Where I Lost Her by T. Greenwood Read Free Book Online

flatlander .
    â€œI grew up here,” I say as if I have to defend my native status. As though this has anything to do with a half-naked child in the middle of the road in the middle of the night.
    â€œSo you were having supper, drinking wine, catching up,” he says, sneering, “and then you decided to get in your car and get more alcohol.”
    I shake my head. But yes, what he’s said is exactly what happened.
    â€œCan I tell you about the girl, please?” I say.
    â€œI’m just trying to establish the events leading up to the sighting, ma’am,” he says, scratching his pen against his notepad. “Shit,” he mutters. “Out of ink. Would you happen to have a pen?”
    I stand up and go to the bookcase where Effie keeps a coffee mug full of pens. I grab one and hand it to him.
    I sit back down. The bench is cold and hard. I stare into the coffee mug.
    â€œOkay, so you left Hudson’s and were on your way back here. What happened next?”
    â€œI hit a pothole, or something, and . . .” I start to tell him about the wine bottle falling on the floor and then stop myself. “. . . I was distracted. When I looked up again, she was standing in the middle of the road.”
    â€œLots of deer up here,” he says. “Wild animals. Just last week, got a call in about a rabid raccoon.”
    I shake my head. “It wasn’t a raccoon, ” I say. “It was a girl.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œHow do I know what?”
    â€œThat it wasn’t an animal? No streetlights on the road there. Could have been your eyes playing a trick on you. How much exactly would you say you’d been drinking?”
    I can’t believe where this is going. I want a different officer. I want to start over. My whole body feels flushed, feverish. I rub my shoulder, which is fiery now with the sunburn. I feel bruised.
    â€œI know the difference between a girl and an animal,” I say, baffled. And I wish that Jake and Devin were still here. That Effie would come down from upstairs. “I stopped the car and got out. I talked to her.”
    He scratches, scratches. Shakes the pen. “This one’s out too.”
    I take a deep breath, get up, and grab another pen and hand it to him.
    â€œDid you ask her what she was doing outside in the middle of the night? Did you ask her where her parents were, if they knew where she was? Probably just snuck out of the house to meet a boy.”
    I feel like someone punched me in the throat. “What are you talking about?” I say. “She was a baby .”
    â€œWait,” he says. His smirk disappears. “ How old was she exactly?”
    â€œI told the 911 operator. She was maybe only three or four years old. She was wearing a pink tutu and rain boots. She had blood on her hands and her legs. She wasn’t wearing a shirt.”
    He stands up straight, moves away from the counter. He has stopped scratching on the pad. He’s listening now.
    â€œBefore I could do anything, she ran away. She got scared,” I say. “Oh, wait, the alarm, I forgot. I accidentally hit the panic button, and it set off the car alarm. I think that’s why she ran.”
    He looks at me and his face is serious now, angry even. “So she took off into the woods, a half-naked little girl who’s bleeding, and you decide the best thing to do is to leave the scene, after you’d been drinking, and drive home? ”
    â€œYes,” I say, exasperated now. “I mean, no . I followed her. Into the woods. But it was so dark, I lost her.” Something catches in my chest. Fabric snagging on a barbed wire fence. I remember the twig poking me in the rib, consider lifting my shirt, looking for proof. Instead, my finger taps at the spot, feels the tender place.
    He scratches his head, looks mystified. By my story. By me.
    â€œDid you consider calling 911?”
    I feel like screaming.
    â€œI