I used a familiar trick. “Can you use it in a sentence?”
“Your dad is a peed-o-pill. P-E-D-O-P-H-I-L-E.”
My shoulders tensed. She must have really studied the word to spell it so perfectly. “Did someone say that to you?”
The bleat of a horn intruded, and I pulled into the heavy after-school traffic.
“I know I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.” She sounded offended.
“Then why do you ask that?”
“’Cause of the note.”
When I pulled to the side of the road abruptly, the car behind me honked again. I blamed exhaustion and stress for what I did next. As the driver passed, my middle finger shot up in salute.
I immediately chastised myself: That’s the old me. Pre-Sam, pre-kids.
In the past thirty-six hours, I’d been spending more time than usual with the old me.
The motorist looked only slightly less shocked than Audrey, my daughter’s eyes wide, food-filled mouth agape.
“Don’t ever do what I just did,” I said. “Where’s the note?”
“Mommy,” Audrey gasped, still reacting to my transgression. “That’s like a bad word with your finger.”
She wasn’t so shocked that it affected her appetite. She finished off the banana and started on the sandwich.
“You mentioned a note?” I prodded again.
“The note the man left in my backpack,” she said between bites of sandwich.
“What man?”
“A man with a funny-looking shirt. It had a bear on it, but the bear was smoking something. Bears can’t smoke. Plus smoking causes cancer.” Audrey smiled, bread crumbs at the corners of her mouth, proud that she had remembered something her dad sometimes told her. “Nana Beatrice died of cancer before I was born.”
“Yes, she did.” I tried to keep my voice calm. “Did this man say anything to you?”
Audrey shook her head. “I don’t think he wanted me to see him, because he left the note when my backpack was still in the cubby. But I saw him because it was my day to water the plant.”
I grabbed my daughter’s backpack and reached inside, where I found a crinkled Post-it that read: Your dad is a pedophile.
“I showed Ms. Dickerson the note, but I don’t think she knew what the word meant. She had a funny look on her face when she read it, though, kind of like that driver just now when you pointed your finger in the bad way.”
I expected I would be getting a call from Audrey’s teacher.
“Ms. Dickerson tried to keep it, but I wanted to show it to you so I took it back. That’s why it’s wrinkled.”
Sandwich finished, Audrey fished a gummy worm from her pocket, picked off the lint, and popped it into her mouth. “So then I asked Bonnie, she’s in third grade, and she said it means someone who likes little kids.”
So I could probably expect a call from Bonnie’s parents too.
She reached for another gummy worm, but I stopped her. “Watch the sugar, remember. Anything else?”
“Well, I thought maybe Bonnie didn’t really know, so I asked my friend Jackson—”
I groaned.
“—but then I saw your car, so I decided to just ask you.”
Thank goodness for that.
“Did you see where the man went?” I scanned the crowd for a man wearing a T-shirt like my daughter had described. When Audrey shook her head, I asked, “Do you remember anything else about him? Like, what color his hair was?”
Audrey’s faced scrunched in thought. I hoped I was wrong about what was coming. “I don’t think he had any.”
My grip on the steering wheel tightened.
“I don’t understand what Bonnie meant,” Audrey said. “Of course Daddy likes little kids. I’m a little kid, and Leo’s not but he used to be, and he loves us.”
“Yes, he does.” I reached across the console to the back seat to squeeze Audrey’s hand. “A pedophile isn’t someone like Daddy. It’s someone who says they like kids but who hurts them.”
“Oh! Like a molester?”
Now it was my turn to look shocked. “Yes, like that.”
Audrey nodded in sudden understanding. “Addison said that Kendra’s uncle went to prison for being a molester. But I told her to mind her own business because it’s not nice to gossip.”
“After you asked what it meant?”
Audrey nibbled on the edge of her thumbnail. “I might’ve maybe asked. Oh, and he gave me an envelope.”
“An envelope?”
“I know I’m not supposed to take anything from strangers, but he put it in my backpack, so that’s different, right?”
“That’s different. You didn’t open it?” I had no idea what was inside, but I didn’t imagine it would be anything I would want Audrey to see.
“No. Is Daddy home yet?”
I took the envelope from Audrey’s backpack and stowed it in the glove box. For the second time that day, I considered calling my father. This time, the idea lingered a little longer. I decided the momentary lapse was because my children were missing their own father. I knew I had to tell them that Sam was gone, but I wanted to break the news when they were together. Tonight, after Leo’s game. So I told Audrey the lie I had been practicing, “Your dad has to be away at his conference a little longer than expected.”
“Okay,” she said, bouncing her legs as she stared out her window. “Can we get ice cream?”
“I have to drop you at Zoe’s so I can run an errand.”
“After?”
Because of her transplant, I had always been careful about my daughter’s diet, but even after her pocket gummy worm, I found myself unable to deny her this.
“If there’s time before Leo’s game.”
Audrey continued to bounce in her booster seat, humming off-key. Despite the interaction with the stranger, Audrey’s world remained a place of mint chocolate chip, a night watching a game at the big-kids school, and both parents at home to love her. I dreaded the evening ahead, when I would have to break my daughter’s heart, and open the envelope, which might break my own.
As I circled the block, Audrey recounted her day, lingering over the details of a lunchtime game of freeze tag and the successful trade of an orange for a bag of pretzels. By Audrey’s telling, the negotiations had been as intense as any UN peace talk.
I drove around the block for a second time but still saw no sign of the man in the smoking bear T-shirt.
“Are you lost? Because you’re supposed to turn there.” Audrey pointed to the main street that led toward Zoe’s house.
“Thanks.” I headed in the direction of Audrey’s outstretched finger. As I did, I realized there was one possible witness to Sam’s disappearance who had received only a passing interrogation: our daughter. In those early hours, I had been fairly certain of Sam’s return and worried about upsetting Audrey if I probed too deeply. Such concerns had evaporated in the time since.
I turned down the radio and waited for Audrey to wrap up another story, this one about a half-finished drawing that might turn out to be either a dragon or a dog. Then I asked, “Did you and Daddy have fun trick-or-treating last night?”