Searching for Tabby

“You what? You lost our baby girl?”

Her eyes went wild with fury as the blood rushed to her cheeks.  She looked completely insane, and even kind of sexy. 

    Ted couldn’t  believe that last thought went through his mind, but with the hell that they have gone through, he was sure God would forgive him for having a lustful thought about his own wife.  However, now was not the time for romance.  His darling wife was about to go nuclear. 

He looked at the space where the stroller was a few seconds ago.  “Honey, I didn’t lose her.  Her stroller is gone too.  Maybe-”

Her hand went to her mouth as her worse nightmare scenario finished his sentence. 

“Oh my God.  She was kidnapped!  We got to do something!”  She smacked him on the arm.  “Don’t just stand there!  Call the police!  I’ll-I’ll get security!”

She turned to run, but he pulled her back and said, “Honey, relax.  She couldn’t have gone far.”  He tried to replay what might have happened in the past five minutes.   

When they had entered the department store, she was pushing the stroller with Tabby lying quietly in the cushioned seat.  Anna made a beeline for the Women’s section, and soon she had pulled three blouses from the racks.  She handed him her purse as she walked to the dressing rooms.  While she was gone, he decided to pass the time by playing Zombie Blast on his phone.  He was right by the stroller, but he was engrossed with blasting at undead monsters.   During the game, he did remember two voices nearby.  Another woman…and a girl. 

“Anna, I think someone did take her.  Let’s check the rest of the store.” 

Anna nodded, and started combing through the maze-like walk spaces between the circular clothes racks.  Ted went the opposite direction, hoping he would find Tabby before Anna did.  If he found her first, he could try to control the situation.  If Anna found Tabby, then God help the person who she thought was responsible. 

Ted could hear Anna calling Tabby’s name.  He shook his head as he fought back the regret that always tried to resurface in him.  The regret that he had made a big mistake in trying to keep Anna’s hope and sanity alive. 

Cassie knew there were crazy people in the world. Hell, she talked to more than a few of them at the Call Center where she worked, but she never thought she would meet one, and not while she was shopping with her eight year old daughter.

She went through the dresses in the Little Miss section, and found one that not only would look adorable on Kaitlyn, but it was also in her size. Why did the store never have the sizes that she needed was beyond her. She turned to show the dress and saw that Kaitlyn was holding a baby doll wrapped in a solf white blanket.

Kaitlyn was smiling down at the doll, and making cooing noises at the chubby plastic face. She turned her eyes up her mother. "Look at the cute baby I found Mommy! Can I keep her?"

Cassie rolled her eyes. She had purposely steered Kaitlyn away from the Toy Section for this very reason. Whenever they were there, things would just appear in Kaitlyn's hands, and Cassie had to either add the item to her credit card, or listen to Kat's wails of sadness as she was denied a toy that she would play with for a week, then forget it forever in her already stuffed toybox.

But, they were never close to the Toy Section, so where did it come from?

"Kat, where did you get that doll?"

"She was just sitting in a stroller all by herself."

Cassie saw the stroller, and couldn't believe the logic in a kid's mind. She bent closer to her daughter, and said,"Kaitlyn, that doll belongs to somebody else. You can't just take something that's not yours."

Kaitlyn gave an impatient sigh at her mother. "Mommy, there's no price tag on the baby or the stroller, so it's not stealing. The stroller was just sitting by some man, and men don't play with baby dolls, so it couldn't have been his. Oh, I think she just smiled!"

Cassie was about to give an adult rebuttal to Kaitlyn's reasoning when the crazy blonde woman appeared from behind a display shelf. She saw the doll that Kaitlyn held, and screamed.

"TABBY! THANK GOD!"

The blonde woman barreled down on Kaitlyn. Cassie moved to block her path, but the woman shoved her aside and snatched the doll out of Kaitlyn's arms.

"Give me my baby you little brat!"

Kaitlyn flinched away from the haggard hateful look in the woman's face, and fell backwards on the thin store carpet. She began to cry.

Cassie clenched her fists. "Hey, what is your problem?" She wanted to rake her nails across Blondie's face, but her own child was hurt. She knelt down and put her arms around Kaitlyn. When she could see that Kat was not injured, Cassie helped her to her feet.

Her own voice rose with her anger. "Are you crazy? That's just a doll! You can't attack my girl just because-"

The blonde jerked her face to Cassie, and Cassie knew that she was looking at a bona fide crazy person. The woman's eyes were filled with an insane intensity that made Cassie want to scoop up Kaitlyn and run for the hills.

The blonde woman sneered at her. "How dare you let your little yard ape steal a defenseless baby like that? What kind of sicko are you that-"

"Anna, just stop!"

They both turned to the tall man that came toward them. The crazed look in the blonde woman's as softened as she moved to the man with the doll cradled in her arms.

"Teddy! Oh, thank god! Look, I found her! She's all right now!" She showed the doll with pride. Cassie watched as the man called Ted saw her, and looked down at Kaitlyn, who was still crying her eyes out.

The woman named Anna shot daggers from her eyes as she looked at Kaitlyn. "That little tramp tried to take her. I want you to call the police. They may be human trafficers. They need to be arrested and-"

Ted turned her away from the whole scene. "All right, babe. Don't worry. I'll take care of everything." He dug in his pockets, and pulled out a set of keys. "Here, just put Tabby back in her stroller, and take her back to the car. I'll be along a few minutes."

Cassie searched through her purse and found some tissues. She bent down to wipe Kaitlyn's face, but she kept her eyes on the bizarre couple. Anna placed a small kiss on the doll's round forehead, and gently laid it back in the stroller. She took the keys from Ted and pushed the stroller through the racks and out of sight.

Kaitlyn had stopped crying, but sniffled while she kept her head down. Ted moved toward her, but Cassie kept her arm around her and said,"Mister, if that's your wife, then God help you. She's a complete basketcase."

Ted gave a small sigh as he nodded. He said,"Ma'am, I am so sorry about what happened. May I talk to your girl?"

Cassie wanted to leave, but this Ted did show up in time to keep Anna the Crazy Lady at bay, so she nodded as Ted knelt in front of Kaitlyn.

"Hey there, sweetheart. I'm sorry my wife was so mean to you."

Kaitlyn lifted her eyes and and said in a small voice,"I'm sorry I took her baby doll. I didn't know it was hers."

Ted smiled as he brushed a line of hair from Kaitlyn's forehead. Then he said,"Hey, how would you like a double-scoop ice-cream? Would that cheer you up? I need to have a big people talk with your Mom." He moved his eyes up at Cassie when he said the last sentence.

Cassie got the gist of what he was saying. "There's an ice-cream parlor on the corner."

She took Kaitlyn's hand. "I could use a diet soda." She wanted to add booze to that request, but she'll take what she can get after all this.

Ted stood up. "Great, I can get that for you, and try to explain all this mess."

The parlor was clean and white with chrome trim. Ted paid for Kaitlyn's ice-cream and for two medium fountain sodas. When Kaitlyn was busy licking away at her two scoops, Ted took a sip from his glass and began to speak.

"Once again, I'm terribly sorry about this. Yes, my wife does have issues, and that's me giving the understatement of the year." He looked at Kaitlyn as asked,"How old is she?"

Cassie took a drink. "She's eight years old." Sitting across from him, Cassie could see that Ted looked older than he seemed.

Ted gave a small laugh. "Wow, they do grow fast." He looked down into his soda, and said,"My wife and I have been married five years. Right from the start, she wanted to be a mother. I will more willing to wait a few years, but Anna had her heart set on her goal. I loved her, and I still do even after all this time, so I went along. She ditched the pills, and just like that, she was pregnant."

He took another drink. "Not only was she willing to have a child, she was also dedicated. She went through the whole pregnancy like a trooper. She even handled childbirth with grace and strengh. Of course, I was panicking enough for the both of us. Still, she delivered our beautiful daughter after ten hours of labor like a champ. We called her Tabitha."

Cassie listened with chastised interest. Part of her knew where this tale was headed, and it was going to be bad, but she had to hear the rest.

Ted rubbed his eyes. "When we brought Tabby home, Anna worked hard to be a good mother, and she wasn't just good. She was great. She kept the feeding schedule, she changed the diapers, the whole nine yards. I wanted to help, but she insisted that I go back to work. So, for those first few months, everything was just aces. Then-"

He took another drink. Cassie wanted him to finish, but sensed that she couldn't rush him through this.

He finally took a deep breath. "We were going to see my parents. We got everything ready for the trip. I got all bags together, and Anna thought that keeping Tabby in the stroller while we went downstairs would hurt the baby, so she held Tabby in her arms-and-well-it's not like-I mean we still lived in that second story apartment-"

He was starting to break down. His chest started to hitch, and Cassie placed her hand on his arm. "Look, just relax. If you can't finish, then don't worry. You don't have to."

He shook his head as he sucked more soda out from the straw in his glass. "No, I need to tell someone. And since Anna tried to hurt your own girl, I owe you the explanation."

Ted leaned forward, and said in a low voice,"We lived in a second story apartment. We had to go down a flight of stairs to get the parking lot. Anna and I must climbed those steps a hundred times without a second thought. But on that day, Anna was holding little Tabby, and well, either her foot slipped, or she couldn't see the first step, but we don't really know, do we? What happened was that Anna fell down the stairs with Tabby in her arms. They landed at the bottom in a heap. Anna just had a sprained ankle and some bumps and bruises, but Tabby was under her, and Anna's weight crushed Tabby's chest."

Cassie closed her eyes and said,"Sweet Jesus." The whole terrible picture became clear. The blonde woman, Anna, was crazy, but Cassie's heart went out to her all the same.

Ted pressed on. "It was a nasty, horrible accident. I didn't blame Anna, and nobody else did, but that didn't matter. Anna blamed herself for what happened. She went into complete hysterics for two days, then, she went into a catatonic state. She wouldn't move. She wouldn't eat. The doctors had to feed her through an IV to keep her healthy. I-I had to bury my first child while my wife regressed into herself.

She was in the hospital for a week, and the doctors were already talking about moving her to some nursing home. I didn't know what to do. So, I was in the gift shop, and I saw they were selling baby dolls there. Out of desperation, I bought one, took it to Anna's room, and placed it next to her. That did the trick. She saw the doll, and came back to herself. She held that doll, took care of it, and she started to take care of herself again. You see, she still remembered the accident, but she now thought that Tabby survived the fall."

Cassie held his hand. "How long has this been going on?"

Ted said,"Two years. The doctors chided me about it. They said that she will never accept that Tabby is dead as long as she has the doll, but they are not married to her. A husband's job is to keep his wife happy, no matter how crazy things get in life. And she is happy, at least for now."

Cassie heard a ringtone. Ted said,"That's me." He pulled out his phone, and check the display. "It's Anna. She wants me to get her home, so she put Tabby down for a nap." He stood up, and held his hand to her. As she took it, he said,"Once again, I'm sorry for all that happened."

Cassie shook her head. "No, I'm sorry for you. And I'm sorry that Kaitlyn took the doll."

Ted gave a small smile. "Don't be too hard on her. She's just a kid. Take care of her." With that, he turned and walked out of the parlor doors.

Cassie leaned back in her chair. That poor woman, she thought, and that poor husband that has to take care of her, and the doll that is posing as their dead child. She looked at Kaitlyn, and wondered at all the things that take her away. Diseases, accidents, evil people, bad men. Anything could get her. And what would she do if anything happened to her daughter?

"Mommy, stop hugging me! You're getting ice cream on your arm."

Casssie wasn't too worried about that.