Chapter 23
While her daughter was napping, Sydney did her household chores as quickly as possible. Usually during her time away from Annie, she tried to take a brief catnap herself, but with her son and his friend playing in the house, she needed to be alert and available incase of emergency. She sorted dirty laundry to wash, hung clean laundry up to dry and then helped the boys make bologna sandwiches for lunch.
As she was running the vacuum downstairs, she realized that she had yet to hear any peeps from the baby monitor in her hand. Typically, her little angel was out for two hours and forty-five minutes exactly, give or take a minute or so. Yet, at that point, it was well over the three-hour mark. Slightly confused and concerned, she jogged up the stairs to check on Annie.
When she entered the baby’s room and spotted an empty crib, her heart nearly shot right up her throat and out of her mouth. Beginning to hyperventilate, she dug through the crib’s blankets, but Annie was not there. “Annie! Annie!” she called out as she frantically tore apart the room as if her child was playing a rather cruel game of hide and seek. Of course, at not yet two months old, Annie could not even hold up her head, let alone escape her crib, shimmy down to the floor, and consciously hide from her mother.
Fully frantic at that point, Sydney groped for the phone, barely having enough mental capacity to dial the familiar digits. “Michael,” she said breathless into the phone. “Michael! Annie’s gone!”
“Whoa, calm down. What do you mean gone?!”
“Gone!” Sydney wailed. “She’s gone! She’s not in her crib!”
“Okay, take a deep breath and tell me what happened,” Michael said rationally.
“Put her down…did laundry, made lunch, vacuumed…came back – Gone!” she uttered out in disjointed statements. That was all she could get through her spinning mind at that point in time.
“Sydney I’m sure it’s okay. She’s six weeks old; she didn’t run away from home. Are you sure you didn’t just put her down somewhere and then walk away?” he asked hopefully.
“Michael!” Sydney snapped. “She’s my baby, not my car keys!”
Sighing heavily, Michael tried another option. “Why don’t you just ask Henry if he-”
“Oh my god!” Sydney gasped before hanging up the phone without any regard for her husband on the other end of the line. She rushed down the stairs nearly falling on the way, and shouted her son’s name. “Henry! Henry where’s Annie?!” she demanded as she walked into the family room.
“Um, in her crib?” Henry said in an ‘isn’t it obvious’ way.
“No, no she’s not. Where did you put her Henry? Where?!” she demanded.
“I didn’t do anything with her! Maybe she went away on her own,” he suggested casually with a shrug.
Sydney knelt down to the floor and gripped her son’s arms tightly. “Henry Christian Vaughn you listen to me and you listen good,” she said, forcing him to look at her. Henry complained and tried to wiggle free of her grasp, but she held him strong. “Henry, what did you do with your sister? What did you do to her?!” she asked, frantic. “Don’t you understand? She’s little and vulnerable. You could really hurt her.”
“I didn’t hurt her!” Henry insisted.
“Where is she?!” Sydney snapped, digging her fingers a bit too tightly into her son’s arms.
“She’s at my house,” Jimmy said quietly. Sydney glanced at the little boy momentarily before bolding out the door, running across her backyard, and to the Stewart’s house. There, she spotted Lisa sitting on the porch, baby carrier at her feet.
“Hey, Mrs. V,” Lisa said in a chipper tone, not even noticing the positively crazed look on Sydney’s face. “Your baby’s real cute. I think she’s hungry, though. She’s been whimpering, but her diaper isn’t wet,” Lisa said.
Without even acknowledging what Lisa said, Sydney lunged for the carrier and lifted her precious daughter out. She held Annie up to her shoulder and hugged her as tightly as possible while whispering soft things in her ear. After composing herself a minute later, she turned to Lisa and demanded, “Lisa, when did you get her? What were you doing with her?!”
Lisa shrugged indifferently. “I dunno. Henry and Jim came over and said you wanted me to watch her or something. I really don’t mind at all,” she smiled encouragingly.
“You didn’t find it odd that I would send my eight-year-old son and his friend over here with my baby?” Sydney asked, furious at the teen’s irresponsibility.
“You…didn’t?” Lisa asked with a gulp. From the stern expression on Sydney’s face she had her answer. “Oh jeez Mrs. V I’m sorry. I had no idea!”
“It’s fine,” Sydney sighed, putting Annie back in her carrier. “Thanks for watching her,” she said shortly before picking up the carrier and returning home.
“Jimmy, go home,” she commanded upon returning to the family room to find the two guilty boys were sitting silently far apart from one another. “I’ll be calling your parents tonight to tell them what happened.”
“Aw man!” Jimmy groaned under his breath as he stomped his way out of the house.
Once he was gone, Sydney set Annie down on the coffee table and instructed her son harshly, “Don’t you dare touch her.” She disappeared momentarily and returned with a kitchen chair, which she placed in the corner of the room. “Sit,” she commanded, pointing to the chair. “Sit and stay there until your father gets home. You are not to move an inch.”
“What if I gotta pee?” Henry asked.
“Then you go straight there and come straight back. While you sit there you can think about what you did because it was very wrong, Henry. Very, very wrong.”
“Fine,” Henry growled. He stomped his way to the chair making it very clear how he felt about being punished. Once there, he flopped himself down in the chair so hard he tipped it over, but he managed to right himself quickly. Upon making sure Henry was not going to move, Sydney went upstairs to tend to Annie and let her husband know that she had been found.
~*~
“So where was she? Behind the couch? Under his bed? In a closet?” Michael asked when he arrived home from work, listing all the places he could think of for Henry to hide his sister. When Sydney called him earlier that day, there was not enough time to fully describe the situation since Michael was on his way to an important meeting. He had been curious about what really happened all day long, though.
“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Sydney said, her tone still demonstrating her fury. In the hours since Annie was found, she had not spoken a word to her son. “Do you know what your son did? He and his friend, Jimmy, took her out of her crib, carried her out of the house, and over to Jimmy’s house, where they gave her to Jimmy’s sister!”
“What?!” Michael gasped, almost laughing at the deviousness of the plan. “You didn’t notice?”
“I was doing laundry, Michael. I didn’t expect them to steal her! God, do you know how dangerous that was? What if they had just left her outside?! She could have died!” Sydney exclaimed, horrified, before rushing over to her child, picking her up, and hugging her tightly.
“I’m sure they would not have left her outside. They were probably just having fun,” Michael said, shrugging.
“FUN?!” Sydney screeched at a painful decibel.
Michael winced slightly. “Well not fun just…where is he? I’ll talk to him and find out what happened.”
“In the corner of the family room,” Sydney directed him.
Michael found his son sitting on the kitchen chair with his knees tucked up to his chest. He turned the chair around and knelt down to the floor so that he was eye level with Henry. “Henry, why did you take Annie?”
“Cause I wanted her to go away,” Henry said.
“Why?”
“Because Mommy doesn’t love me anymore; she only loves Annie,” Henry told him.
“Henry of course your mother loves you,” Michael told him.
“No she doesn’t!” Henry maintained. “She doesn’t love me and neither does anyone else! All they care about is Annie!”
“Well, Annie is a baby. She needs more attention than you do. You’re a big boy; you can dress yourself and feed yourself. Annie can’t do that,” Michael explained.
“She’s stupid,” Henry snapped.
“Henry,” Michael said in a warning tone. “She is not stupid and I don’t want to hear you say that about anyone again.”
“But,” he whined. “Why can’t she just go away? Then it would be you, me and Mommy and you would love me again.”
“Henry, we still love you very much. You, me, your mother, and Annie – we’re all a family. I know it’s hard at first, but you have to understand that we’re trying to be with you both as much as we can. I admit we may have been focusing a bit more on Annie, but that’s because she needs it. We can’t just leave her alone to play by herself; she can’t do that. I promise that as she gets older things will get better,” Michael told him. Henry turned his eyes away and said nothing.
“Henry,” Michael sighed heavily. “I need you to promise you won’t take Annie like that again. You really could hurt her. I don’t want you picking her up unless you ask us first, okay?”
“I don’t want to pick her up ever again! I hate her!” Henry shouted.
“Henry!” Michael snapped. “You don’t hate your sister. Now please go wash your hands; we’ll continue talking about this over dinner.”
“Fine,” Henry grunted before sulking his way off to the bathroom.
