Chapter 1 - THE SOUND INSIDE THE DUMPSTER
The first thing I noticed was Maisie’s yellow blanket.
It was folded neatly over the rocking chair, exactly where I had left it before putting my daughter to bed. She never slept without it, yet her crib was empty and the fitted sheet had been pulled smooth.
“Maisie?”
No answer came from the guest apartment above Holloway Home & Tool.
The night before, my parents had hosted my engagement party in the store’s event room outside Dayton, Ohio. It was also supposed to be Maisie’s second-birthday celebration, though by midnight, almost every decoration belonged to my eight-year-old niece, Sadie, and the beauty-pageant event my mother had scheduled for that morning.
I ran downstairs.
Pink balloons crowded the open garage. Sadie stood beneath a birthday banner while my sister, Tessa, curled her hair. My engagement cake and Maisie’s smaller blue cake had been pushed against the wall.
My father, Warren, poured coffee as relatives arranged themselves for photographs.
“Where’s Maisie?”
Tessa dropped her eyes.
My mother, Elaine, adjusted Sadie’s rhinestone hair clip.
“She was restless,” she said.
“Where is she?”
Elaine smiled at the relatives watching us.
“Maybe you should look where the rest of the unwanted things go.”
Someone laughed uncertainly.
Then my father did.
I ran through the stockroom and into the loading area. Morning light stretched across wet pavement, stacked cardboard, and three blue commercial dumpsters.
“Maisie!”
A small sound came from the middle one.
I climbed onto the side rail, threw open the lid, and saw my daughter curled beneath flattened boxes in the pink pajamas I had put on her.
“Maisie, baby, stay with me!”
Her eyelids barely moved.
I climbed inside, lifted her against my chest, and screamed for someone to call 911.
Lucas came running from the parking lot, still wearing the blue shirt from our engagement party. He wrapped his jacket around Maisie while I put the dispatcher on speaker.
My family gathered near the loading door.
Warren stepped forward.
“Stop making a spectacle. She’ll wake up.”
The dispatcher asked whether Maisie might have swallowed medication.
“We only gave her enough to sleep,” he said.
Everything around me seemed to sharpen.
“What did you give her?”
Elaine folded her arms. “She was ruining Sadie’s morning. She wouldn’t stop crying.”
My daughter’s fingers closed weakly around my shirt.
Lucas moved between us and my parents.
Then Tessa began shaking.
“Mom made me throw the bottle in there,” she said.
Elaine turned on her.
“Be quiet.”
“It wasn’t one dose,” Tessa whispered. “They gave her more after Rachel went upstairs.”
Sirens approached from the street.
May you like
I turned toward the dumpster. Beneath the cardboard lay a crumpled pharmacy bag, a plastic dosing cup, and an empty bottle of children’s antihistamine.
The label carried my mother’s name.
