Chapter 2 - Approaching the Frightened Child
Lily moved toward him because, as she told me later, the orange triangle looked “like the only thing on the road that had stopped too.”
Her left arm was broken.
Not a bruise.
Not a sprain.
Broken.
She held it tight against her chest while Maddie, nine months old, rested against her good shoulder under a thin pink blanket.
Lily’s feet were gray with road dirt and bleeding in several small places.
Daniel went down on one knee.
“Hi.”
That was all.
Lily stopped about ten feet away.
He put his phone face down on the gravel.
“I called for a doctor.”
Her eyes fixed on the phone.
“No police.”
Her voice barely existed.
Daniel lied gently.
“They’re sending medical help first.”
Then he removed his wool coat.
He did not offer it directly.
He laid it flat on the gravel between them and sat back.
“It’s clean,” he said. “You can use it for the baby if you want.”
Lily studied him.
Then the road.
Then the coat.
She knelt awkwardly and placed Maddie on the wool.
Folded the rest of the coat over her.
And positioned herself between Daniel and the baby.
My eight-year-old had learned to use her own body as a door.
He did not try to move her.
“What’s her name?”
Long pause.
“Maddie.”
“And yours?”
Longer.
“Lily.”
The sirens became audible behind them.
Lily’s whole body tightened.
Daniel saw it.
“They’re coming for Maddie.”
Not for you.
Not because you did something wrong.
For the baby.
Lily stared at the orange triangle.
Then she whispered:
“Please don’t take us back.”
Daniel asked the correct question.
“Back where?”
She didn’t answer.
She pressed her good hand over the wool coat, directly above Maddie’s chest, feeling for movement.
Then she whispered one name.
“Ray.”
Daniel stored it.
Inside the blanket beside Maddie was a cracked plastic toy car, red once, though most of the paint had worn away. One wheel was missing. The roof was split.
Lily’s fingers found it without looking.
She closed her hand around it.
A handle.
Something solid.
By the time the first ambulance lights turned the underside of the overpass red and blue, Daniel was still on his knee.
Hands open.
No promises.
No attempt to pick anybody up.
He had stopped.
May you like
That was all he knew how to do.
It was enough to begin.
