Happy Birthday, Joy! - A Short Story

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.