Happy Birthday,
Joy!
By Christopher
Michael Carter
Moving
the flower-print sheet, she unveiled the surprise; her daughter’s new doll
collection.
“Wow,
mommy, are those all for me?” The wide
eyed child asked.
“Of
course, silly, it’s your birthday.” Agatha, the mother of seven year old Joy, laughed.
“There’s
so many of them.” Little Joy stood in
her little pink dress trying hard not to run over and pick them all up at once.
“I
found an old woman downtown selling them.
They look homemade. They came
together in a set….”
She noticed her daughter’s eagerness, “You can come over here, don’t be afraid.
They’re yours.”
She
moved over to the set slowly and picked a couple of them up. Some are bigger than others but most of the
dolls range from six to ten inches high and as her mother stated, they looked
to be homemade and not shelled out from a toy factory. Joy still just stared at them with no
response.
“Aw,
thank you, mommy. I love them. They’re my favorite!” Joy yelled out hugging her mother’s leg.
“Now…
Do you want some cake?”
“YEAH!”
Agatha
had been a single parent since Joy was a little over a year old. Her husband had left her for a co-worker; one
of HER co-workers. Seeing Joy so full of
such brought Agatha so much happiness that things like the past didn’t stand a
chance in her mind. So she continued
cutting the little white, blue, and yellow iced cake she bought at the
supermarket and enjoyed the sugar feast with her favorite person.
“Sorry
none of your friends could come over for your birthday, sweetie.”
“It’s
okay, mommy, I got new friends now.” Joy
said pleased looking at the doll she brought to the table.
“Well
guess what?” The single mother asked.
“What?”
“When
we get done with cake we’re gonna go to GRAMMA’S!”
“Alright,
Gramma’s house!”
And
so they got done with their mini-cake and got all cleaned up and ready to go
when Agatha saw Joy with her arms full of dolls. “Whoa, kiddo, why don’t you put those back?”
“Aw,
mom…”
“We’re
gonna be way too busy today. You can
play with them when we get back.”
The
phone rang, “Hold on.” Agatha said
moving towards the phone.
“Hello? Oh, hey, mom.
We were just about to leave. You
forgot napkins? That’s alright; we’ll
pick some up on the way. Okay, we’ll see
you shortly. Love you; bye.” Agatha hung up the phone. “Well, Joy, you about ready to go?”
“Yep!” The newly seven year old was excited.
Agatha
was already out by the car with Joy right behind her when the daughter stopped,
“Wait, I forgot something!”
“Well
hurry up, okay? We gotta hit the store
on the way to grandma’s.”
“I
will.” The child said heading back into
the house.
Agatha
waited in the car when Joy returned from their home with an arm full of
dolls. The mom shook her head upon
seeing this, “Whoa. No, no, no. Just take one. You don’t need all of those to go to
grandma’s house.” Agatha chuckled while
talking through the open window.
“Aw,
mom.”
“Just
one!”
“Okay…” The little girl’s excitement deflated as she
headed back into the house with the doll collection in her arms.
Joy
entered her room and set the dolls down on the bed eyeing each one. The dolls laid back on the bed staring up
blankly, each one looking different than the next. With so many options the little girl had a
tough time making a decision, “Mommy said I can only take one of you... Who wants to go to grandma’s house with me?”
Outside
in the car Agatha continued to wait and wait.
“C’mon, Joy…” The mother grew
impatient. She honked the horn and
waited a few minutes longer before unbuckling and getting out. Entering the house she called out to her
daughter, “Joy, we gotta go, honey!” She
didn’t hear a reply and went to her room to find it as it was last; clean yet
with the doll collection lying on the bed.
“Joy?” She checked the bathroom,
empty. “Sweetie…?” She continued through the house and the
birthday girl was nowhere to be found.
Agatha went outside to check the backyard, calling out her name
“Joooooy!?” The yard was empty and
contained no reply back from her daughter.
She checked the shed out back and it contained the lawn mower, weed
eater, and storage, but no young girl.
Back
in the house she checked every nook and cranny growing more aggravated and
scared simultaneously, “Joy, if you’re playing around with me, stop it! You’re scaring me!” Once her investigation of the house was clear
she went back out the front door, frantically looking around. It was still the same calm peaceful
neighborhood it was when they were about to leave. Scared, as any mother would be, she ran to
the phone to call the police. She tried
to keep composure while the line rang.
“Yes,
my name’s Agatha Layne and I live at 414 W. Altar Street and my daughter has
just gone missing. She was just here. She went back in the house to get a doll and
now she’s not here. …I’ve checked the
entire house and yard and can’t find her anywhere. Okay, okay, please hurry.” She hung up the phone and wiped her growing
tears before heading out the door.
She
checked each neighbor on either side, knocking at their doors.
A
young man answered, “Hi.”
Agatha
tried not to seem in a panic, “Hi, I’m sorry, have you seen Joy?”
“No;
not since yesterday. Is everything
okay?” The neighbor man could see there
was something upsetting her.
“I
can’t find her. She was just here but I can’t find her anywhere
in the house. I was just seeing if you happened
to see her.”
She
continued her search at the house on the other side of her to have the same
results; both asking if she’d called the police. The neighbors got out and started walking
around the street to look for the little girl who was well known and liked
around the neighborhood. The police
arrived and went over the girl and her mother’s home with a fine toothed comb
while Agatha sat in the kitchen crying.
“What
do you got?” One officer asked another
in Joy’s room.
The
other officer looked at the window, “No sign of forced entry from the
window.”
“Not
from the back door either.” Another
officer said entering the room.
“…Doesn’t look like there was a break in at all.”
“We
checked the mother’s room too; under both beds and in both closets, nothing.”
Agatha
sat crying on the phone to her mother, “I don’t know where she is, mom; she
just vanished. The police are checking
the house and the neighbors are out looking for her. Okay, well I’ll be here…” Agatha hung up the phone and tried to
regulate her breathing before a couple of officers approached her. “Ma’am there’s no sign of forced entry or
struggle. Is there any chance she could
have gone to a friend’s house?”
“No,
we were seriously just leaving to go
to my mom’s. It’s her birthday.” Agatha told the cops through the lump in her
throat.
“I
know this is hard but is there any reason she might’ve had to run away?” They had to ask these questions regardless of
the pain.
Agatha
was struck by the question, “She’s seven years old! We just had cake! She got a new doll collection! She hasn’t any reason to run away; she’s a
happy child!” Her anger and annoyance
was felt.
There
was a knock at the door to which Agatha got up and stormed over to answer
it. It was her neighbors, “We’re sorry,
we couldn’t find her anywhere and nobody’s seen her.”
Agatha’s
body was becoming more lifeless by the moment, crying she said, “I don’t know
what I’m going to do…”
She
filled out a report with the police who put an alert out for the missing
child. She continued to call around
asking if anybody had seen her and the neighbors did another search, all coming
back with the same answers. Agatha’s
mother came and spent hours trying to comfort her daughter, to which there was
no comfort in such a situation. Hours
and hours passed and the day turned to night with all the hectic events of the
day becoming a blur. She sat at the
kitchen table drinking straight vodka and stared into nothingness, mulling it
all over in her mind at what could’ve happened.
“That
bastard…” She said picking up the phone
to call her ex, the girl’s father. He
didn’t even get a greeting out before she ripped into him, “Do you have Joy?”
“What?” He replied.
“Did
you come over here and take my child?
Did you take Joy!?”
“What
are you talking about?”
“Our
child; the one you walked out on!”
“Why
would I take her!? You know I haven’t
seen her!”
“She’s
missing, Kyle!”
“Missing!? How could you’ve let that happen!?”
With
those words she didn’t even continue the conversation and hurled the phone
across the room in anger.
“Damn
it!” She screamed and grunted in disgust
with the man she’d previously married; a mistake she tried not to think about
too often.
Agatha
continued to drink and became more depressed.
Her heart sank and in the pit of her stomach was a heavy feeling. “My Joy…”
She whimpered. “Where are you,
baby…?” Her face sunk down into her
hands with her hair a mess and that’s when she heard the call.
“Mommy…!” The child’s voice was light and faint but was
without a doubt Joy’s. Agatha’s face
shot up from her palms. “Mommy…!” She heard it again, “…Joy!?” She jolted up from her seat and ran down the
hall to her bedroom. She opened the
little girl’s bedroom door in a fury to find it just as it was earlier; clean
and empty with her birthday presents lying on the bed.
“Joy?” Her breaking voice asked softly with the
continuing tears rolling down her already weathered face. A silent response left Agatha colder and she
left the room with her head hung low.
“JOY,
WHERE ARE YOU!?” She screamed to the
empty house. She felt empty, as empty as
the house. Her Joy, figuratively and
literally, was gone; lost. She walked
back to the kitchen to grab the bottle of vodka and retreated to her bedroom
with a feeling of darkness; a black void she knew would never be filled until
she found her baby girl. She entered her
bedroom with an overall air of defeat and collapsed on the bed cradling her
bottle of alcohol as her only friend; the only friend she saw available to help
her. She cried herself to sleep praying,
hoping, and wishing her Joy would be returned to her.
She
was awoken by a familiar call, “Mommy…!
Mommy, help me…!” Agatha looked
around frantically before fully coming to and rushing out of bed. “JOY!”
She called out, running down the hall before getting to the girl’s
room. The estranged mother hurled the
door open to find it the same as she’d left it earlier. She groaned in painful sadness while holding
her head. Agatha dropped to her knees in
her daughter’s bedroom.
“Mommy…!” She heard again, as if it were coming from a
distance. She whipped up looking around
feverishly for where the voice she knew all too well was coming from.
“Mommy,
help me…!”
“I’m
coming, baby!” She yelled jumping up and
running out of the room. “Where are
you!?”
“I’m
here!” The faint voice exclaimed
distressed.
“Where!?” The mother looked all through the house
before slinging open the front door and running outside in search of her
missing child.
“Mommy…!” Joy’s voice continued to cry.
“I’m
coming, baby!” Agatha ran everywhere she
could outside looking for where the voice was coming from.
“Mommy,
they won’t let me go…!” Her voice rang
out as if carried by the wind. Agatha
felt like she’d hit a dead end in her search but still continued to look
around, “Who has you, baby? Who stole my
Joy? I’ll kill you!”
She
continued her drunken search trying to follow her daughter’s voice in the quiet
neighborhood in the dark night.
That
night would be the first of many she would hear Joy call out to her. She kept searching. Despite the police letting her know time and
time again that no leads were turning up, she was determined and wasn’t giving
up. Every night she was woken by the
same call for her. She’d frequently
organize search parties with the neighborhood only for the investigation to
lead nowhere. Along with her mother and
friends, Agatha posted “Missing” signs all over town only to get no reply,
ever. There were no sightings of the
girl and the hole in Agatha’s heart continued to grow as she felt she’d lost
everything. She carried her, gave birth
to her, raised her, loved her, and then they were abruptly separated. Agatha felt lost; that she had been losing
her will to live.
She
continued to answer her daughter’s call night after night; a call that seemed
to be coming from different distances nightly.
Every night she was determined to find her child in trouble; her child
in need. A year went by and still
nothing on the case of the missing child.
Joy’s room remained untouched; a symbol of her distraught mother’s hope
for her return. Agatha’s therapist
proposed that perhaps the voice was in her head; a cry manifesting itself from
her grief. She refused to believe it as
her young one’s call was all too real to her.
…Had
she only checked the doll collection still on her daughter’s bed, she would’ve
found an uncannily familiar face; a new edition to the set that looked
remarkably identical to her Joy.
“I’m
scared, mommy…” The little girl’s voice
continued to whimper; faint, distant, and echoing from somewhere unseen.
