Chapter 41
The officer, a tall, white man with a Boston accent, spoke to Flora and Vicki, asking a series of questions. They explained how André had come in through the door, holding a knife. Flora showed him where he had cut the side of her arm. Then he’d run off down the road.
Benjamin’s car seat sat empty next to the door. Beside it lay the diaper bag, which contained a change of clothes, a few toys, wipes, and diapers. It almost seemed that the girls had been mistaken. Benjamin was just in the kitchen, napping. No one took him anywhere without his car seat and diaper bag. She walked back to the kitchen, just to check, but his crib was empty.
The officer typed into his laptop. “So, there was no car. The father took the baby and ran off.”
Celia had heard rumors that American policemen had prejudices against immigrants. That was the last thing she needed.
She could be out right now, checking to see if André was at The Praia Club or at least asking people there if they knew where he might have gone. They didn’t have a lot of time.
Her English had improved over the last few months. She’d been studying every day and speaking at the daycare. She needed to get this officer on her side. “Look,” she said, pointing to her crooked nose. “André broke my nose.” She pointed to the scar on her brow. “He gave me this.” Then she pointed to her missing tooth. “And this.” She ran a finger over her front teeth. “He broke these. Can you see where a dentist repaired them?”
The officer studied her. “Did you report him for abuse?”
She held up a finger, signaling him to wait while she ran to the other room and returned with her tote bag. Digging through it, she found the papers for her protective order and passed them to him. “My lawyer helped me file a protective order.”
He flipped through the papers, nodding. “So, this is for you and the baby. André doesn’t have custody of the child.”
She and the lawyer had talked about that word—custody. “Right. All André wants is money. He doesn’t care about the baby.”
The officer focused his blue eyes on hers. “We’re going to do everything we can to find your baby.” Then, he spoke into his phone, stringing unfamiliar phrases together so quickly that she couldn’t follow his meaning, but his serious tone made her hopeful that he was calling for more help.
Placing the phone down, he said, “We’ve got officers out looking for him, but we’re going to need some pictures of André and the baby.”
“I’ve got pictures,” Tiago said from behind them. “Manny just sent some to my phone.” He showed the police officer a picture of André in his soccer uniform, one that used to hang on the wall of their little café. “This is André.”
Strange how the same picture that used to trigger her pride and admiration could now make her stomach turn. Why had she ever thought he would be a good father? Yes, he’d said he wanted to be a father, but she knew now that he only wanted the recognition. He wanted people to see that he could father hundreds of children if he chose.
She couldn’t remember André ever holding a child or showing much concern for anyone younger than a teenage girl. He wasn’t like the other men she knew who liked to snuggle a baby on their shoulders. In fact, he’d gone out of his way to avoid babies, claiming their high-pitched cries irritated him. He must have helped care for his little brother and sister when he was young, but those days had passed by the time she met him. Surely, though, he had once learned to give a baby a bottle. He wouldn’t let his own son go hungry.
The officer nodded his head as he looked at the picture. “That’s perfect. Can you e-mail it to me? We already have his height, weight, hair color, eye color in the system. I just need to make sure they’re correct.”
Weight and height were easy enough for Celia to remember. She’d recited them over and over at André’s soccer games. “He’s one-hundred-seventy-eight centimeters,” she said. “And eighty-four kilos.”
“Okay,” the officer said, biting the side of his lip. “That would be—”
“About . . . five-foot-ten-inches,” Flora clarified, using her phone to convert the measurements. “And . . . a hundred and eighty-five pounds. Brown skin, brown eyes, brown hair.”
The officer checked through the information on his laptop and then added the pictures Tiago sent him. “We’re going to get this sent out as fast as we can. You’ll see. We’ll all get alerts on our phones.”
She watched the pictures of Benjamin on Tiago’s phone. Manny had taken the picture just the day before when Benjamin started smiling at him. Seeing his chubby cheeks and the soft curls of brown hair, she felt her milk let down. It was time for his nightly feeding. How she wished she’d taken him with her to see Manny.
The officer began asking questions about André’s friends and relatives in North Carolina, places he’d stayed, places he’d visited, and jobs he’d had.
Benjamin was probably screaming wherever he was. He wouldn’t look at all like this smiling picture.
She stumbled through her memories, trying to recall Teresa’s address and the name of the soccer team in North Carolina. The more she spoke, the more she had to say. “He was friends with a teenage girl named Sofia. She lives upstairs from Teresa. And I have the number for one his teammates’ girlfriends.” She dug through her tote bag until she found the number of the woman who once had offered to help her get to the women’s shelter. She had vowed never again to lose a phone number, and here she was living up to her promise.
While she continued listing off names of André’s friends, an EMT was bandaging Flora’s arm. “I should have fought back,” she said. “I was just so scared of him cutting the baby.”
Vicki sat in the corner, her face swollen and red from crying. “I wish I’d thought to get a knife from the kitchen.”
They were just like she used to be. So many nights she had lain in bed alone, crying, blaming herself for André’s mistakes. The first time he hit her, she wondered how she could prevent it from happening again. Each time he lost his job, she wondered what she could have done better. Even now, she was blaming herself for leaving Benjamin with the girls instead of bringing him along with her.
But, now, looking at these girls, she knew. It had never been her. It had always been him. “This isn’t your sin, Flora. This is André’s.” She looked at Vicki, who was blowing her nose into a Kleenex. “I once thought these kinds of things were all my fault, that the only power I ever had over André was my ability to make him do the wrong thing. I weighed myself down with guilt for all the bad things I didn’t prevent from happening. But I was wrong. The only power I ever had over him came from fighting back.” Vicki and Flora stared at her, their eyes wide. “If I could beat him while I was pregnant, I have the power to fight him now. You two girls have the power too. We can help each other.”
“How are we going to fight him when we don’t even know where he is?” Vicki asked.
“We’re going to work together with the police,” Celia responded. “I want you girls to call everyone you know that can help. We’ll have people looking for him all over Brockton, maybe all over the country. That’s how we’re going to fight him—not with our muscles but with the strength of our love for Benjamin—because love is something André will never have. It’s the only thing stronger than his hate.”