V
Over the next few weeks, we fell into a rough sort of routine. Ellie-May dominated most of it—naps, feedings, changes—but X and I managed to snatch the odd moment together. Physically, I was almost healed from the birth and feeling more like myself again. I was exhausted from the nighttime wake-ups, but X helped, taking the baby early in the morning to let me sleep in if needed. Nicole was great, too, cooking meals and grocery shopping for us. She took Ellie-May if she could, able to tell when X and I needed a break, and was happy rocking and singing to her niece until she fell asleep.
I’d never planned to make my father’s house our home, but we’d kind of fallen into it. All our belongings were here now, as were Ellie-May’s things. We’d been through so much upheaval, I couldn’t face moving right now.
The business still ran from the house, with Dylan and X taking care of most of it. For once, I didn’t mind handing over the reins. It wasn’t my priority now, our daughter was. X made sure to run any important issues through me, but on the whole, things were quiet, and that was how I hoped they’d stay. The money from the business was coming in, something we desperately needed after spending so much time in the hospital, and without it we’d go bankrupt. I reminded myself that I’d promised Ellie-May wouldn’t grow up in the same environment as I had, but I also figured things were different now. Yes, we lived in the house, with the same business, but my father had been the negative force in everything that had happened. With him gone, we were free to rebuild our lives. Even Nicole had started seeing her friends again.
We would leave when the time was right, when we had enough money to pay off the hospital bills, and Ellie-May was bigger. I didn’t want to move away from the doctors who knew her, but I knew I’d have to cut those apron strings eventually. I didn’t know what would happen to the business—perhaps I’d just let Dylan take over the whole operation, assuming he wanted it.
Things were finally good in our lives.
***
I woke with a start, my heart racing and my breath shallow, though I had no idea why. Had I woken from a nightmare? If so, I had no memory of it.
My gaze flicked to the red lights of my LED alarm clock. It was three thirty in the morning. Ellie should have woken for her feeding by now. Why hadn’t she? My unknown panic turned to something tangible. The fear always at the forefront of a new mother’s mind—she’d succumbed to the silent killer of newborns, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and she died in her sleep. With her premature birth and subsequent sleep apnea, she was more at risk than a normal baby, and the thought sent my heart racing.
All of this happened in a matter of seconds, my mind darting from one thought to the next in the flick of a switch.
I couldn’t hear her breathing, or the funny little sounds she made as she slept, little grunts and snuffles that were both adorable and drove me crazy by keeping me awake, even while she slept. My fear turned to horror, and I floundered in the dark, reaching out to the small Moses basket beside the bed where Ellie-May slept. I reached for her, terrified I’d find her cold and still, but instead my fingers only touched soft blankets.
She wasn’t there.
A fresh burst of fear exploded inside me, and I leaned back across to flick on the bedside lamp.
X had been sleeping soundly, but the illumination of the room immediately woke him.
Crazy thoughts went through my head as I checked the floor, thinking she could have fallen out. How could she have fallen out? She couldn’t even roll over yet. She was so tiny. Had X gotten up to check on her, perhaps brought her into bed, even though I’d told him co-sleeping was dangerous for a newborn?
“X! Where is she? Where’s Ellie-May? Do you have her?”
He sat up, frowning and blinking in the sudden light. “What? No! What’s going on?”
“She’s not in her bed. Oh, Jesus. Where is she?”
“Don’t panic. Maybe Nicole thought you needed a break and took the baby in with her. We’ve all been exhausted. We could have slept through it.” He was already on his feet and heading for the door to get to Nicole’s room. I was right there with him, though I shook all over, fear for the safety of our child coursing through me.
We both ran down the hallway, toward Nicole’s room, and burst through her door.
“Nicole! Do you have Ellie-May?”
Nicole sat up in bed, blinking at us in confusion. “No, of course not. What’s going on?”
My hand was at my mouth, trying to choke back the anguish rising inside of me. I knew what had happened. There was only one possibility.
My father.
“He’s taken her!”
“What?” X looked at me in confusion. “Who’s taken her?”
“Who do you think? My father!”
I didn’t let anyone try to tell me otherwise. I pushed past X, back out into the hallway, and ran for the stairs. Even before I’d descended them fully, I could see the truth of what had happened.
The front door was standing open. He must have disarmed the home security system. “Oh, God, no. He’s taken her. That son-of-a-bitch has my baby!”
“How can you be so sure it was him?” he asked.
“I know it was. He’s been waiting, biding his time. I can tell. Oh, God, how could I have been so stupid to stay here?”
X reached out to pull me into his arms, but I pushed him away. “No, let me go. We have to find her. What if he hurts her? What if he kills our baby?
He didn’t try to convince me something else had happened. He knew as well as I did that what I said was the truth. “Ellie-May is his granddaughter. He won’t hurt her.”
“You don’t know that. He’d do it just to hurt me. That’s what he does. He hurts the people we love and then takes pleasure by watching us try to live with the pain.”
I tried to think, my hands knotted in my hair, my mind racing. I couldn’t seem to string a thought together, all my thoughts and emotions a whirlwind of chaos. My breasts tightened with that familiar ache of needing to feed her, though I’d been pumping milk and bottle feeding due to her prematurity, and I knew my body needed my baby daughter as much as my heart did. I couldn’t lose her. My heart would break into a million pieces and I would never recover from it. Not for X. Not for Nicole. This would be the one thing that would destroy me.
And my father knew that.