he wasn’t her lover.
She saw the women smile to each other, nod, and keep on walking.
He removed himself from her mouth, and when he did, she screamed once more. He pulled her to him again and pressed his lips on hers, but this time he bit her lip and clamped it between his teeth. ‘Stop it,’ he said to her through his teeth. ‘Keep walking.’
Whimpering into his mouth, she ran in little steps alongside him.
Then he pulled away from her, and Didi whirled around to look for the two women. It was no use, because they were already inside the mall. The man stopped walking when they reached a beat-up beige station wagon. Clasping his right hand over her mouth, he dropped her bags and fumbled for the keys in his pocket. He opened the passenger door and sat her down in his car.
Didi screamed, for she had nothing to lose. Whatever his intentions were, Didi was certain they did not involve his giving her a lift to the Laredo Grill. Her day went gray, and she began to scream again, but no one could hear her.
He got in and started the car. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘you should really stop that.’
They were racing through the NorthPark parking lot. The old car stank. Didi wondered for a moment if the stench came from her. Had she lost control of her bowels?
But no. It was an old, bad odor. The car smelled of sour, rotted food. She looked over at him.
He held the wheel tightly with both hands.
She wanted to say something to him. But what? What? To save herself, she would have said anything.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked in her friendliest voice. Is that the best I can come up with? she thought. What’s your name? What am I, a teenager at the school lockers?
He didn’t answer her.
Please show me the way, dear God, please show me the way out, for my kids, please hear my prayer.
I guess it’s really happening, she thought, starting to rock back and forth, it’s happening. This man, he – I – I’ve been abducted. I’ve been snatched, stolen. He acts polite and tries to smile, but he’s kidnapped me. How’s Rich ever going to find me? And what could he want? Money? Of course, that must be it. He wants money. That’s what all kidnappers want. He doesn’t care about me. He saw me shopping at NorthPark and probably thought I was loaded.
What would it do to tell him the truth? she thought. And what happens to me when he finds out the truth?
Clasping her hands together, Didi tried to think of something comforting, but all that flashed through her was, Am I going to die? Right here, in this man’s car, this stinking car, die with a stranger? Is this how my life is going to end –
My baby.
Why was she thinking about death, about stinky cars? She couldn’t die, because if she did, her baby would too, and her baby could not die.
That was impossible.
The baby is counting on me not to let him die. That’s my job as his mother – to keep him and save him from harm. What kind of mother would I be if I died on him? A bad kind, that’s what kind. Gently, she stroked her belly.
Didi shuddered when she remembered the fight she had had with Richie yesterday. Poor Rich – he’ll be thinking I didn’t show up because I’m still mad at him. That stupid fight. It was just about this very thing – about harm coming to me and the baby. Rich got so mad he yelled at me that nothing was going to happen to the baby. He was angry at me for bringing bad thoughts into our house.
Didi herself had felt silly for fearing the worst.
Yesterday the worst had been some nebulous grief. She feared the baby might have two hearts, two brains, or not enough heart, not enough brain.
Today – well, she couldn’t confront it.
Didi’s hands were unsteady. Rubbing her belly gently, she looked out the side window.
She thought, is God punishing me? I haven’t been penitent. I don’t say my prayers and there are some Sundays I don’t go to church and there are some I go and don’t want to. Who said Christianity was easy? It’s not like drinking water, accepting God into your heart. I’ve been remiss. And so have my children, and so has my husband. We watch TV, we make love, we don’t pray. We fight, we curse. I’ve been feeling cocky and now God is about to show me who’s boss.
They went through a stop sign. Keep that up, Didi thought, and a nice police officer will soon be stopping you himself. At the next stop sign the man slowed down and pretended to stop. Didi looked at the door handle. The car must have slowed to twenty, maybe ten miles an hour. All she had to do was open the door and fall out. She lifted her trembling hand off her lap and reached for the handle.
And stopped.
The baby. When Didi fell out, would she fall on her belly? Would the shock of hitting the ground burst her water, would it snap the umbilical cord? Would it break her baby’s neck or crush its soft head?
She glanced over at the man. He looked tranquil. Would she be able to crawl away fast enough from him? Or would he stop, slam the car into reverse, and roll over her, killing her and the baby? And then calmly drive away never to be found, never to be seen again.
Didi knew one thing with absolute certainty: if she died, her baby had no chance. She closed her eyes briefly. Baby Evelyn or baby Adam, anything your mom can do, she will do, God help her.
Rich called their hospital’s labor and delivery ward to see if a Didi Wood had been admitted and was told no.
Finally he left the Laredo Grill. What mall had she been in? Was it Collin Creek right across the road, or the Galleria, or Valley View? NorthPark? She could have been calling from anywhere. She had had a doctor’s appointment at eleven, so perhaps she was at Collin Creek, which was the closest to the doctor and to the Laredo Grill. Rich wished he’d gone with her to the doctor’s as he usually did.
He called the doctor’s office. The receptionist told him Didi had left at eleven-thirty after her routine weekly checkup. Then the doctor came on the phone and told Rich that Didi had dilated another centimeter to about two, normal for this stage in the pregnancy. Rich asked if Didi had mentioned where she might be heading. The doctor replied that Didi had said she might do a little shopping, but hadn’t said where. Rich hung up.
Instead of going back to work, he drove to the Collin Creek Mall. His Didi was nothing if not a creature of habit, and whenever they went to the mall – any mall – Didi always parked near Dillard’s. He drove up and down the rows of cars, looking for their new white Town & Country – the Cadillac of all minivans, as the pamphlets had said.
He thought he’d seen the van several times, but he was wrong.
Remembering he had a meeting with marketing at three, Rich called his office manager and said he was tied up and couldn’t make it in. She sounded nervous on the phone, and said, ‘But
