Chapter 6 - My Parents Are Right Outside
The dressing suite was smaller than the ballroom and too quiet. It had a carpet that swallowed my pink shoes and a long mirror with lights around it and a chair that was too high for me. The man in the tuxedo had carried me in there because the ballroom had gotten too loud, even though nobody was yelling anymore.
My name is Ellie and I was four that Christmas Eve.
I still had my bear. I held him against the red velvet of my dress so tight my arms hurt. The thin blue band on his leg pressed against my thumb. I could hear the chandeliers humming through the wall, or maybe it was just the heat in the vent. My breathing kept catching.
The man knelt down again so his eyes were level with mine. Up close I could see the gray at his temples and the silver of his watch when he moved his hand. He didn't reach for the bear. He just rested his hand on the arm of the chair next to me.
"Hey," he said, quiet. "You doing okay in here?"
I nodded, but my chin wobbled. The woman in the black sequined dress stood by the door with her arms crossed. She hadn't sat down. She kept looking at the door like she wanted someone to come take me away.
The man glanced at her, then back at me. His voice stayed gentle.
"Sweetheart, where are your parents?"
That was when I said the line I'd practiced. Mom had made me say it in the car, over and over, until I said it right without crying. I took a breath first. I remember the little pause because I had to remember the words exactly.
"They're right outside," I said. "They'll be back soon."
It came out too fast and too flat, like I was reciting. I squeezed the bear tighter after I said it and looked down at his nose so I wouldn't have to look at the man's face.
He didn't say anything right away. He just watched me breathe. I could feel his eyes on my hands, on how they shook a little around the bear.
"Right outside where, honey?" he asked softly.
I swallowed. "In the parking lot."
The woman made a small sound near the door. The man held up a hand without looking at her, asking her to wait.
He leaned in just a little, not crowding me. "You've been sitting on that sofa a long time," he said. "I was out there with you. I didn't see anyone look for you. Didn't hear anyone call your name."
I didn't know what to say to that, so I said the other part Mom told me. "She said to stay on the couch and hold Grace's bear and someone would find me."
The man's expression changed, just around his eyes. He didn't look angry at me. He looked like he'd figured something out that he didn't want to be true.
"She said that?" he asked.
I nodded. My breathing got quicker and I tried to hide it by pressing my face into the bear's head. It smelled like the car.
The man stood up slowly and checked his phone. He'd stepped out for a minute when we first came into the suite and I'd heard him talk low to someone in the hall. Now he looked at the screen again and his jaw tightened.
"No one's come to the front desk," he said, more to himself than to me, then to the woman, "No one's asked security. They made two announcements in the ballroom. Nothing."
The woman unfolded her arms and crossed them again. "That doesn't mean—" she started.
"It does," he said, quiet but firm. "If her parents were in the parking lot, they'd have come inside by now. It's thirty degrees out there. No parent leaves a three-year-old alone in a ballroom during a gala and waits in the car."
The word parking lot hung there. I realized I'd said it wrong. Mom's car wasn't in a parking lot at a mansion. It was on a side street where the lights from the Christmas trees didn't reach. But I'd already said parking lot because Mom said people would understand parking lot.
The man knelt again. He didn't correct me. He didn't say I was lying.
"Ellie," he said, and I don't know how he knew my name then, maybe I'd whispered it, maybe it was on something, but hearing it made my eyes fill up again. "Did someone bring you inside and tell you to wait?"
I held the bear up a little higher, like he could answer for me. My voice was so small.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
It was the same thing I'd said on the sofa, but this time I wasn't apologizing for being there. I was apologizing because the rehearsed line hadn't worked.
He nodded, slow. He reached out and just lightly touched the edge of the bear's blue band, not taking him from me.
"You're okay," he said. "You're not in trouble. I just need to keep you safe, alright? That means we don't wait for someone in a parking lot who isn't coming."
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Behind him, the woman had stopped looking at the door. She was looking at me now, really looking, and her stern face had gone still.
The door stayed closed. No one was about to come through it. That was the point I finally understood — no one was coming to get me, and the man knew it too.
