draw, and liable to change any second.”
“Patience is definitely not a Jason thing,” Jenny says. “Oh jeez, will you listen to that wail?”
“Believe me, mine can outdo him. They’re capable of sounds that would leave police sirens for dead.”
“You’re just saying that to make me feel better. I’ve never once heard Josh throw a tantrum.”
“Oh believe me, he can and he does. In fact, the quiet’s unnatural. But Jessica’s asleep and Joshua’s watching the dogs. He loves puppies.”
“Bye,” Jenny pushes open the door with one shoulder.
“Bye. See you later at Joan’s?”
“Not sure. I’ve got my in-laws visiting this week.”
“All the more reason.”
They both laugh.
Melanie buys a baguette, half-a-dozen croissants, four palmiers, and two little strawberry tarts. She pays. Someone is coming in as she leaves, there’s a delivery van pulling out from the curb, and Jenny is already halfway down the block. “Hey, Josh!” Melanie calls as she stuffs her purchases into the shopping-bag pocket behind Joshua’s back, “I’m all done. Aren’t those puppies cute?”
“Josh, are you asleep...?
“Joshua...?
“Josh...?”
Very suddenly, the earth lurches out of orbit, the sidewalk tilts, and Melanie is sliding at a sickening heart-stopping speed toward a free-fall into the void.
5. Darien
I was the one who had to break the news to Simon. It wasn’t planned. I happened to drive by the bakery very shortly after the event (in my car, not in the delivery van), when the police were everywhere, sending out radio alerts. I couldn’t see Melanie.
“What happened?” I asked a policeman.
“A child has been stolen,” he said. “A two-year-old.”
“Stolen? That’s a strong word. Not just gone missing, the way kids do?”
“A two-year-old can’t unbuckle himself from a safety harness. It’s been cut.”
“Oh my God! And the baby girl?”
I knew instantly that that was a mistake but not a fatal one. The policeman narrowed his eyes and paid the kind of attention that has the effect of making me unnaturally calm and alert. I guess the challenge of getting out of dead ends (so to speak) turns me on.
“What baby girl?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I thought I heard someone say something about a double stroller and a baby girl.”
“She wasn’t taken,” the policeman said.
Later, I don’t doubt he was the one who had me declared “a person of interest” after the abandoned van was found, but before that I drove back to the house to tell Simon. I was as gentle and compassionate and consoling as only a kind neighbor can be. “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news,” I said when he opened the door.
6. Simon
The second Simon opens the door he knows. All his life he has been bracing himself for this, looking back over his shoulder, waiting for when the moment would arrive.
And he has always known it would. He grew up with grandparents who turned pale and held still whenever they heard a knock on the door, with parents who passed the anxiety on.
“What?” he asks, or tries to ask, though his breath makes no sound at all. “What? Tell me.” He grabs a handful of Darien’s shirt as though grasping the nettle. He is spooked by Darien’s eyes.
Nothing, Simon thinks, will ever be more terrible than this moment.
As things turns out, he is wrong.
He does not yet know how wrong he is.
7. Ryan the baker
The police want to know what Ryan saw, but Ryan saw nothing that could help. His morning passed, as all mornings pass, inside the cozy cocoon of ovens and bread and pastries and the pleasing ding of the till.
“You didn’t pay attention to the strollers?” the police want to know.
“There are always strollers,” Ryan says. “They are always parked outside. The store is too small for them, and the mothers can’t push them over—”
“So you were not aware of how many strollers were parked outside at the time? You didn’t see—?”
“I see them, I suppose. I don’t pay attention. They come and go, but in the season there are always strollers. One, two, three. I can’t recall.”
“You didn’t see anyone remove a child?”
“I’m too busy. The only time I see outside my window is when no customers come.”
“What time of day would that be?”
“In the season, almost never. In winter, most of the day.”
“And why exactly did you call 911?”
“Because Mrs. Goldberg, who’d just bought a baguette and croissants and four palmiers and two strawberry tarts, came running back into my store holding her baby girl so close that my first thought was, That baby will suffocate. She’s killing it.”
“What did she say?”
“She was sobbing and incoherent and then she fainted. My floors are heart pine and clean, but she fell on the baby.”
“Was anyone else in the store?”
“Yes, another client had just come in. Mrs. Goldberg’s baby was wailing, high-decibel, the way babies do, and the woman — the new customer — reached for the baby but changed her mind. So I put a loaf of whole-grain under Mrs. Goldberg’s head — it was the only pillow I had to hand — and I got the baby out from under and cuddled it — I’m a grandfather, you know — and then I called 911.”
“Why do you think your other customer changed her mind?”
“What?”
“Why do you think one of your customers changed her mind about taking the baby?”
“Oh. That’s not something... You know, reasoning was not at the forefront of my mind. It’s just something I happened to notice, the way she reached and then pulled away; or maybe it was something I didn’t notice till afterward, playing it back. Felt out of her depth, that customer, I would say. And so did I, to tell you the truth. But the reason could have been — if anyone was acting on reason, which isn’t something I’d swear to — it could have been Mrs. Goldberg’s face.”
“Meaning?”
“She looked deranged.”
“Yet when the ambulance came,” the police say, “you were still holding the baby. Why?”
Ryan puckers his brow, pondering this. “The baby was crying. What else could I do? And Mrs. Goldberg was... I think she was in a state of shock.”
“She was unconscious?”
“She seemed to be. I think she was.”
“For how long?”
“I really don’t know. Probably minutes, just minutes. I was pretty strung out myself. I really wasn’t conscious of time. And then the ambulance came and took them both.”
“Do you have any other information that might help us?”
“She always called the children her ‘punkins.’ She doted on them. She was a lovely gracious lady, one of my regulars. She came in every day in the season and always bought fresh-baked, which tells you a lot.”