Missing

When Ginger pulled into the driveway, she knew immediately that something was...amiss. She put both feet on the ground and stood slowly, turning slightly and then placing her hands on the top of her car. Daniel was in the yard screaming at Eddie, who held his hands up like a clueless criminal. He was standing on the porch near Ginger's front door. The overgrown bush separated him from the hysterical man, who whipped around and pointed his finger at Ginger.

"You!" he screamed. "You can't just take her."

She understood the scene all too quickly. The little girl must be gone, and Daniel would have assumed that she was either at Ginger's or with Ginger. Her face became a grimace that Eddie must have noticed, because he threw his head back. The three of them each felt hopeless, but wouldn't unite in their despair. Daniel needed to point fingers. Apparently literally. Ginger needed to figure out why the little girl was gone, and how, and where. Eddie wanted to go back inside and finish his dinner, maybe play a little guitar, caulk a sink or something and go to bed.

"Daniel," she said as she carefully closed her car door. "I didn't take her."

He was still pointing at her. Then he pointed to her passenger seat. Then at her again.

"When did you notice that she was gone?" Ginger asked as she took a step toward him. She could see Eddie out of the corner of her eye. He dropped his arms and let them hang reluctantly at his side. He tilted his head in disbelief. Playing along or soothing Daniel may not have been the absolute best idea, but she didn't think aggravating him further would help anyone. Least of all the little girl.

His face was red and his eyes were swollen and wet. He was in a panic. "Where is she?" he yelled in Ginger's direction.

"I don't know," Ginger said. She looked at her watch. Usually at this time of night, the little girl was eating dinner - either with her or Daniel. Last night, the little girl had dinner with her. She ate a bowl of peas with butter melted over them. She asked Ginger if she liked her parents. Ginger said yes.

"They taught me how to do a lot of this stuff," she told the little girl and waved her hand over her head to indicate all the renovation work. "We had this house when I was a kid," she told the little girl. "And we worked on it until we loved it."

The little girl's face had softened, and Ginger could have quit the story there, at the happily-ever-after part. But, she didn't, because she wouldn't, and because both she and the little girl deserved better. Ginger liked to live with the painful, obvious, hilarious truth.

"And as soon as we loved it, my folks moved 5,000 miles away from it," Ginger said.

The little girl paused, the spoon hovering just below her open mouth. She held Ginger's eye contact for half a minute or so, and then they both started laughing. They giggled. They guffawed. They howled at the moon.

It was just dark enough that the moon was making an appearance in the night sky. Ginger sighed. She lost all will to remain gentle and walked over to Daniel and grabbed him by the collar. She half led, half dragged him over to the step, where she shoved him down to sit. She motioned for Eddie to go get a phone by making the appropriate hand gesture with her pinky pointed toward her mouth and her thumb pointed toward her ear.

She sat beside Daniel. "Where would she go?" she asked.

Daniel shrugged.

"Has she ever done this before?" she asked.

Daniel shook his head.

"Could someone have taken her?" she asked.

Daniel started to sob. From beneath the cries, she heard him say, "No."

"Is that an answer?" she asked. "Does that mean someone didn't take her?"

Daniel screamed. It came from deep within his gut. It got caught on his crying. It made Eddie stop in his tracks. He didn't want to come any closer, so he put the receiver on the porch and pushed it toward Ginger with his foot.

She grabbed it and started to call the police, but Daniel smacked it from her hands. It landed in the yard with a thud.

"What the hell?" she said, still staring at the phone in disbelief.

"I took her," Daniel whined. He choked a little before he looked Ginger in the eyes and whispered, "I took her."