Emanon’s Journey

The police never came. Dale was gone … with Dena. I felt the evening begin to chill as I stumbled back to the trailer, knowing that he had taken Dena with nothing but a diaper on. I worried that she’d be cold. I worried about where they went … if they’d come back … what I should do …

I worried.

An eternity later, Debbie showed up with her little sister. She told me that Dale had been to her house with Dena, and was going to find an overnight daycare to put her in. I could sense that she was watching me carefully for a reaction, and so far, I’d managed to hold myself “together.”

A pause … a silence.

“You have to come with me.”

“Why?”

“Because … he said that he was going to drop off the baby, and then he said that he was going to come back here and ‘finish dealing’ with you. I’m not sure exactly what he means, but Curt and I thought we should get you out of here, just in case.”

I knew exactly what he meant.

Everything rushed in on me at once - my baby was gone, and he was going to kill me. My stoic exterior crumbled, and to my utter shame and dismay, I dissolved into a flood of tears.

Debbie wanted to be compassionate, but she knew that at the time - haste was more important.

“Grab what you can - and let’s get out of here. Quick!”

I collected Dena’s clothes, and only a handful of my own. I don’t know if, at the time, I thought I would get her back, and then things would be “normal” again … or even if I was thinking at all. I was in a cloud of surrealism the likes of which I’d never before experienced in my life.

The following two weeks were a blur. Curtis and Debbie hid me in their home for a while, and when that became too dangerous, they moved me to his mother’s house in Roswell. We spent the days going from government office to government office … overnight daycare to overnight daycare … hunting for my baby, and trying to find someone to help.

After the initial breakdown in front of Debbie and her sister, I managed to hold myself together a bit during the daytime, while people were around - but when the sun went down, and I would lay on the sofa in a strange room, without my baby … that is when the real waking nightmares began. The nighttime had become a dark torture chamber, filled with unimaginable terrors. My daugther! My little infant daughter! Would I ever see her again? The demons that tortured me at night were relentless … often keeping me awake until the sun would begin to lighten the room, and I would again realize that I was in someone else’s home … accepting someone else’s kindness … so broken I was completely unable to make my own decisions.

Mother’s day passed, and by then, I was able to take a bit of food again. People were very kind to me, but I was like an empty shell, living completely inside of myself - but still very, very empty. I learned to pray again, and whether through needing to believe that Someone heard me and understood my agony, or whether a Master Healer truly reached down and calmed my soul when the pain became so much that I could no longer tolerate it, I’ll probably never know … but prayer seemed to ease some of worst of the torment.

I was afraid that if I saw my baby daughter, I wouldn’t recognize her! The two weeks were like two years to me. I could feel my tiny baby inside of me flutter and squirm, and he seemed to be protesting against ravages which my illness and deprivation must have been causing.

My brother, my dear sainted brother, the savior of my life more than once before, reached down from Maine, and hired a private detective to find my baby. There was finally hope!