Still no word from Tom about seeing our kids. His silence made me uneasy, I had to admit. But it was better to let the dog lie, so I did.
As for Mike and Soong – they moved in together shortly after Soong graduated from TAFE. Mike set Soong up in her own beauty and massage studio and…they asked me to do all their accounting! Of course, I was thrilled. Even though I had Bear, I still wanted my nest egg, clutched at it, refused to really surrender to Bear.
I helped Soong out a lot with Charlie so that she could work the extra hours she needed to build her new business.
She in turn babysat for me when I needed to run errands or go out with Bear.
Sometimes I helped Soong out at reception while Sasha played on the floor with her toys. By placing an ad in the local newspaper and bribing the consultant with a sensual massage for her and her boyfriend, I managed to score Soong some free editorial, and that got Soong’s phone ringing. She was thrilled.
I really loved Soong, and I would have done anything to help her succeed. In fact, I started feeling the same way about Mike. He was a good man, and I loved how he loved Soong.
Look at me, I thought – loving everybody around me suddenly. Such an Oprah moment.
****
“This will be my last assignment, I promise,” Bear said to my morose face.
The day had finally come, and he was leaving. I was close to tears at the thought of being without him for six weeks. How would I manage? How would I sleep without him when we slept entwined in each other for the last four months? What do I say to my kids when they ask for him? They had grown so fond of him and wouldn’t allow him out of their sight. His bond with Warren was particularly strong.
Imagine, I used to wait for Monday mornings so that Tom could leave home, and if he had to go away on business, I was in heaven. With Bear it was different – I was almost crying.
He placed his palms on either side of my face and looked into my tear-filled eyes. “I’ll ask for a transfer, we’ll get married, we’ll buy a house, and baby, we will be happy. Trust me. I don’t want to fuck up what we have. I haven’t been this happy and complete in years. I need you, understand? I need you all. I like this ‘us.’ I don’t wanna come home if there is no ‘us.’”
I nodded, then hugged him. “I love you, Bear,” I whispered. “Please come back to me. Don’t let anything happen to you. I couldn’t bear it. Oh God, please, Bear, I don’t think I can live without you.”
“Nothing’s gonna happen, baby, but if anything does, you contact Captain Warner of Hornsby Police, okay? He’ll try to get word to me. Don’t talk to anyone else about me, just him.”
Parting was truly a sweet sorrow – I hugged him and cried buckets as we said goodbye. When he left, the apartment felt empty, and I felt an overwhelming sense of loss. It was as if a light had gone out.
I could hardly wait for my Care Bear’s return.
****
About a week after I said goodbye to Bear, Sasha, who was almost a year old, developed an ear infection. Although she was on antibiotics, she was unable to sleep at night, and therefore cranky as hell.
I drove her back to the doctor, who immediately referred me to an ear specialist. Sasha cried all the way to the ear specialist and all the way back home. Just screamed her lungs off in the back of my car.
“Sasha, Mommy’s gonna stop the car just now, darling,” I chanted as I navigated my BMW through school-hour traffic to pick up Warren.
The heat in Sydney didn’t help – a scorching ninety-nine degrees. I was hot and exhausted from not sleeping for three nights, and I had dark rings around my eyes to prove it.
“Mommy’s gonna carry you just now, my baby. Just hang in there.”
She continued screaming.
Feeling rattled by her screaming and close to tears myself, I turned my car onto Warrimoo Avenue, St Ives, the suburb of Warren’s school, the suburb I fled months ago. To avoid more turmoil in his life, and since it was paid for in advance, I had kept Warren in his preschool.
Less than five blocks down from his preschool was a small string of shops, which I needed to visit to get milk, bread, and a bottle of cold water for Warren. It was a routine for me to stop at the shops before I picked him up.
I pulled into the parking lot, only to find that there was no parking. Damn! Behind me, Sasha yelled her lungs out.
“Lemmee sing you a song, sweetheart,” I said, and lapsed into “Incy Wincy Spider.”
Nothing doing – she screamed louder, so I shut up.
Frazzled, I drummed my fingernails on the steering wheel while I waited for someone to pull out of a parking space.
“Just now, my darling, hang in there.”
A long five minutes later, a Merc pulled out directly in front of the little grocer I needed to visit. Relieved, I maneuvered my BMW into the cramped parking space. I cut the engine, scrambled out of the car, and opened the back door to take out Sasha. I balked when I saw her fast asleep.
For a few moments, I stared at my baby, who hadn’t slept all night. Who had barely slept for the past seventy-two hours.
My dilemma – if I got her up, she would scream her head off again. If I let her sleep, I wouldn’t be able to get my bread, milk, and water. Could I possibly leave her in the car while I ran in?
I looked at the supermarket – its entrance was about ten feet away from my car. From where the cashier sat, she had a clear view of my car. The milk fridge was right next to the cashier. The bread shelf was opposite the cashier.
I gauged and calculated – I would be able to dart into the supermarket, grab bread and milk, pay for the stuff, all the while never taking my eyes off the car. Probably all in sixty seconds?
The searing heat forced me to make a quick decision. I turned on the ignition, which turned on the air conditioning, then I shut the car door. I took some money out of my purse and raced up to the shop, grabbed the milk and water, scooped up a loaf of bread, and in less than sixty seconds, was in line at the cashier. I looked at my car again. All was okay. So far so good. It was a quiet, affluent neighborhood, and nothing bad ever happened there.
My money was in my hand to speed up payment, and there were only two people in front of me standing in line to pay. This will go quickly, I thought.
The old woman in front of me holding a can of cat food turned and smiled at me. I smiled back at her before my eyes shifted back to the car.
I would have to wake Sasha when I went to pick up Warren, a thought I dreaded. I expected her to be furious at me for getting her up, but I would have no choice.
“Hot, isn’t it?” Cat food lady said.
“Yeah,” I said in a tone that did not encourage conversation. I just wanted her to pay for her stuff and move out of the way.
She did, to my relief. Took her cat food, her change, and shuffled away.
I paid for my stuff and took a step forward.
At that particular moment, the old woman with the cat food lost her balance and stumbled backwards into me, dropping her cat food and her loose change that she held in her hand.
Normally I would not hesitate to help, but I glanced at my car and decided, not today – let someone else do it. I walked ahead.
Nobody did.
She was so old – how could I possibly not help her? Sighing, I turned back and scrambled to pick up the cat food and change for the lady.
“Thank you so much,” she gushed. “Thank you, thank you!”
“You’re welcome,” I mumbled as I picked up her coins from around her feet.
I stuffed them in her hands and turned back to my car.
It was gone.
I blinked rapidly. The parking space directly outside the grocer where I had parked my car was empty.
I looked around, craning my neck for a silver BMW X6. Nothing.
“Oh God!” Dropping my bread, milk, and water, I ran up and down the parking lot looking for my car. Maybe I parked somewhere else? I hadn’t slept in three nights, so maybe in my muddled state, I had gotten the parking spaces mixed up.
But there were only twelve parking spaces in the parking lot, and none of them had my car with my precious baby in it.
“Are you okay?” a woman pushing a stroller asked.
With both my hands on my head, I choked out the words, “Someone stole my car!” I grabbed her arm, “Please help me! Call the police.”
“Your car?”
A group of teenagers congregated around me.
“Call the police, please!” I begged as I struggled to breathe. “My baby, she’s in the car! Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! Call the police!” Like a deranged woman, I ran up and down the street and then back to the empty parking space I had parked in.
But my car, with my baby in it, was gone. Stolen in broad daylight.
****
“Officer, it’s my ex-husband,” I told the female cop as I sat on the sidewalk outside the grocer and rocked. “It’s him. I just know it. It’s him. Please believe me, it’s him.”
It was a boiling hot day, yet I felt chills.
“Okay, ma’am, we are looking into it,” she said in a kind voice.
Four detectives arrived and took over for the cops.
“Ma’am, I’m Detective Tims,” a man in his fifties with a striped shirt and a fatherly voice said. “This here is my partner, Detective Hunter.”
I glanced briefly at the man standing next to Detective Tims, watching me with hooded eyes, almost suspiciously.
“Now, we know that you’ve probably told a dozen or so people what happened, but please, I need you to tell –”
“It’s my ex,” I said. “He did this. Trust me, he did. I know he did, Detective.”
“Okay, so tell us about it and what happened.”
I press both palms to my tired eyes before I tell my story again.
I watched crime shows, and I knew that the police would have to rule me out as a suspect before they investigated others, so I wanted to cooperate with them, tell them everything they needed to know so that they could exclude me as a suspect as soon as possible.
“Where is your son now?”
“He’s with a friend from school and his friend’s mom.”
“Tell us about your husband.”
“Soon to be ex,” I said. “His name is Tom Botha, and he did this, Detective. We…he…he’s been abusive to me, and when he started taking it out on my son, I left him. Moved into a women’s shelter one night…got help from various sources, and for the last six months I’ve been living in an apartment.”
“What kind of work do you do?”
“I am a part-time accountant – work from home.” I looked at him with pleading eyes. “Please look for my baby. Please!”
“Ma’am, every cop in Sydney is looking out for your car and your baby.” He pointed to the sky. “Hear that?”
I nodded at the whirr of a helicopter, then wrapped my arms tightly around my body and rocked harder. “It’s been two hours…”
“We aren’t going home until we find your child. Rest assured.”
A female officer crouched in front of me with a cup of water in her hand, and the detectives stepped away from me.
“Is there anyone I can call for you? Family members…?”
“All my family is in South Africa. Please call Soong and Mike. They’re my friends.” I gave them my phone to access Soong’s number.
“Anyone else I can call?”
I gave them Fatima’s number – the leader of the Domestic Abuse support group. They called her too.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Yes, but he’s away.”
“Away?”
I nodded. “He’s an undercover. Bear Shaw. Actually, his real name is Shane Shaw. I don’t know where he is right now…he couldn’t tell me but…you guys should know.”
“Okay, we will look into it.”
“Tell him I need him, please.”
She nodded.
I grabbed her arm. “He did this. My ex, Tom, he vowed that he was going to hurt me because I left him. He promised on the life of my children that he would. Swore.”
She nodded slowly, then gently extracted my arm from hers.
About thirty minutes later, she returned to me. “Your ex-husband’s in South Africa, Arena. He left two days ago, and he’s due back tomorrow on the 2 p.m. flight.”
I looked at her in disbelief. “That can’t –”
“We’ve contacted his offices, confirmed that he did indeed board a flight to South Africa. Even obtained footage of him boarding the plane. We checked his credit card with the bank – showed a string of activity in Cape Town over the last couple of hours.”
My head lolled. How could that be? I was so sure it was Tom.
“He’s ruled out as a person of interest, Arena. Now, I’m taking you home.” She got to her feet.
“No, I wanna stay here!” My conscience bludgeoned me, and I felt that if I left that parking space, I would be somehow leaving Sasha behind. It didn’t make sense, but I was no longer playing with a full deck.
“We’re arranging a press conference for you to appeal to the person who took your car.”
“Press conference? Okay, fine. Let’s go!” I jumped to my feet, eager to plead to whoever it was that had Sasha. I would beg on my knees if I had to.