Wendy Hornsby - Midnight Baby

She blinked rapidly, all of a sudden holding back tears. “If they hadn’t given him that truck, we couldn’t have gone up to the mountains that day with Amy.”

I was reminded how thorough Randy was.

Leslie swiped at her nose with the cuff of her robe. “But the name wasn’t Ramsdale,” she said.

“Was it Sinclair?”

The name caught her up short. “Yes, it was. Sinclair. I hadn’t thought about that for a long time.”

“I bet it was tough for George,” I said. “Being out of work and having a big family. Feeling like a failure. That situation can make a lot of tension in the house.”

“Yes, it can,” she agreed, smiling just a little. “‘Course, I always said George was more interested in making babies than raising them. He’s just a big baby himself. I can’t tell you how losing his little girl turned that man around, let him see what was important to him. Everyone always used to tell me George would never be able to hold down a job, never amount to a hill of beans. But I knew he had it in him. Then after Amy was gone, well, he just knuckled down. He sure proved them all wrong.”

“That was a hard way to learn a lesson,” I said. “Losing a child.”

She looked around the empty room, seeming overwhelmed, depressed. Her eyes brimmed again. “I used to think getting thrown out of your house and living on the streets was the worst thing that could happen to people. But I was wrong. I would live on the streets any day to have my baby back for even one minute.”

“Detective Flint tells me results of the DNA comparison tests they did on you and the girl will take another couple of weeks.”

“I don’t need the tests to know the child in these pictures is mine. You know, there hasn’t been a day in the last ten years when every time the phone rings, or someone comes to the door, or I see a blond-headed girl go by, that I don’t think, oh, it’s Amy come back to me. Now I finally do find her, and it’s too late.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, because there was nothing else to say.

“I know,” she sighed.

“I have to go,” I said. I stood up and began gathering the album pages together. “I don’t want to be here if George comes back.”

“Why?” She was helping me.

“I don’t want to be the one to tell you.”

“Tell me what? After what I’ve been through in my life, Maggie, there’s not one thing you can say that I can’t handle.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“You’d damn well better finish what you’ve started.”

I stood there, knees knocking harder, imagining footsteps across the tile entry. “I don’t have the sort of evidence a court would ask for – police will take care of that – so you can believe me or not. That’s up to you. I told you how I got involved, trying to find out why a kid got lost. Not Amy, but the girl I knew as Hillary. This is what I believe happened.”

“I want to hear it,” she said, encouraging.

“A rich, spoiled man wanted a child for his wife; she was sick and couldn’t have one of her own. He thought a baby would be too much trouble, so he found a little girl that was already housebroken, knew about please and thank you, and was ready to start school so she wouldn’t be underfoot all day. He paid a lot for her. He dyed her blond hair brown, surgically he gave her a cute dimple in her chin. He called her his own.”

“You’re saying he bought Amy from her kidnappers?”

“How much does a Bingo Burgers franchise cost?”

Leslie didn’t answer. She also did not rise up in righteous denial. Or defense of George. All she said was, “Go on.”

“From there, it gets murky,” I said. “I don’t know everything yet, but the basic equation is: George was in debt and had a daughter, plus Randy was rich and wanted a child, equals George became solvent minus the daughter. The corollary is: George was in debt again, plus Randy was dead and he had a daughter, equals… what? That’s as far as I can go with it. You’re a businesswoman. You must be pretty good at math. That’s why I came here.”

“I think you should go,” she said.

“I think you’re right.” I picked up the pages, left the empty cover on the towel. I padded toward the door.

Leslie was still at the table in the empty room, staring at the empty album.

“Goodbye, Leslie,” I said. “Lock the door after me.”

She looked up. “I know I should hate you for saying all those things.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish I could spare you.”

“One thing,” she said. “Can I have one of those pictures?”

I held them out to her. She came to me, both of us standing on the cold tile of the entry in bare feet. With tentative hands, she found the one she wanted, Hillary in a life vest in the bow of a sailboat, smiling, showing missing front teeth.

“It’s just, she looks so much like my granddaughter.”

My hands were too full to hug her, and she probably would have shunned me anyway. She held herself with the same innate dignity that had drawn me to Pisces.

Leslie’s gaze fell on the taped boxes in the living room.

“I meant what I said,” she said, “about living on the street.”

“I have a daughter,” I said. “I know you meant it.”

I drove home in the pre-rush-hour rush, big rigs and kamikaze commuters tearing up asphalt. The heater couldn’t overcome the cold air streaming in through my broken window. I shivered all the way in my wet clothes, the car full of the smell of dead things from the sea despite all the fresh air.

Mike wasn’t back yet when I got in. I spread a towel over his kitchen table and, still quaking with cold, laid out the album again.

I was in the shower, scalding water pounding my spine, when Mike came in. He opened the shower door.

“Jesus, Maggie,” he said. “What are you doing in here all naked again? Some consideration, please. I’m an old white-haired man. Night after night, twice yesterday. You’re going to kill me.”

I laughed or cried, it was hard to tell – my face was already wet. But whichever it was, the release felt good.

I looked up through runnels of shampoo-y water. “Who invited you?” I said.

He showed me the bulge in the front of his slacks. “You did,” he said.

Sly was sitting at the end of his MacLaren Hall bunk, waiting for me. The bed was neatly made with a bright red cotton spread. The child was neatly made as well. Long, skinny white legs dangled from new-looking shorts with a primo surfer logo on the belt. The way he kicked his high-top sneakers, I couldn’t miss them. I wanted to snatch him up and squeeze him, but the proud smile still warned of spiky personal fences erected around him.

There were five other beds in the dorm room, each with a different, bright spread. Sly’s roommates were all in class, so we were alone except for the counselor keeping an eye on things from the hall.

“Looking sharp, Sly,” I said. I handed him a big Toys A Us bag and a box of goldfish crackers.

“How come you’re always bringing me stuff?” he asked.

“Because I like to. Does it bother you?”

“Doesn’t bother me.” He grinned, still the old con man. Out of the bag he took a Loktite kit for a scale-model Corvette and a set of enamel paints, with an extra jar of cherry red. He ran his fingers over the picture on the box, his eyes wide. “This is hot.”

“Yeah, it is. You told me you like ‘vettes. Sorry it had to be the snap-together kind of kit. They won’t let you have model glue in here. Hope it’s okay.”

“I’ll check it out.” He never gave away much, but I thought he was pleased, as much by the attention as by the gift. He seemed happy to see me, the way friends are happy. Gave me a warm glow.