To Steal An Egg

Chapter #5

"He has a cleft palate there," I heard the doctors say that after the X-rays, scans, and everything else. " He might have brain development slower than other kids."

My phony sleep would trick the doctors for awhile but I couldn't avoid hearing the truth in person forever. I was incapable of sleeping and the doctors were incompetent enough to fall for my closed eyes-deep breath-not-actually-sleeping. They're supposed to be really smart to have good job like a doctor. Two days after Rowan's birth they awoke me. Sure enough, Rowan had a giant, bloody hole on the roof of his mouth. And the left side of his brain was slightly squashed in, making a small indent on his head.

Gary had called many times to see if I was okay. When he heard I had Rowan, he rushed over with some Starbucks coffee, Rosey, and Carter. Apparently, Tim was sleeping after the first part of his surgery and the doctors were frantically trying to get Jack back. So far, they had no luck. I was in my own room puking my brains out, drinking tea, and trying to get Rowan to sleep.

After a few days I forgot that I didn't have 3 kids, 1 dead kid, and 1 new baby; but 3 kids, 1 dead kid, 1 new baby, AND a kid who ran away from home.

First, the police sent search parties for her, but no luck. When I thought to give up, I had a horrible but brilliant idea. When Tori was on the phone a month ago, she was talking to Betty and if I heard right she was trying to get their family to adopt her. I went over to their house, but there was no luck. There were many amber alerts sent out, but no luck. There were search parties around town looking for her, but no luck. I also had to pay for all this stuff and the amber alerts were 500 bucks a pop. Not to mention that the search parties were twice that and I had to feed four kids. We were pigging out on nacho burritos from taco bell because there were two for 1$, when Rosey looked at me with sad eyes and asked me,

"Mommy, did Towi die?"

"Let's hope not, honey," I sighed.

"I towd you see go zoom zoom."

"Yes, you were right about that. Did you see her leave?"

"Yes. See towd us to get hidden while see wan awwinds," she smiled, obviously happy that she was right and I wasn't.

"Where did she go?" I asked.

"Outside and turned to Betty's howse. Den see went to wuds."

"Into the forest?"

"Yes. See go zoom zoom to fowist."

"ROSEY! We have to go home right now and you have to show us where she went! We need her!"

"Okay, Mommy."

I grabbed our burritos from the table and thanked the pimple-covered teenager at the cashier table. I had Rowan in my arm and I was holding Rosey's hand as we walked across the street. Tim was still at the hospital and Carter was walking next to me. He stopped talking for the past few days and I assumed it was because of Jack's death. We hopped in the car and drove home. Rowan was screaming the whole time and it didn't help that his surgery wasn't just causing pain for him but migraines for me. I was about to go because the light was green when Rowan spit up and Carter started screaming hysterically. I slammed on my brakes and started yelling at him to be quiet. It didn't help when Rosey tried to cheer me up by singing "Mary had a little lamb" off key and replacing "Mary" with "Mommy". Carter was glaring at the baby and frantically wiping the spit up onto the car seat. I turned my head back to tell Carter to stop it when I was flung back into the seat and the airbags blew up in my face. When they deflated, I knew that whatever happened wasn't in my price range.