Free She's Not There by Joy Fielding

“Please, Caroline. I’m really sorry.”
    “I know. Me, too.” She pushed herself off the couch. “I’ll go check on the kids.” Once again she found herself in the doorway of the girls’ bedroom, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark.
So much for romance,
she thought, moving toward Michelle’s bed and stepping on something hard.
    Wonder Woman, she realized, picking the doll up off the floor and returning her to the pillow beside Michelle’s head. The child immediately swatted the doll away with her hand, although she didn’t wake up.
Another rejection,
Caroline thought, crossing over to Samantha’s crib.
    When she didn’t see her immediately, Caroline assumed that the toddler had merely shifted positions, that she’d somehow turned herself around in her sleep, as she often did, her head now at the opposite end of the crib, her feet where her head should be.
    Except her feet weren’t there either.
    Caroline leaned in closer, her eyes trying to pierce the darkness, her fingers grasping at the covers, finding nothing but an empty quilt.
    Samantha wasn’t there.
    No,
this can’t be,
Caroline thought, panic filling her lungs.
It’s impossible. It can’t be.
    She moved quickly to the light switch and flipped on the overhead light, then raced back to the crib.
    It was empty.
    “Samantha?” she called out, wondering if her daughter had somehow managed to climb out of the crib. She fell to her knees, checking under it in case Samantha was lying unconscious on the floor.
    She wasn’t there.
    “Samantha!”
    “Mommy?” Michelle sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes as Caroline began spinning around in helpless circles.
    “Samantha!” Caroline called again, hysteria clinging to the name, as she raced through the living room into the master bedroom.
    “What’s going on?” Hunter asked, emerging from the en suite bathroom.
    “She’s not there! She’s not there!”
    “Mommy?” Michelle cried, coming up behind her.
    It was then that Caroline’s rising panic broke loose, exploding violently into the air and filling the suite with screams.

T he plane touched down in Calgary at precisely twelve minutes after noon. Caroline’s forehead had been pressed against the window of the small aircraft ever since they’d left San Diego, her eyes following the gradual muting of the sky as it dulled from bright blue to steel gray over the course of the flight.
    “It looks like we’ve landed on the moon,” Michelle said from the seat beside her, probably the most words she’d uttered all trip.
    It certainly looks cold,
Caroline thought, noting the large piles of shoveled snow on the ground along the edge of the runway. She was glad Michelle had persuaded her to wear boots, even though they weren’t lined and likely weren’t waterproof. She was also glad her daughter had insisted she bring her heavy down coat, a coat she’d purchased on impulse immediately following her divorce and had rarely had occasion to wear. In fact, she was glad that Michelle had insisted on accompanying her, even though it gave her one more thing to worry about. Maybe worrying about Michelle would take her mind off the insanity of what she was doing.
    “Coming?” Michelle asked from the aisle as the plane was emptying.
    Caroline scrambled to her feet, grabbing her coat and overnight bag from the overhead bin. She hadn’t slept more than a few hours all night and she was exhausted. Also hyper.
Not a great combination,
she thought, following Michelle to the front of the plane. She thanked the flight attendant, then struggled to catch up to her daughter, who was walking very purposefully, her bag thrown across one shoulder, her arms swinging at her sides.
Does she always walk this fast?
Caroline wondered.
And has she always been so thin?
    She’s so thin because all she eats is raw fish and vegetables,
she thought with her next breath. Or maybe it was the bulky down jacket that was making her hips seem so narrow, her thighs so