Page 61 of Stolen Angels
She dug her heels in. She didn’t want to make a gingerbread house here, that was something special she did with Mommy. She could hear Mommy laughing and singing “Jingle Bell Rock” while they added M & Ms to the top of the house and spread icing on the Graham crackers. “We can do a whole village if you want,” Mommy had said. “We’ll make all different colors of houses.”
Ava’s legs wobbled beneath her as she pictured the row of rainbow houses, then the last one, one made of all chocolate. Late one night they picked that one apart and gobbled it down with big glasses of milk while they watchedFrosty the Snowmanon TV.
Kaylee tugged at her hand and Ava managed to unfreeze her legs and move again. She led her to a round table in front of some windows. Ava glanced at the sliding glass doors to the side and saw light spilling through. She wished she could run out those doors and run and run until she got home.
But the wind was howling, tree branches were swaying like when it stormed, and snow began fluttering down, making it hard to see. She usually liked the snow but that meant it was really cold outside and foggy and if she went outside she might freeze to death.
All she saw were trees and trees and more trees. If it snowed hard like it did last year, she might get lost and then the bears would eat her.
Shaking all over, she clamped her lips together as she sat down beside Kaylee and stared into her macaroni and cheese. Then she looked over at the giant Christmas tree with all the decorations and the mantle where three stockings hung. She’d learned to read this year. Piper. Kaylee. Becky. Then she saw the plain one on a table in the corner waiting for her to add her own name.
Her stomach heaved and tears caught in her throat. She had a stocking at home. She didn’t need one here, because when Daddy got here, he’d take her back to Mommy.
“Go ahead, honey, and eat up, it’s your favorite,” the woman said, tapping her spoon on the table.
Ava shook her head. “No, it’s not. Pizza’s my favorite.”
Kaylee went still beside her, and the woman’s smile slipped off her face. “We’ll have pizza for dinner then.”
The woman acted like that made everything okay, but it didn’t. With a frown, she stood, went to the refrigerator and poured milk into two glasses.
“I hate milk,” Ava lied under her breath. The milk made her think of the chocolate gingerbread house. “I don’t want it.”
“Don’t be silly, Ava, drink it. It’s good for you,” the woman said as she set the glasses down. The phone on the counter rang, and the lady picked it up and talked in a low voice.
Kaylee nudged her leg below the table then whispered, “Be nice, Ava, or Mommy will send you to the timeout room.” Her nose scrunched into a frown. “You don’t want to go there.”
Fear tickled Ava’s tummy. She pointed to the two empty plates at the table. “Who are those for?”
“Piper and Becky,” Kaylee whispered.
Ava looked around for them. “Where are they?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never seen Piper,” Kaylee said in a low voice. “Becky stayed in our room for a while, but then something happened, and she was crying real hard one night. Mommy came in and got upset and she took her…” Kaylee’s eyes looked big, like flying saucers on the space cartoons.
Ava wanted to ask more, but the lady came back to the table, sat down and stared at her. This time she wasn’t smiling. Her green eyes looked mad and scary.
Terrified about where the woman took that girl Becky, Ava wiped at a tear, then picked up the glass of milk and took a swallow.
Seventy-Two
Crooked Creek
While a lot of girls played with baby dolls as kids,Ellie had always chosen to be outside, climbing trees, building forts, hunting for treasures in the woods, and digging for worms to go fishing. Later, she’d been so focused on proving she was fit to be a cop like her father that she’d never considered marriage. For as long as she could remember, she and Vera had butted heads. Ellie had been afraid of having a child, afraid she wouldn’t be a good mother herself.
Deciding she needed to understand more to play the part, Ellie searched online and found several blogs where mothers posted about their yearning for a family, fertility problems and struggles.
Each one was heartbreaking.
I’ve wanted a baby ever since I got married when I was twenty-five. I’m thirty now and we’ve been trying. All my college friends are having families, and it hurts to be around them. All they talk about is their pregnancies and nurseries and baby names. Every month I get my hopes up and then… it doesn’t happen.
My husband says I’m obsessed with having a child, but we’ve tried for seven years now and I’ve had two miscarriages. I feel like I’m failing him. And I want to be a mommy so bad. Sometimes I go to the park and watch the children play and then I cry and cry and cry.
I grew up in a family of seven children. Some people thought it was chaos at our house, but we had game night every week and I loved taking care of the little ones when they came along. But my doctor told me today that I can’t carry a baby to term. When I told my husband, he left without a word. Now I’m all alone and I don’t know what to do.
I tried to talk to my husband last night about IVF, but he says it’s too expensive. I don’t know where we’d get the money either, but I want a child so bad I cry myself to sleep every night. Some days it’s hard for me to even get out of bed I’m so depressed.
Ellie sensed someone at her office door, then looked up to see Derrick watching her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the tiny Christmas tree she’d put up. It looked sadder and sadder with every day that passed.