Baby on the Sidewalk by Wyatt Tremblay

(unedited)

Heat radiated off the black top in sheets of stifling agony. It hit me like a blast furnace as I exited the sliding doors of the air-conditioned mall. I stopped, having forgotten where I parked my car. I desperately wanted to go home.

I saw the child. It was sitting oddly alone on a well-worn stretch of sidewalk near the mall entrance, wearing only a diaper.

I am not normally given to impulses, Carla calls me a schedule fanatic, but, being a father, I felt something of a twinge of universal responsibility pull at my heart. I walked towards the child.

It was a girl. Her smooth baby face was crowned with a flurry of dark curls. She couldn't have been more than a year old and sat hunched over, like an old man. I could see her left hand held pebbles, which she was grinding fiercely, some of them slipping between her short, puffy fingers. With her other hand she viciously swung a rattle, driving it with each downward swing onto the pitted cement between her pale chubby legs. I wondered why the thing hadn’t shattered into pieces.

 It puzzled me to see a young child moved with such obvious emotion, and without a parent to attend her. I hesitated, looking about, and suddenly noticed that my car was parked near by. At that moment I decided to walk away and mind my own business, and would have had I not felt so gripped by the child's intense anger.

 Shielding my eyes from the glare of the evening sun, I cast an anxious gaze about. There must be someone frantically looking for a misplaced child. No one seemed to notice. How could anyone leave a hapless child alone at a busy mall? Vehicles were pulling in and out in the usual rush hour frenzy and this was decidedly not the best place to abandon a child. Or maybe it was.

 Exasperated, I called to a group of young women standing near my car. They were involved in an animated conversation and didn't hear me. I called again, allowing the frustration I felt to raise the volume of my voice. One of the women, dark haired and noticeably annoyed at being interrupted, turned to squint at me and then at the baby. She gave me a shrug and turned away.

 Perhaps they thought this was my baby.

 Perturbed, I was weary and Carla was expecting me promptly home at seven, I placed my bag of groceries beside the girl and squatted down in front of her. As I reached for one of her hands she responded to my presence and raised her face to mine. A piteous cry escaped her lips.

 Our eyes met.

 I caught my breath sharply. An unexpected presence in her dark eyes pummeled its way into my mind. Something vastly out of place in comparison to the innocence of her tender age yanked at me with a mixture of intense fear. I leaned closer as the sun beat mercilessly down upon us. Her gaze was long and hard and held a power that left me feeling like I might be the fly caught in a spider’s web.

 Then, a long forgotten memory of a black and seemingly fathomless closet, which contained unimaginable horrors for a young boy, erupted like a summer squall across my mind. I had laid awake in wide-eyed terror night after night, peering over the covers, staring at its dark chasm, conjuring up images of flesh wrenching monsters in my adolescent imagination. Shadows that danced with each flicker of the moonlit, wind-blown trees just outside my bedroom window terrorized me. I would cry until my mother came and shamed me for my fear.

 I swallowed hard, my mouth pasty and dry.

 A rivulet of sweat etched a searing trail down the edge of my cheek. My world focused into a rapidly narrowing tunnel that was flooding with the strange dark terror of her eyes. She reached deep into my being with frightening ease. She seemed to be searching me, testing me, beckoning me, holding me captive with her cobra-like stare. I pulled my trembling hand away from hers and tried to wipe the fear away, the bristles of my face rasping in my ears like sandpaper. For a moment I knelt like that, held, captured, blinking profusely from the sting of sweat in my eyes, trying to pull away.

 I was looking into that closet again.

 She shook with a sob. My God, those eyes.

 My legs ached from squatting.

 "Hey," I finally managed to whisper, my voice sounding distant, frightened, detached, "Where's your mommy?"

 I stood then, my knees popping in protest. My whole body was trembling. I fought to rid myself of the sudden assault of emotions, and looked about once again. There was still no interest in the baby on the sidewalk. People with their packages passed us on all sides, their eyes and minds set on some predetermined destination that did not include a moment of shared humanity. I was immediately angered. I too had a place to go. Carla was expecting me and I was always punctual.

 I looked down at the child - her eyes had not left my face - and could not walk away.

 Sighing loudly, half hoping someone would hear my projected annoyance; I picked her up with my right arm and balanced my bag of groceries with my left. I purposely did not look down at her, even when she fearlessly snuggled up to my chest, nestling her head just under my chin. At least her diaper didn’t feel soiled. I swallowed hard, wishing I had taken the time to wipe my stinging eyes, and walked back to the main entrance.

I had to do something. I couldn't just leave her there, I told myself. Someone in the mall would know what to do.

Carla would have to live with that.

 "Oh, you found her!" It was more of a statement then an exclamation of relief.

 "W-what?" I managed to stutter as I placed my inconvenient discovery on the edge of the courtesy counter. I let my bag of groceries slip carefully to the floor by my feet. The baby clung to me.

 "You found the angel baby!” Big smile. The clerk had that disconcerting way of ending each sentence with a perky rise in her voice. The blue streaked ponytail high on the back of her head bounced in unison with each syllable as she spoke. I was immediately filled with trepidation.

 "'Angel baby?'” I echoed, letting my words grow edgy with the irritation I felt within me. I still did not understand.

 The bounce stopped. No smile, "Uh-huh, the angel baby."

 Jerk, I thought to myself. She's just a kid herself.

 "Look I'm sorry. I need to get home, and you seem to know something about this kid," I gently touched the baby’s naked back. She was warm, sticky, and insisted on reaching a small arm around underneath my jacket to grab a hand full of my damp shirt.

 "I found her all alone," I continued, "Just sitting out there with only this diaper on.”

 Her smile returned with a raise of her eyebrows and a big bob of her head. “I know.”

 “You know? You act like this happens everyday."

 I would have fumed on, my right hand waving in frustrated gestures, baby held firmly on the counter with my left, but she, Phyllis - according to the plastic green-trimmed name tag on her green t-shirt - interrupted me with an overly large dimpled grin.

 "Well, it does you know."

 "What does?" My arm froze in mid gesture.

 "It happens everyday," She bobbed, "Seven o'clock. Someone brings the baby in. Mostly everyday. She's such a little cutey, isn't she?"

She took a step closer, leaning on the counter top, and played with a strand of the child's dark hair. I've seen her oh say, maybe five times now. Haven't I, you pretty little thing?"                 

 The 'pretty little thing' pulled her head from my chest and eyed Phyllis.

 "Oh those eyes are something else, eh? Gee. I remember the ..."

 I cut her off this time. "Wait just a minute. You mean to tell me her parents..."

 "Mother."

 "Ok, mother,” I was pointing in exasperation at her, "Her mother leaves her at the mall?"

I paused and Phyllis nodded a vigorous yes.

 I continued. "Every evening at seven and leaves her baby out there?" I pointed.

 "No."

 "But,” I felt my eyes bulging and brought my hand down on the counter top with a slap of frustration that turned a few heads around us. Phyllis started and jumped back. The baby leaned into my chest, gave her rattle a little shake, and seeming totally oblivious to the discussion of her plight.

 " But you just said..."

 I did not need this. Give me someone who makes sense. The hands on my watch were swiftly making there way past seven.

 Phyllis adjusted her green skirt, placed an elbow on the counter between us, rested her chin in the palm of her hand and looked at me with an earnest seriousness.

 "Her mom's crazy you know, " She said, as if sharing some rich piece of gossip, her jaw bouncing up and down in her palm, "Says an angel comes every night at seven and drops her little kid right there," She jabbed her other thumb vaguely in the direction of the parking lot, "On the curb, by the stop sign."

 I stared at Phyllis, unsure of what to say.

 This was getting more bizarre by the moment.

 "Doesn't social services do anything?" I finally asked.

 She shook her head slowly, frowning, "Nothing yet."

 "That doesn't make sense."

 Phyllis nodded in agreement.

"What happens to her then? " I asked holding my warm package closer. She leaned closer into my chest. It felt good.

Suddenly I was not in a hurry. Carla could wait and the air conditioning in the store was slowly soothing the heat-induced ach in my temples to a mild annoyance.

 Phyllis smiled weakly, shrugged minutely and sighed deeply through her slightly upturned nose, "I’ve taken her home a few times.”

There was a hint of something almost dreamy in her voice as she said this. It puzzled me.

“You?”

“Yeah. Or, Chuck, the security guard, or Herb, "She stood back from the counter and pointed her thumb at a door behind and to the left of her. There was a big yellow happy face above Herbs nameplate. "The manager, you know, sometimes takes her home or back to her mom. "

 "What's her mothers name?"

 "'Lizabeth something," She shrugged again like it was never really important to her.

“ Where does ‘Lizabeth something’ live?

“Cross town. Near the Safeway on Fourth.”

"What about her name?" I placed a hand on the side of the child's head. She snuggled, whimpering a small sound, like a kittens purr. A delicate hand reached up to blindly feel my face.

Great.

Phyllis did her little smile/shrug thing again, not answering me. ”Want I should call Herb or do you want to take her home?”

I said yes to the first and no to the second. She reached beneath the counter and brought up a green colored telephone receiver.

 I was beginning to feel confused. This wasn’t right. The little hand at the side of my face found an eye so I gently brought her fingers back down to my chest. She amused herself with my tie. There was something nice and comforting about how she held onto me. The ghost of a memory flickered before me and I thought of Colleen when she was this age. It was a good age. The age when they still needed you, even if only for a diaper change and a full bottle. I smiled and the weight of the day began to fade away.

 "Herb," Phyllis spoke into the receiver, "Courtesy counter please."

 Her words echoed throughout the store over tinny sounding ceiling speakers. She looked at me, her lips a fine line, plucked eyebrows raised, then stood on her toes and gazed around what was visible of the store from where we were.

 We waited.

 And waited.

 I mimicked her surveillance of the store although I had no idea what Herb looked like.

 It was then I suddenly realized my heart was pounding. The unconscious unthinkable thing that was trying to escape into my awareness was filling my chest with nervous excitement. Several little streams of perspiration worked there way down the edge of my jaw and again I awakened to memories of Colleen as a baby. Safe, with parents who were not perfect, but who cared and were there for her. Someone had to care for this baby. Someone.

 No! Not me!

 I felt the warmth of this strange but defenseless child against me. For some unknown reason she had reached out to me in trust and despite the frightening memory that had unexpectedly been gouged from my childhood, for the first time in a long while I felt needed. Carla had her house and Avon and Colleen had her loud music and boy friends. I had my job, relentlessly mundane and efficiently boring but a long way from making any kind of lasting impact on anything worthwhile. Anything at all.

 It made no sense to continue this unrealistic and painful train of thought. There was nothing I could do. I am not a social worker and it had been sixteen years since we had cared for a baby in the house.

 "Maybe call that security guard," I ventured, though somewhat reluctantly.

 Phyllis gave an annoyed sniff; looking somewhat exasperated she picked up the receiver again.

 "Look mister, you don’t get it. People usually just take the kid home or leave her here and we..."

 "Just call what's his name, please," I had to end this. Had to know the baby would be safe, taken care of.

 "Chuck,” She started.

 "No…wait!" I spat it out so forceful that she dropped the phone and sharp rasping feedback screeched around us. People turned to look.

 "I'll take her home."

 Stop.

 What am I doing?

 Stop. Stop.

 I was already out the sliding doors, baby in arms.

 Groceries?

 Groceries!

 No way was I going back now. I threw a quick almost guilty glance over my shoulder. Phyllis was placing the receiver back under the counter, a very big smile on her face. Like she knew something I didn’t. That worried me. Maybe she was just relieved to see that someone was finally going to do something about the child. Something decent for another human being. Maybe.

 The baby giggled in my arms.

 Carla was going to flip.

 Carla did not flip.

 I should have called on the cell phone and warned her, but I chickened out. I’m not a rash person, but what I was doing was definitely out of character. How could I explain this to her?

 I parked the car in the back alley behind the garage, out of sight, and slipped into the house through the rear entrance, the baby held tightly to me. The hinges of the screen door screeched like fingernails across a black board. I had been meaning to fix that. Carla heard it.

 "Harold?"

 Carla was in the kitchen, just off the porch. I heard a rattle of utensils and very suddenly she was there, standing in the hallway, dishtowel in her hands. It was part of a set I given her at Christmas. They were hand embroidered. Very expensive. She was happy then. She was not happy now. I was late and her fair complexion had darkened into a thunderous cloud that matched the shiny blackness of her carefully curled hair. That is, until she saw the baby in my arms. Her perfect eyebrows shot up and her mouth opened in an unusually expansive smile. I swallowed hard and began my pre-rehearsed attempt at an explanation.

 "A baby!” She squealed with girlish glee, the words sounding very strange within these walls. With deft skill she flicked the dishtowel over her left shoulder and just as quickly relieved me of my little bundle. My arms ached.

 "Uh, Carla," I started, but she was off, around the corner to the kitchen, making cute cooing sounds to the child.

 What? She seemed overwhelmed with...joy? I dragged my coat off, throwing it into the closet. Hang it up later.

 "Carla," I protested, hoping I didn't sound to annoyed. Well, the kid was my responsibility. I’d found her. She was technically my problem.

 I came around the corner into our small brightly lit kitchen. The table was set for the evening meal and the air was rich with the aroma of pot roast. My favorite. A forgotten nagging in the pit of my stomach reminded me that I was very hungry. Reaching for a carrot stick from the table and brandishing it like a sword, I turned to where Carla was leaning against the counter by the sink. I was ready for war. This baby was my problem. The baby...

 I stopped very abruptly, my heels squeaking on the lino. My mouth went dry. The carrot fell from my suddenly trembling hands and spiraled to the floor. It hit with a feint thud.

 Carla was not holding a baby in a cloth diaper.

 She held in her arms a child of four or five, dressed in a blue cotton gingham skirt with puffy sleeves. There were white socks and shiny black shoes with silver buckles on what should have been pudgy bare feet and a white knitted bow in what were now quite long dark brown tresses. She still held onto the rattle.

 "Oh Harold. A little girl!” Carla stopped cuddling and squeezing the baby… child, long enough to flash me what looked like a grateful smile.

 Was I going insane? I glanced around our small kitchen for the baby. No baby. What was going on here? Where was the baby?

 I opened my mouth to speak, but could not. My lips felt like sticky leather and the taste of fear sat on my tongue like a demon as a realization gripped me. The closet of my horrors loomed ominously in front of me and I began to feel my chest constrict again. I wanted to run, to hide, to reach some safe shore of sanity, but it held me captive as the infant slowly turned her head and smiled at me. It was she. It was her eyes and they gripped me again. Ripped me from reality and sucked me into her own private terror. I fought, coughed, and jerked my eyes away as if a hot poker threatened them.

 "Carla," I managed to gasp as I lunged across the kitchen floor. My foot found the carrot and it crunched loudly and sharply as it rocketed out from the sides of my shoe.

 "Oh, Harold," She ignored me. "Where did you find her? Who is she? What's her name?"

 Her barrage of questions was a jumble of noise in my head as I pulled the child roughly from her arms. Perhaps a little to roughly. I swung the girl around, the rattle shook. She was heavier and smelled of flowers. I forced myself to face those eyes.

 "What happened here? Who are you?" I demanded fiercely, resisting the panic that was rushing with a vengeance up my throat.

 Her lashes were long, delicate, and her big dark eyes blinked at me. She squirmed in my to-hard grip and, with a surprisingly firm adult tone to her voice, answered.

"Pama." She said through clenched teeth.

 I nearly dropped her.

Carla would not listen. She took Pama from me, rebuking me for such unseemly behavior towards her "little angel". Using great angry gestures, I explained several times that I had brought home a baby from the mall. I found her, I said, not a four-year old dressed in her Sunday best, but a near-naked baby. Wasn't it a baby that she had taken from my arms on the back porch? Yes, it was a baby. A little baby. I explained to her what Phyllis at the courtesy counter had told me, about ‘Lizabeth or something, her crazy mother, but I might as well have been talking to a wall. I paced the kitchen floor feeling like the great patriarchal protector of my family, but looking very much the fool, barking and waving my arms.

 She ignored me and with a touch of motherly tenderness I had not seen for some time she sat Pama at the table, lifting the thickness of her hair so that it lay across her young shoulders.

 "You've had a trying day dear.” Carla dismissed me, ” No more nonsense. Now go and wash up and we'll have dinner with Pama. Oh, isn't she so sweet?" She bubbled, physically shooing me out of the kitchen and down the hall.

 Pama, of course, just smiled and giggled, looking entirely too comfortable. She seemed to fit, like this was her home and her mother. An ominous shiver traversed the hair at the back of my neck as I closed the bathroom door behind me.

I stood facing the vanity for a full five minutes, my fingers attempting to gouge into the sides of the counter top. My face, haggard and drawn, stared back at me from the mirror. Got to think this out. None of this made sense. It was like a terrible dream. Maybe it was.

My eyes were blood shot and my cheeks flushed with emotion. I did look a mess. I reached a shaking hand up to my face and felt the aging contours of my jaw and then slid it through my disheveled hair. My fingers found the ridge of the scar that ran for two inches along my part. The tree. I had tried to chop that shadowy tree down outside my bedroom window. I had awakened in the hospital some hours later to the vision of my mother’s concerned, yet angry face. My parents had moved me to the basement bedroom after that.

I hoped that I would be waking up any minute.

I washed my face with a hot cloth letting the heat sooth my tense muscles and ran a comb through my hair. I felt lost. Things were out of control. Hadn’t others taken this child home before me? Phyllis at the store had said so. Why did this happen now? To me? Why didn't Carla see the change in the baby? Twilight Zone material. Didn't I see something like this on Star Trek? God, what was I going to do? My brain ached with the pressure.

 Carla called from the kitchen with that tone in her voice. I hated that tone. Made me feel like a child. I grabbed the door handle and stopped. I was being a Good Samaritan when I rescued the baby from the sidewalk. Or had I rescued her? Perhaps, she was rescuing us from our dull lives. Carla was happy, happier then I had seen her in years. I was used to her efficient self-control. She rarely laughed, except at her Avon parties. She came alive then. But now, I was totally freaked. Curious, but my stomach was churning with the fear of the unknown. None of this made sense. I did bring a baby home. I did, didn’t I?

I shook my head, sighed heavily through my mouth and Carla called again. O.K., reality check. Get some answers. Go out there and get some answers. I walked into the hall and entered the kitchen. Carla was sitting at her place, with her back to the refrigerator door looking a trifle annoyed at me. Our mysterious guest was sitting where Colleen usually sat. Where was Colleen? I was about to ask that question when I choked on the saliva in my throat.

 Pama was no longer a four year old. She now appeared to be at least ten and the blue gingham dress had "grown" lace ruffles around the neck and arms and seemed to fit her larger size just perfect. Like it was tailored to fit. Her knitted hair bow now clasped the side of her head and had shiny little pearls sown around its crimped edges. It held several long and healthy looking ringlets of hair in place while the rest hung pleasantly down and over her shoulders. I could not see her shoes for they where hidden underneath the table, but I could imagine the changes that had occurred while I was in the washroom had also extended to her feet.

 I stumbled forward, like someone trapped in a horrible dream. I wanted so badly to run and scream and slap myself and wake up. But I could not. I slid slowly and deliberately down into my chair, watching Pama. She seemed very normal. I could see nothing really strange about her except for those eyes. They still played with your soul like wind on chimes.

 Carla was speaking.

 "Harold? Harold?"

 I turned my gaze to her not wanting to take my eyes off Pama. Everything was beginning to feel extremely surreal.

 "Um?"

 "How many slices?"

 What was she talking about? I shifted my eyes back to Pama and asked my own question, directed at Carla. "When did this happen? Did you see it happen?"

 I think Carla just stared at me, for when she did not answer, I looked at her and saw her what-kind-of-an-idiot-question-is-that frown.

"When did this child become a, uh, ten year old?" I guessed her age saying it very slowly, bringing my eyes back to the girl. Deliberate. I could feel my teeth grinding as she in turn lifted her eyes to mine. I was feeling bold, confrontational.

 Pama smile and reached for her glass of milk. The rattle, blue and looking aged, lay beside her plate. I could not see any of the pebbles she had been furiously holding onto when I’d first found her. Whoever or whatever she was, the fact that apparently I alone could see the changes in her did not seem to frighten her.

 "Excuse me?" Carla answered.

 I swallowed, audibly loud, "Carla, I brought home a baby girl, in a diaper," My hands began their dance through the air." Suddenly she is four or five, and dressed. I go to the bathroom and five minutes later she is like...this. Ten, or something.

 "Nine.” The girl’s soft voice jerked me like an electric shock. "Oh, excuse me. I did not mean to interrupt." She hastily apologized, shyly, a milk moustache just beneath her wickedly cute nose.

 "Harold." Carla scolded. "What is wrong with you?"

 My hand hit the table. My plate caught the force of the anger and it and my fork flipped up into the air and landed with a clatter, upside down. Peas and mashed potatoes splattered against the wall beside me. I didn't care. I was really angry. Tired of the bizarreness that was swirling out of control around me. I wanted answers.

 "Carla," I growled. "Listen to me. I brought home a baby. A baby, Carla!" I took a deep breath. My whole body was shaking. "There is something absolutely bizarre going on here and you can’t see it happening?!"

 I grabbed Pamas' right arm and leaned into her across the table. "Who are you?"

 She, for the first time, seemed to be very frightened and tears immediately welled up in her eyes. It had to be an act.

 "Pama." She whispered, her face taut with distress.

 Carla protested. I brushed her hand off my arm.

 "Pama? What, is that short for Pamela?"

 Carla protested louder. I was losing control; I could feel it. I was out numbered.

To my surprise, anger streamed across Pama's young face as she squinted and with surprising strength, pulled from my grasp. The force of the release caused me to jerk back suddenly.

Then the little girl screamed shrilly at me, "My name is Pama!"

Then she sat up very straight, straightened the aged rattle, tilted her head a little to the left, smoothed out her dress around her lap and said quite gently with just a hint of seething bitterness, "My mother calls me Pamela."

 Pama changed once more that evening, unabashedly right in front of myself, Carla and Colleen.

I had recanted at the supper table, withdrawing into a sullen silence. Colleen came home from some major emotional event in her life, acted like she had always known Pama, and we, as a family, sat down at Pama's subtle leading to look at photo albums.

 After supper, and after Pama almost to happily helped clean the kitchen, we retreated to the living room where she asked to see our photo albums. Her ability to comprehend and communicate seemed to grow as she "grew". It was as if she really where a nine year old. I didn't believe it for one minute. She could fool Carla and Colleen, but I had found her. I knew her, saw past the deception.

 We had flipped to the pages that held photos of Colleens' last birthday party when suddenly Pama pointed to one photo and asked what a certain item was in the picture. All three of us looked up at her at the same time. I watched her questioning face, blinked, and suddenly she was much older.

 She changed from a nine year old to what appeared to be Colleen’s age and only I seemed to notice. My daughter and Carla just kept on talking, flipping the pages. Carla even had to move a little on the couch to accommodate Pama's significantly larger size. It was as if nothing unusual had just happened.

"Hold on," I croaked hoarsely. "Didn't you see that? She just changed! Right here!”

 I jumped to my feet, pleading, brandishing a shaky finger at Pama. “ Right in front of us. Didn't anyone see that?"

 No. No one saw "that" and no one would answer any more of my “ ridiculous” questions. They elected to ignore me, regarding me with a disgusted indifference. I should have been more then angry, infuriated in fact, but I had resigned myself to this nightmarish dream. I would follow it through and see what the end might be.

 That thought made me shudder. I sat back down across from Carla and made note of the change in our guest with a cautious silence.

 Pama had changed into a lovely young lady. A short sleeveless blouse that was shaded in blues and edged with little ruffles around the neckline replaced her gingham dress. She now wore baggy blue jeans that fit, as I half suspected, as if they were designed for her. Her hair was very long, slightly reddish, falling half way down her back, and held tightly to the sides of her aquiline head by two small knitted bows. Her face was evenly tanned, holding a hint of the elegant looking woman she would possibly become. There was still that mysterious feeling of maturity that didn't quite fit her age.

Hanging from her graceful neck was a small, blue, and very old looking miniature rattle. Every time she would glance at me I would see those eyes, feel their grasp on my mind and tremble.

It puzzled me that Colleen seemed so happy. It was as if Pama brought the child out of her again. She seemed to unearth something long covered over by teenage emotions and terse cold disputes with her father. They seemed to know each other like life-long friends and laughed and giggled with an intimacy that suggested a history I knew was impossible. Pama had done something to her mind, but for the first time in a long time my daughter sat with her family. She seemed...human, again. Not isolated to her room, her music, her infuriatingly long, secretive phone calls.

Even Carla laughed freely, the crowfeet betraying her age around her eyes fading with the laughter of forgotten memories as the three of them flipped page after page of our family history.

It was then that I had calmed down enough and decided to bring out my camera. Indeed, I was somewhat angry with myself for not thinking of it sooner, but I had been far to disturbed by the strangeness of this evening to think rationally. I shot two rolls of film, hoping Pama would make one of her transformations, but she did not.

 Before each photo she turned her head and looked into the lens, through it, like she knew that I was about to photograph her and something deep inside me wanted to break away and flee. She smiled, appeared happy, but the piercing depths of her eyes remained the one constant that did not change. I would have taken several more rolls of pictures, but Carla suddenly announced, as she flipped the last page of Colleens' album closed with a slap, that it was far to late to look at any more photos.

 She immediately shooed the "girls" off to bed. Pama could share Colleens' bed. My heart leapt into my throat. I would not have my daughter sleeping in the same room with whatever I had brought home. Again, though, I was out numbered. I argued furiously with Carla, running through my facts, my fears, my theories, but to no avail. As it had been all night, my protests were met with firm resistance. Carla was adamant, almost as furious towards my rejection of Pama as I was towards her strange acceptance of our guest.

 Colleen glared at me with an all to familiar contempt as she went to her room with Pama in tow. Pama just smiled.

I hung my head, stomped angrily around the house, grumbled, but eventually found myself alone and exiled to the couch for the night.

 I would not sleep.

 How could I sleep?

 Some alien thing had stolen the minds and hearts of my family.

 Carla’s gentle shaking woke me.

 I sat up suddenly, the blood draining from my head with a Vesuvian roar that brought on an instant throbbing just behind my right eye. My lower back twitched from my night on the couch.

 “You’re late for work, Harold.” Her voice punched through my fog.

God. What a dream.

 Rubbing my forehead, I staggered to my feet half sensing the pathetic condition of my clothes and aimed myself in the general direction of the bathroom. Why didn’t I have a shower last night?

 “What time is it?” I muttered. Then as an after thought, “Did Colleen get off to school on time?”

 “Ten thirty one.” Carla answered efficiently from somewhere. “And Colleen left early with Pama. Such a nice girl.”

 Pama!

 Oh God.

 I shuddered. A wave of dizziness swept over me and I had to brace myself against the hallway wall. It wasn’t a dream!

 Pama went to school! My daughters school!

 Of course. Some how it all made sense in my stressed mind. I keenly remembered her interest in Colleen’s photo album. That’s when she had changed that last time. Maybe, whatever she was, fed off of...of what? Children? She would want to go after the children. That’s what she was after! Children. I’d seen that movie. She had planned to go to school with Colleen all along and I was the patsy that led her to my child. To other children!

 Idiot.

 Things were spiraling out of control. I didn’t like this. I felt like I was floundering in a whirlpool of madness. I had to get to Colleen’s school and put and end to this nightmare. Now!

 In the washroom I ran a comb through my thinning confusion of hair and splashed cold water over the weary lines of my face. Visions of dead children began to flood my mind. I don’t think Carla heard me rasp a goodbye as I exploded out the backdoor, but I didn’t care. I seemed to be the only sane person left in my home.

I hastily called my office from the cell phone in the car and lied. I was sick. I had never missed a day of work due to illness, but the whole stupid world was sick. Poisoned by a crafty shape-shifting demon that had possessed the minds of everyone dear to me.

 I hit the overpass, narrowly missing an over loaded semi and doing far more then the posted speed limit. It was normally an hour’s drive from the suburbs to Colleen’s school, it was already 10:15 and traffic was heavy. I drove like a mad man, blasting my horn at otherwise civil drivers, taking chances I would never have dreamed of before, but I was a man possessed. My carefully crafted middle class life had been invaded and I had changed. For a moment it frightened me. I was breaking every painstakingly created moment of my scheduled life, every sense of security and comfort. Then, I remembered my daughter.

 Oh God. I hoped I wasn’t to late. Be ok! Be ok!

 As I dangerously careened into the school parking lot I felt alive, really alive and yet terrified to the bottom of my core. This was the fear of my childhood closet. The acute awareness of my mortality. Senses quickened to the extreme, every second played out in mind-numbing slow motion. I seem to drift outside my body and watch from some place far away and yet frighteningly near.

I moved with amazing speed. Through the front doors. Past the surprised faces in the front office and up two flights of stairs that shone with institutional wax. I slipped and slammed ungracefully head first onto the second floor landing and then into swinging doors, marked with the fingerprints of countless children. Living children! I didn’t stop. I lurched up, arms and legs driven with a ferocity and desperation that felt no immediate register of pain.

 The door marked 233 burst open with the release of my fear as I suddenly found myself imprisoned in my body, my chest heaving and straining for air, my eyes, the feel of anguish in them, narrowed, focused, scanning, searching.

 Where was she? By the windows...with Pama!

 Colleen looks alive. No bodies. No mangled distorted bodies. No hellish demon wrenching the life from the children. What?

 Pama was still the same as last night. Innocent. No one is dead?

 “May I help you?”

 I stare. My face is taut with emotion. Disbelief. My eyes bulge with the pressure of my pounding heart. Colleen lifts her eyes to the sudden eruption of noise and smiles as she recognizes me and then frowns just as quickly. The life of the classroom stops and waits.

 “Excuse me?” From somewhere.

 Pama connects with my eyes. I can feel her smile, though my own eyes never leave hers. The hunter and the hunted. The soulless and the beguiled. I want to scream, wretch, throw myself to the floor and beg for release from this hell, but what shred of self preservation I have left prevails and I look away.

 “Excuse me. May I help you, uh, Mr...?”

 I focus on the voice, see the face. I know her. Petite. Dark, mid twenties. Colleen’s teacher. A good teacher. A vague memory of a parent teacher interview slips past my mind. Alice Stinson. Miss Alice Stinson. Her name.

 “Harold. Harold Johnson, uh, Miss Stinson. I’m Colleen’s father.” I stammer, suddenly feeling very self-aware.

I run a trembling hand through my hair and immediately sense pain in that hand. In the back of my mind I’m aware of something wet oozing down my left leg. Blood?

“Mr. Johnson? Is there a problem?” Miss Stinson looks a little anxious, ”Are you alright?”

“Uh, yeah.” My eyes shift back to Pama. She is still watching me. I tremble like a cold breeze just blew over me, “I, I just wanted to sit in on the class today.”

“Really?” Miss Stinson’s eyebrows arched up.

I caught her look. I’ve never come before, but then, neither has Pama. ”Look, I know it’s kind of sudden, but I have the day off and I though it would be, uh, kind of nice to see what my daughter does, uh, all day.” I shrugged, ”You know, like when I’m at work.”

It was weak, and I must have looked like a street bum begging for a hand out, but she suddenly smiled graciously, nodded her head and turned me to the class by the elbow, ”Class, this is Colleen’s father, Mr. Johnson, and he’s going to spend some time with us watching what we do.”

Watching Pama, you mean, I thought.

 Several students looked at me and almost sympathetically, I thought, at Colleen as Miss Stinson led me to an area in the back of the classroom where there were chairs, students cubbyholes and a place to hang coats.

”We’re right in the middle of second period, Mr. Johnson. Colleen’s doing math. If you want, you may take one of these chairs and sit next to her and...”

 “No.” I stopped her with a rush of pent up emotion. Then smiled apologetically as she flinched. ”I mean, I’ll just sit here,” She started to turn away, a trace of confusion on her face, but I grabbed her arm. She stumbled as I pulled her close. ”Tell me, do you know that girl over there?”

She looked at me, frowned, and then turned to see where I was unceremoniously pointing. Pama had turned back to her conversation with Colleen who herself kept throwing glances my way. She looked concerned.

 “Do you mean Pama?” The teacher turned her eyes back to me.

“Yes, yes, her. Do you know her?”

The frown deepened. I must have appeared very odd, but I didn’t care. ”Yes,” She slowly ventured, ”As well as any of my students.”

“She’s a student of yours?” I hissed; several heads turned in our direction.

“Yes, Mr. Johnson, since September. Is there a problem?”

“Do you really know who she is?”

“Excuse me?”

“Pama. Do you know what she is?” I felt the blood rushing to my head; black spots flitted like flies across my vision, the battle coursing through me again. Had the whole world been duped by this child. I knew I wasn’t crazy.

“Mr. Johnson, you’re hurting me.” I looked down. I was holding her arm tightly and I was hurting her. I threw her arm aside and leaned into her face. She scrunched her nose at the closeness of my breath. My teeth. I hadn’t brushed my teeth.

“Listen. I don’t think you know what you have here. I don’t think she’s human and I think your whole class could be in great danger. You should call the principle and evacuate the school. I think she’s maybe an,” I caught the disbelieving look in her eyes,”...uh, I don’t know. Just get my daughter and the other students out of the......” I stopped, my arms in mid sweep. Colleen’s teacher had narrowed her eyes at me and I suddenly felt naked. How did she do that?

“Mr. Johnson, “ She whispered sharply, ”You had better be joking. No. You had better not be joking. I have a class to teach and if you wish to watch, you may, but otherwise leave my students alone.” She turned to leave me there, my mouth still caught in mid sentence. She stopped, reversed on her heels, put a small hand on my chest and forced me down into a chair. She leaned in close to my ear.

“And furthermore, Mr. Johnson, Pama is one of the brightest and most intelligent students I have ever had the privilege to teach. Your daughter is fortunate to have her as a friend and a mentor.” She smiled tightly, inches from my face, straightened up, smoothed her dress and finished me off like a skilled swordsman. ”Now sit there, watch the class and be quiet. Or, leave”

She walked away then, several students chuckling. Colleen looked like she could kill me.

I slumped back into the chair, resigned, and allowed my eyes to follow Miss Stinson to the front of “her classroom”. I couldn’t believe it. Another Carla.

I sighed heavily. Again I felt out numbered. Helpless.

I would just sit and watch the class. Watch Pama. I was no fool. If everybody else was drawn into her illusion, that was fine. I wouldn’t be. I knew what she was.

I pulled my comb from one of my jacket pockets and felt the Swiss Army knife I always carried there.

I “watched” the class the entire day. I followed them to lunch, to gym class, and out onto the school grounds at recess time, Colleen despising every moment of what she had probably hoped would be a short fatherly intrusion.

Pama kept casting that soulless smile at me, freezing me with the frightening depths of her eyes.

I was relentless. I took students aside at break that I’d seen in her class and secretly asked them if they knew Pama and how long had they known her? The answers where all the same. It was as if I was the only person who hadn’t known her.

It was confusing. Was the entire school delusional?

Pama continued to flash her enduring smile, continued to pierce me through with those eyes. I had to close that closet door, but no one would listen to me. I had become the court jester, the clown. Word spread through the school and teachers and students alike would walk slowly past the open doors of the classroom hoping to capture a glimpse of Colleen’s strange father. My head ached and throbbed by the time the final bell rang.

Pama seemed to be the focus of the entire class. She laughed and helped others, floating from one student to the next, often giving a hand to Miss Stinson. She was incredible to watch. It reminded me of a black widow spider courting her unlucky mate. Grace, charm, a little romancing and then...dinner. Everywhere she went she brought a sense of comfort and well being. She was smart. She knew the answers to every question. Not arrogantly, but with the gentleness of a wise old teacher. I was amazed. How gullible people were. Why could only I see through her? Why wasn’t I charmed by her infectious persona? Could no one else see the chilling depths of her eyes?

She had not changed once during the day. Her bouncy positive attitude danced around the room infecting everybody with her lust for learning, her zeal for living. I remained distant, untouched, unmoved, more determined then ever to unmask her, to call her charade.

The final bell rang and the class erupted into a chaos of books, scraping chairs and Miss Stinson giving last minute homework assignments. I watched Pama. Her and Colleen gathered their books together and would have left without even acknowledging my presence had I not reached for Colleen’s arm. She froze and I could sense the tension between us. Pama stopped and turned that lethally cute face towards me. I avoided the eyes.

“Colleen, I’ll give you a ride home.” I offered tentatively. I knew she probably hated me right now, but, I didn’t care, I was saving her life.

My daughter pulled away from my hand and threw me an angry sideways glance. ”Not on your life, Dad. Come on Pama.”

“What? Wait a minute Colleen.” What did she say? Pama. “Is Pama coming home again? With you? To our house?”

Miss Stinson was making her way towards me, but I caught up to Colleen and attempted to grab her arm again. She pulled away. “Of course, Dad. She lives with us. We need to get to the bus.”

“Mr. Johnson”?”

My daughter, my little girl, was walking away from me, with Pama. She “lives with us”? I had to stop this. I could feel the minute weight of the knife in my jacket. It might not be big enough.

“Excuse me. Mr. Johnson?”

My head felt like it was ready to explode. I had been patient all day; watching, wondering, try to hold onto the last fetters of my sanity. Reasoning with myself, analyzing the events of the day before, and today, trying to see past my deep sense of dread. She was the closet. Why did this have to happen now? Why did she come to school? Something wasn’t right. I had to figure this out. Figure out what?

“Mr. Johnson...”

“What?” I roared at the face that suddenly blocked my view of the departing girls.

She tensed with the severity of my response, but she was a teacher. She had starred down countless bullies before me.

“Sorry.” I muttered feeling suddenly ashamed.

“Go home, Mr. Johnson. Get some rest. You need it.” She turned to address a student near her, but stopped. “Oh, and don’t come here again unless you clear it with the front office.”

She didn’t wait for my reply. Just left me standing in the middle of the ebbing flow of escaping students. My mouth was incredibly dry. I looked for Colleen and Pama, but they were gone.

I quickly made my way to the parking lot. My car was not there. In my furious hast I had parked it in a handicap zone. It took me an hour and thirty-eight dollars to get to the city compound by taxi and another hour to get home through rush hour traffic. It had been a bad day. I almost wished that Pama would transform into something really evil and just eat me. Tear me from limb to limb. I didn’t care. I was hungry, confused, and weary from lack of sleep and feeling totally alone. More alone then I had ever felt before.

 At 6:15 I stumbled through the back door of my home, it’s hinges screeching their unwelcome hello. I threw my jacket in the direction of the closet, the knife thumping dully against the wall. I didn’t care. Carla was in the kitchen, peeling carrots. Didn’t I have carrots last night?

“Where’s Colleen?” I had no sooner asked the question when my subconscious mind kicked in and I heard the tremors of music coming from her room.

“Hi Harold. Your home early? Have a good day?” Carla turned to me and stopped abruptly. A carrot fell from her hand and hit the floor at her feet with a dull thud. Deja Vu. “Are you ill? You look terrible, honey.”

I ignored her and asked again. “Colleen in her room? With Pama?”

Carla frowned and bent to retrieve the carrot. “Yes.”

 I turned towards the hallway when Carla asked me. “Who’s Pama?”

 My mind didn’t register her question. I was focused towards Colleen’s room.

Who’s Pama?

I pounded on the door. The “piss off” sign flapping against it with the percussion of my fist. The music died.

Who’s Pama?

“What?” An irritated voice, that used to be so full of fondness for me, answered.

Turning the handle I pushed her door open. Colleen was sprawled on her bed surrounded by schoolbooks. A big smile broke her face as she saw me.

“Oh, Hi daddy.” What? Oh hi daddy?

I starred at her, unsure. Something wasn’t right. She should be really angry. There was no sign of Pama. I glanced briefly around her room. God, was I ever tired.

“Daddy? Are you ok?”

I brought my aching eyes back to hers. “Where’s Pama?”

Confusion creased her forehead as she sat up on the edge of her bed. The book on her lap fell to the carpet. “Pama?”

“Yes, Pama. She spent the night with us. Went to school with you today. Your teacher adores her. In fact, the whole school just loves her. I’ve been, uh, sort of rude towards her?”

Still no response, ”She has a tiny rattle around her neck on a chain.”

Still that blank stair. What was going on?

“Who’s Pama?” echoed in my ears. A wave of dizziness suddenly swept over me and the room began to lose focus.

“Are you alright, Dad?”

“Where’s Pama?” I braced myself and leaned into her room.

“I don’t know any Pama, Daddy. Is that short for Pamela?” She looked really scared, not like she was hiding something, but more like she was beginning to be very afraid of me.

I stopped by her bed, my hands trembling. ”You don’t know a Pama?”

Tears lined the bottoms of her mascara-lined eyes. I was really frightening her. ”No. Should I?”

 I held her frightened gaze for a moment longer, and then gently touched the side of her head. I hadn’t been able to do that for a long time. She hadn’t let me. ”No, honey. I’m sorry. I’ve had a very bad day. I think I need to get some sleep.”

My feet headed for the bedroom door, my mind swirling with questions. I really was crazy. I had to be. There was no other explanation. Or was there?

 “Daddy?”

 “Um?” I turned to see her reaching for my hand. She looks just like a younger version of Carla. My heart ached.

 “I love you, Daddy.” She hugged me and I held her close, almost afraid to let go because I knew this had to be a dream. A treacherously unfair dream. She let go, embarrassment flashing across her face. Teenagers.

I left her there. Worried about me. I was worried about me. Pama was real. She had to be. It was all to vivid, to intense, to be a dream, a nightmare. I stumbled into the kitchen. Carla was pulling a pot roast out of the oven, its savory fragrance grasping at the pains of hunger in my stomach. Pot roast. Tonight? We don’t have pot roast tonight. Carla is like clockwork. I’m like clockwork. We don’t have pot roast tonight.

What?

 “Where having pot roast again?” I numbly asked, my voice trembling.

She turned to me, smiling warmly with just a hint of mischievousness, ”A change is as good as a move.”

I just stared at her. She looked younger somehow. We hadn’t changed our “family traditions” in several years. Didn’t need to. Didn’t want to. Or, maybe, didn’t have the courage to. Until Pama.

I would have asked her about Pama but it seemed useless. I knew what the answer would be. Who’s Pama? I had been wrong about her. Very wrong. But what was she? Why had she come into our lives?

 In a fatigued daze I stumbled out of the house. Carla called after me but I ignored her, catching a glimpse of her worried face in the rear view mirror as I drove off. I needed to get to the mall where this indigestible nightmare had begun. Back to where I had found the baby on the sidewalk the evening before.

I pulled into the mall parking lot and found a spot several rows from the store entrance. I didn’t lock the car, I don’t think I even shut the car door, I just ran. A strange new energy coursed through me. Expectancy. My left leg clipped a bumper, but it didn’t register. My watch flashed 6:59 as I past the last row of cars and shot my gaze towards the spot where I had found her. Seven o’clock, Phyllis had said, every night near the doors.

She wasn’t there. What? I slumped in defeat. I thought for sure I had figured it out. Then suddenly, as if I had blinked, she was there. The baby. The rattle in her hand, smashing it onto the sidewalk. The grinding pebbles in her hand barely audible from where I watched. Slowly, almost not breathing, I walked to her. Weariness raked my body, but it had become just a distant annoyance.

 Her near-naked body trembled with the anger I remembered from yesterday. I knew that anger. That fear. The closet. No escape. The shadows dancing across my bed. Laughing at me, taunting me, inviting me to fall into its grip. I had been trapped by my own fear of the unknown. The unwillingness to face the uncertain future and blindly stumble forward knowing that the darkness won’t leave, the unknown will still be a mystery, but I will have moved forward.

I knelt down in front of her and gently reached for the hand that held the rattle. She lifted her curly head to mine.

Our eyes met.

My chest constricted...with joy. Suddenly I understood.

I picked her up, holding her close as laughter began to ripple out of me, washing over me, plunging deep and bubbling up to explode with incredible relief. I held her up to see those eyes. Those eyes. They were still very much alive, but they didn’t frighten me. I welcomed them. I saw my own release in them, just like I had seen my own buried but desperate fear mirrored in them the day before. Her eyes had seen countless sunrises and sunsets, and curiosity, not fear, reflected in their light. They had learned to laugh. Laughed at the fear, the loneliness, at the unknown.

That’s why she sat on that sidewalk every evening, why she pounded the sidewalk with that rattle, drawing attention, calling to the wounded, to free whomever would answer. She wanted them see their own fears, to see beyond them, to see the world through the eyes of an eternally curious and innocent child. That’s why she made everyone so happy. She loved life, her life, and the life around her. It didn’t matter if it was monotonous suburbia, or if it was callously unfair, it was always new to her. She really was “the angel baby” and she wanted to share it.

My own fears had overwhelmed me and had left me paralyzed and useless. I had retreated into my own self-focused world and fearfully shut everyone out, protecting myself with the carefully crafted timetables of a pitiful existence. Pama had awakened me, thrown the proverbial stick into the spokes of my comfort zone, made me face those uncertainties, my own nightmares. She made me see that they were nothing more than the illusions of my childhood fears and disappointments.

The baby clung to me, like I was her father. And everyday I would be. Every day I would face my fears and laugh. I would hold her, and Carla, and Colleen, and enjoy the short curiosity we call life. Then she would leave and I would find her back on the sidewalk, waiting for me. Together we would face the closet.

I walked lightly back to the car, the madness of the last day becoming clearer. Pama snuggled in my arms, oblivious to the stench of fear that had stained my clothing. I felt good. Not just happy, but really good. I had finally crawled out from under my covers and closed that closet door. I had finally grown up. The dark was still there, the shadows, but I knew the fire of a new curiosity, a new zeal for life, would touch every day.

I would bring Pama home today and every day until I saw someone else who needed her more. Then I too would share the smile I had seen on Phyllis; Phyllis with the bouncing-blue ponytail and the youthful-eagerness in her voice. Smile, like I knew something absolutely wonderful was about to happen.

Wouldn’t Carla be happy.

She was.

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