The Color of Joy Read Free Page A

She sprinted down the length of the corridor.
    I followed and thrust my arm between the elevator doors just as they were closing, shoved them open and stepped on. “Why are you running?”
    She pressed the “close door” button about five times in rapid succession.
    “We can’t find your baby.”
    “What do you mean you can’t find her?”
    Her brow furrowed with tension. “She was there in the nursery earlier when we gave her a bottle. Then we laid her down to sleep, but now she’s gone.”
    “ Gone . I don’t understand.”
    “I’m sure we’ll find her,” the nurse said, though she was tapping her foot anxiously, her eyes focused intently on the floor numbers as they changed. “Somebody probably took her to the wrong room. Maybe she’s back now.”
    “What the hell?”
    The doors opened and the nurse dashed off toward the nursery. I followed closely behind.

Chapter Five

    “How could this happen?” I asked as I moved from crib to crib and checked the incubators as well. “You can’t just lose a baby. Someone must have taken her to another floor. Was she all right? Did something happen?”
    “She was fine. She’d been sleeping since she had the bottle.” The nurse picked up the phone at the desk and called someone.
    “What time was that?”
    “Around five,” she replied. “She was due for another feeding and that’s when we noticed she was gone.” The nurse spoke into the phone. “No, the father doesn’t have her. He’s here with me now.”
    “Who are you talking to?” I asked, holding out my hand to take the phone from her. “I want to talk to them.”
    She handed me the receiver. “It’s the head nurse. She’s down in security looking at the surveillance recordings.”
    “ Jesus !” I grabbed the phone. “This is Riley James. Where’s my daughter?”
    “We’re trying to locate her, sir.”
    “I certainly hope so!”
    The nurse spoke in a patronizingly calm voice. “We’ve notified security and put out an alert. They’re searching every floor in the hospital as we speak.”
    “Have the police been notified?”
    “Not yet.”
    “I’m calling them right now.” I slammed the receiver down, pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and quickly dialed 9-1-1.

Chapter Six

    I don’t believe actual words exist to adequately describe the agony a parent endures when a child goes missing. It’s an unimaginable nightmare, a bottomless pit of heartrending, uninterrupted black misery as you torture yourself with images of what could be happening to your child.
    You are wracked with guilt and regret over all the little details—like waiting to see your baby until your wife regained consciousness—the things you could have done differently that would have prevented this terrible disaster from happening in the first place. As a parent, you believe you have failed your child. Thinking of her out there somewhere, without your love and protection, is beyond excruciating.
    That is where words fail me.
    *
    It’s safe to say that the hours in the hospital after I spoke to the police were the darkest of my life—and I’d experienced some pretty bleak situations in my younger days. My addictions nearly killed me. I did things I can’t even bear to think about. Prison was no picnic, but it was nothing compared to this.
    My baby daughter was gone and she didn’t even have a name.
    I’d also watched my wife come close to bleeding to death on an operating table and I’d faced the clear likelihood of her death. By some miracle she survived, but she had yet to return to consciousness.
    When she woke— and I prayed to God that she would —I’d have to tell her that the doctor had removed her uterus and ovaries. She’d learn that she couldn’t have any more children, and the baby she’d just delivered was gone. Our child had been stolen out of the hospital and I had no idea where she was, or with whom.
    I sat next to Lois with my forehead resting on the bedrail, my eyes squeezed tightly