Little Girl Lost

She had made diapers from an old flannel blanket she’d found in a back bedroom. Then she’d taken a plastic sandwich bag and poked a hole in one corner with a pin. She’d dissolved a little sugar in warm water and put the glucose solution in the bag, twisting it into a cone, as though she were a chef preparing to frost a fairy cake. She had coaxed Caitlin’s tiny mouth open with the tip of her little finger and pushed the makeshift nipple inside. Fortunately, Caitlin’s sucking reflex was strong and Faith was patient. Eventually the baby swallowed an ounce of the liquid.

After she’d held the newborn close to her breast and wrapped them both in blankets until the worrisome blue cast to the baby’s skin had been replaced by warm pink. They’d stayed snug and warm in their isolated cocoon as the storm raged, and when they’d emerged a transformation had taken place that was as complete and life-altering as that of a caterpillar changing into a butterfly.

Caitlin had become Faith’s child as surely as if she had given birth to the infant. She had labored to bring her to safety through the storm. She had fed her and bathed her and held her close so that she slept against the beating of Faith’s heart.

She’d loved her.

But she’d known she couldn’t keep her.

The ice melted the fourth morning after the storm, and life began to return to normal, but Faith remained closeted in her big, old house.

She knew Beth and Jamie would lose custody of the infant the moment Faith stepped into the sheriff’s office and told her story. The baby would go into the system, into foster care. If she was lucky it would be to a loving home. But it could be months, even years, until all the technicalities were sorted out. Sometimes bad things happened to children caught up in the system. Faith didn’t want to think of that. So she stayed put, telling herself it was still too dangerous to drive. She would wait for the phone to be repaired and to give Jamie and Beth time to change their minds. For a little longer she could make believe she had what she wanted most—a child of her own.

And then the newspaper had come.

Faith closed her eyes and could see as clearly as if it were still in front of her—the headline about the ice storm. Below it was a sidebar of storm-related deaths in Ohio and surrounding states. In Indiana, the story read, a hundred miles from Bartonsville, there had been a pileup on the interstate during the height of the storm. Eleven cars had been involved, but as of press time there was only one death, a seventeen-year-old male from Massachusetts. His companion, a teenage girl, was not expected to live. The couple was identified as Jamie Sheldon of Boston, and Beth Harden of Houston.

Jamie and Beth.

Was it only a coincidence that the first names were the same? Or was the child in her arms an orphan?

There were no further details of the accident that she could find. No mention of Beth having recently given birth, or any indication that a search for the infant had been started. Faith waited all that day and the next for someone to come and claim the child. With each passing hour it became evident that it was not going to happen. The young parents had died without telling anyone about their baby.

It was as if she didn’t exist.

It was as if she were really Faith’s.

And in the end it had been remarkably easy to make Caitlin legally hers.

In Ohio, she learned from the Internet, either parent could register the home birth of a child simply by appearing, within ten days, at the records office of the county in which the birth had taken place. No other witnesses were required, no medical records were needed. Only her own declaration of parenthood. That was her first lie, but one she told gladly. Within fifteen minutes of arriving at the courthouse she’d left with a birth certificate that declared Caitlin Hope Carson was her daughter.

She became aware she had been silent a long time, too long. As it sometimes did the guilt at what she had done burst out of the locked corner of her mind. She didn’t want to talk about Caitlin’s birth anymore. She didn’t want to lie to Hugh anymore. “The storm’s passing. I think it’s safe to go back upstairs.”

He made no objection so she turned off the TV and took Caitlin in her arms. Once back in the familiar surroundings of her yellow-and-white kitchen she felt her confidence returning and the guilt retreating.

“Do you have other family in the area in addition to your sister?” Hugh asked, leaning back against the granite countertop, arms folded across his chest. His shirt was still damp from the soaking they’d gotten. It pulled tight across his chest with the movement and Faith’s mouth went dry with need and wanting. She carried Caitlin to the bay window that faced the fields and watched as the dark menace of the retreating storm clouds broke into tatters of gray smoke.

“My husband has a few distant cousins in the area, but otherwise, no. Peg and her boys are my only living relatives.”

Caitlin wriggled to be free, so Faith set the little girl on her feet. Caitlin then bounced over to Hugh where she began to tug on his pant leg. “Cookie, please.”

“She wants an Oreo. They’re behind you.”

Hugh swiveled his head and shoulders and spotted the big plastic jar filled with cookies. “May I?” he asked.

Faith nodded. He didn’t look out of place at all in her kitchen. He leaned down and lifted Caitlin into his arms, letting her open the cookie jar and extract two of them all by herself. “Bite for you,” Caitlin said and pressed the cookie to Hugh’s lips for him to take a bite. Hugh went very still for a moment, then opened his mouth to nibble on the cookie. Caitlin shoved the rest of the cookie into her mouth. “Good?”

“Very good.” He lifted one hand and smoothed it gently over her hair. “Thank you, Caitlin.” Faith went all shaky inside. It looked so right somehow, Hugh holding her daughter in his strong, tanned arms.

He put Caitlin down and she raced through the archway into the dining room, where they never ate, but where she kept many of her larger toys.

Silence stretched between them, and it made her nervous. She returned to the subject of family because she couldn’t think of anything else to say. “You mentioned a half sister, I remember. Do you come from a large family?”

He grew very still. “My parents are dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

He nodded shortly. “Beth is my only sibling. She’s twenty.”

“Beth? Is it short for Elizabeth?”

“No, just Beth.”

A little shiver skittered across her nerve endings. She could never hear that name without associating it with Caitlin’s sad and pretty mother, especially when she had just been thinking of her such a short time ago. “It’s…it’s a pretty name. Are you close?”

“As close as she’ll let me get.” This time she didn’t imagine the pain in his voice. It was raw and real. “She’s got a lot of problems right now, both physical and emotional. She was in a bad accident some time ago. It’s been a long road back. I wasn’t there for her when I should have been and now…”

“And now she won’t let you be there for her?” Another Beth. Another accident. Another stinging memory evoked.

“Not as much as I want to be.”

“I’m sorry.” Impulsively she laid her hand on his arm and immediately wished she hadn’t. His skin was warm as sunlight. The feel of rough hair and the solidness of bone beneath her fingers reminded her that she was a woman who had been alone for three years. “I know it’s none of my business but perhaps, it would be better if you spent the next few weeks with her instead of remaining here.”

“She’s in Texas. I need to be available to the architect in Cincy on two hours’ notice, or I would go home.”

“She has no one else?”

“Her father.” His brows drew together in a scowl. “My stepfather is living, but he and Beth are estranged.”

“I see.” His expression warned her not to inquire further. “You could bring her here.” She spoke the words without thinking.

He looked down at her hand, then lifted his gaze to hers. He watched her for a long moment, his eyes as shadowed as the stormy sky had been. “You mean that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. This place brought me comfort and peace after Mark died. It might do the same for your sister.”

“Comfort and peace. She could use both of those.”

“She would be most welcome.”

He leaned closer and Faith felt herself drawn to him as though by an invisible magnet. He reached out and she held her breath certain that he meant to touch her cheek or even to take her in his arms. But she was mistaken. Hugh let his arm fall and took a step backward, leaving Faith feeling chilled. He was silent a long time, then his jaw tightened and he gave a short, sharp nod, as though coming to a decision that had been difficult to make. “You’re right, Faith. I think it’s time I brought Beth to Painted Lady Farm.”

HUGH PROPPED HIS FEET on the knee-high, stone wall that bordered the tiny patio behind his cabin and leaned back in the red metal lawn chair, slouching down far enough in the seat to rest his head against the round back. It was getting to be a habit sitting out here at twilight. The only other guests, a middle-aged couple in a car with Michigan plates staying in the unit next to his, seemed settled in for the evening, and he had the place to himself. He looked up at the faint scattering of summer stars. Off in the west the last of a glorious orange-gold sunset had faded into purple and gray. The storms of the afternoon had passed off to the north and east, taking some of the humidity from the air.

He’d been sitting in the same spot for the past hour observing Faith go about the business of closing the greenhouse. He’d watched as a tall, dark-haired man and two small boys in a pickup had driven down the lane and walked to the edge of the cornfield with her. He could hear the boys whooping and hollering in the backyard, running up to the pond to throw something into the water, then scurrying back down the bank. Caitlin had followed close on their heels, her small legs pumping to keep up.

Faith had called out a warning to the boys and obediently they had each taken Caitlin’s hand and led her back to her mother. Faith gathered the toddler into her arms. She’d waited, cuddling her daughter, as the boys ran off again, and the man waded into the rows of new corn to check for damage. Steve, the brother-in-law, Hugh had decided, and the boys would be his stepsons, Faith’s sister’s children.