The nurses told me you were the calmest baby they’d ever seen, angelic but so earnest. Life was serious business to you. You had this strangely intense curiosity about all the things you were seeing and experiencing for the first time. Including me. You seemed to know me from the beginning. We lay on the hospital bed, with you on my chest, and we stared at each other for hours. Me memorizing you, this tiny girl with dark hair like mine, this fragile being I’d created. And you trying to understand who this woman was, the mother who’d carried you, the person who would love you forever and do anything to keep you safe.
I treasured our time the way you treasure summer sunshine, with the knowledge that it doesn’t last. Yes, I could dream, plan, fantasize, and imagine all the landmarks we would share as you grew up. First steps. First words. School. Games. Books. Christmases and birthdays. But I’m not the kind of woman who can pretend to herself for very long. Deep down, I already knew the truth. You would experience those things without me.
On the fourth day, I brought you home.
Darrell wanted me to go back to the motel, but I was having none of that. I had my own house and my own bedroom in which to sleep, and your crib was there for you to sleep near me. We were a family. The first night, Darrell pitched a fit until I agreed to have his oldest daughter stay with me, but the next day, I told her to go home. I said I was fine. And I was. I’ve known women who talk about the baby blues, but that wasn’t my experience. Despite what my body had been through, I felt strong. I could deal with all of this myself. The feedings. The waking up. The diaper changings. I knew the exhaustion would hit me eventually, but during those days, I was Rebecca Colder, a little bit stronger, a little bit bolder.
After I sent Darrell’s daughter home, he came back to lecture me. I told him that I loved him, but I was determined to live my life. What I didn’t tell him was that if it came down to protecting my daughter or his, I would choose my own. That was harsh but true. If someone was staying in my house, that was the choice I would have to make sooner or later. So it was better that I stay in the house alone.
We made the most of our time, you and me. Friends and neighbors stocked my fridge and freezer while I was in the hospital, so we had plenty of food. You took to my breasts with ease, much to my relief. You slept better than I had any reason to expect from a newborn, but during those times when we were up together overnight, I would talk to you, just the way I’d been doing for months. I told you my stories. My childhood. My girlhood. My womanhood. The good and the bad. The pain and the loss and the happiness and the mistakes. When you were days old, you already knew things about me that I’d never told another soul.
I read to you. If you were awake, I read to you all the time. Children’s books like Dr. Seuss and Winnie the Pooh and Shel Silverstein. And poetry. Some of it from the Little Golden Book I had as a kid. Some of it just silly poems I made up myself. Where were you when the firefly flew? Were you a firefly too? And classics. I read you classics whether you were awake or asleep. If you find yourself with a strange affinity for Dracula, well, blame that on me.
I sang to you, too. I played my guitar and did my own off-key versions of “Careless Whisper” and “Making Love Out of Nothing at All.” When I did “Radio Ga Ga,” I would poke you in the tummy with every “goo goo” and “ga ga.”
Oh, Shelby.
The love of those days. I crammed so much into those two short weeks. I barely slept, carried along on this strange river of adrenaline, but I didn’t want to sleep. I didn’t want to miss a thing. Not a single expression on your face, not a coo as you dreamed. I filed every second away, carefully wrapped up in my memories.
And then we came to Thursday night, ten days after we’d come home.
Halloween night.
I’d always loved Halloween. I carved up a pumpkin with a scary face, and I put a candle inside, and I set it out on the front porch to flicker and grin at the trick-or-treaters. I got a lot of them. I always did. They would ring my doorbell in their costumes, dressed like monsters, faeries, witches, and clowns. No store-bought costumes in Random; everyone made their own. Same with treats. If you handed out Hershey bars, you were lazy, so people made brownies, cookies, Rice Krispies squares, popcorn balls, coconut candies, and seven-layer bars. Me, I was known for mixing up Chex and M&M’s and nuts and chocolate chips and any other sweet things I had in the pantry. I poured it all into paper lunch bags to hand out.
Of course, some of the kids came with their parents, and they wanted to see you, Shelby. From five o’clock to eight o’clock, the parade came and went, hardly ever stopping for more than a minute or two. Knocks and doorbells, and screams of “Trick or Treat!” and mothers lightly stepping into the living room to tell me how beautiful you were. Which you were, Shelby. Absolutely beautiful.
By the time the candle in the pumpkin had melted down and gone out, and the kids had returned to their homes, I was exhausted with the efforts of the night. It was midevening. I ate a Wonder Bread, Buddig ham sandwich, and I fed you, and we both decided it was time for a nap. You fell asleep in a hand-me-down onesie with pink stripes, in the Easter basket I still kept from the day the doctor had told me I was pregnant. I held your hand, and you grabbed my finger, and I drifted off to sleep on the sofa next to you.
I was twenty-six years old, soon to be turning twenty-seven.
That was the single best moment of my entire life.
Then it was over.
I awoke, and you were gone.
I still had the dizziness of sleep, and my eyes landed first on the clock on the mantel, which told me that it was nearly eleven o’clock. Then I looked down at the little Easter basket with the blissful anticipation of seeing your face, only to find that you weren’t there.
Instantly awake, instantly panicked, I bolted to my feet. “Shelby! Shelby!”
I tore at my black hair. I wept; my nose ran. I shouted, “Who’s there? Hello! Where are you?”
No one answered me.
I called Darrell’s name, praying it was him. Or one of his girls. They’d come in and found me sleeping, and they were with you somewhere else in the house. That was it, right?
But no. I knew that was not it.
Like a madwoman, I ran to the front door, which was still bolted shut. I wrenched it open and ran out to the yard, but the street was empty and dark, and there were no cars nearby. Crazy with fear, I ran back inside and slammed the door so hard the walls trembled.
“Shelby!”
At that instant, I heard you crying. Wailing for me. The noise was muffled; you were upstairs in my bedroom. I sprinted for the stairs, and if I’d been running next to Jesse Owens, I would have beaten him. I took them two at a time and skidded breathlessly into the bedroom, which was lit only by the glow of the moonlight outside. But that was enough for me to see. There was a rocking chair by the window, where we’d spent hours together.
The Ursulina sat in the chair.
The beast had you in its lap, as you shrieked for your mother.
No, I wasn’t dreaming. This was real. The beast had furry legs, golden brown. The fur on its torso didn’t match; instead, it was shorter and more chocolate in color. The hands were wrapped in brown leather gloves. The beast had a strangely elongated neck, and above it, a large head made out of papier-mâché. Where the fur ended at its ankles, I saw dirty black combat boots.
A Halloween costume.
One of the gloved hands tugged at the cardboard neck. A little door opened below the false head, and I saw Ricky’s evil face.
“Boo,” he said.
I ran to get you back, but he put his hands around your little throat and warned me away. “Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh. Stay away, Bec.”