Free It Only Takes a Moment by Mary Jane Clark

before you realize what’s truly important in life. Be comforted in knowing that your pain is helping someone else.
    Someday, God willing, you’ll have another child. Save your money until then so you’ll be able to stay home and take care of your baby as you should.
    Rhonda read the note over and folded it without signing it. She put the letter in the box with the cookies and sealed it closed. During her break she would take it over to the UPS office. Eliza should have the cookies tomorrow.

CHAPTER 26
    T he sound of the upstairs tenants moving around above her head, and the familiar smell of strong coffee, had roused Maria from a fitful rest. She had barely slept at all, racking her brain trying to recall if her mother had said anything at all that could be a clue to what had happened to her and Janie Blake. She now made her way to the kitchen to put on her own pot of coffee.
    Overwrought, overtired, and so upset by what she had seen on television, Maria dropped the uncapped bottle on the floor, spilling milk all over the worn linoleum. As she wiped up the mess, Maria felt her chest tightening. Her mother was missing and so was the child her mother took care of every day. And that child wasn’t just any child. That child was the daughter of one of the most well-known women in America.
    Mrs. Blake was a nice lady, and it was good of her to call last night to let them know what was going on with the police search, but nice ladies could turn mean if things didn’t go their way. Carmen had seen women in the nail salon, smiling so sweetly when they came in for their manicures and pedicures, but changing into snarling witches if they had to wait too long or got a call they didn’t like on their cell phones.
    If Mrs. Blake was upset, she might blame all of them. Because her own baby was gone, she could blame her mother, Vicente, even little Rosario. The Anglos could be harsh when they wanted to be. And the Anglo police scared Maria most of all.
    Rosario was a United States citizen because she had been born in this country. And Carmen’s mother had legal working papers, so she was allowed to be here. But Vicente and Maria weren’t legal. They had sneaked into the country because there had been no work for them in Guatemala and because they wanted their child to be born in America.
    So far, things had worked out all right. Vicente had found a job at the car wash and made some extra money doing detailing jobs on expensive cars and SUVs. Maria had gotten a position at the nail salon, first cleaning the floors and foot baths and stocking the hot towels, then gradually learning to do manicures. The two of them worked hard and saved every dollar they could just to make the rent each month for the cramped two-room apartment in the basement of a larger house that was occupied by a dozen other Guatemalans.
    Someday, Maria hoped, the lawmakers would pass legislation so that she and Vicente could be out in the open, living here without constantly worrying that they would be caught and sent back to Guatemala. That day didn’t look like it was coming anytime soon. In the meantime, they tried not to call attention to themselves. But what was happening now was surely going to attract scrutiny.
    Maria felt panicked. Vicente had already gone to the car wash, so she was alone with the baby. If the police came, she didn’t know what she was going to say to them. What if they asked her to prove she was allowed to be here? What if they took her and Rosario and put them in jail? Worse, what if they took Rosario away from her?
    The apartment felt like a trap now. Wanting to get out as fast as she could, Maria hurried to pack the baby’s bottles and diapers in the bag she always took to the babysitter. She washed Rosario’s face and fastened the tiny sandals on her pudgy feet. Maria scooped the child in her arms andstarted up the stairs. Just as the baby spit up all over the front of Maria’s shirt, the doorbell rang.
     
    Two police officers