Unconditional

“Are your eyes closed?” I ask her now. My hand finds the back of her head as I carry her down the stairs and through the living room. Madeline Shaw can’t be a day older than seven; she is so tiny, I’m almost afraid I’ll crush her in my arms as I carry her out of the house. I press her face against my chest, so she doesn’t see the devastation. Her parents lying in pools of their own blood, her mother’s eyes wide with fear, her mouth agape with shock. It’s something right out of a horror film.

Homicide-Suicide.

The living room is small, the bare minimum furniture is scattered throughout. An old couch that I’m sure has some type of bed bugs lines one wall. A television that looks older than me and a lounger that is covered in blood, line the others. Blood spatters the left wall and there is a rug in the center of the room that looks like more than a few feet have walked all over it. I rub her back slightly, my heart shattered that this sweet girl had to endure these conditions.

Is she so frail because she wasn’t being fed?

Once I get her outside, I tell her she can open her eyes and she does on command, her eyes darting around her front yard. “You don’t have siblings, do you?” I ask, wondering if there was possibly another child hiding. “A brother or sister?”

“No, just me.” She points at herself proudly. “Are you my big brother!?” Her eyes are wide and filled with excitement and I wish I didn’t have to be the reason the look leaves her face.

“No…” I laugh at her huge jump to a conclusion. “No, I just…” I look back at the house. Officers from all over Oregon are surrounding it and taking pictures. I step over the bright yellow crime scene police tape just as I hear someone scream, “There’s a child!”

“Fuck,” I grumble.

Her mouth drops open and points at me. “You said a bad word,” she whispers. “You have to sit on the naughty step.”

“I’m a little old for the naughty step,” I argue.

She furrows her brows together and a smile finds her face. I prepare myself for a sassy as hell response about not ever being too old for the naughty step when a group of people swarm us. Her eyes are scared, and she grips me harder, before pushing her face into my neck again. “Who are they!?” Maddie cries, her fingernails dig into my shoulder and I hold her tighter in my arms.

“She’s unharmed,” I tell the EMT. She was hiding, but she’s shaken up. Give her some time,” I tell them as I press a hand to her back.

“We still need to—” one of the EMTs starts.

“I said she’s fine. Now give me a minute,” I bark at her.

“You need to let me do my job,” she argues back and I look down at the small child who is still gripping onto me for dear life.

I pull her back to look at me. “Maddie, sweetheart just go with the nice lady, she’s just going to check you over okay?”

“No! Don’t leave me!” she wails against my chest and wraps her tiny arms around my neck. She perks her head up, the tears swimming in her eyes and threatening to move down her little face. “Please, I’ll be a good girl!”

I’ve dealt with children before, and never had I felt the pain of one of them. Never once did I feel a thump in my chest that I couldn’t ignore as the tears fly down her face. I felt bad, of course, but Maddie’s pleas make me want to do something, anything to make them go away. “Just for a minute, okay? I’ll be right here.” One of the EMTs manages to get her out of my grasp and she begins to kick against them in an attempt to get down.

She reaches both arms towards me. “No…CAL!”

Present Day

MY EYES SHOOT OPEN JUST as I hear her scream for me and it takes a second for my heart to slow as I realize that it’s not real. I rub a hand over my face. These nightmares are back in full force. The nightmare that I didn’t get to Maddie in time.

> That her father took her from me first.

I sit up in bed as I think about the seven year old that is sleeping down the hall. The seven year old that is now… seventeen.

When we got to the police station later that day, Maddie stuck to me like glue. She wouldn’t let go of my hand for anything. It remained encased in mine for most of the day, and when they tried to separate her from me to place her with a family for the night, she lost it. She didn’t have any family; she was alone in the world, which meant she would be staying with strangers. She had friends her age, but the parents of her close friends didn’t seem too keen on taking in the orphaned girl with the dead parent complex for any extended period of time.

Before I could stop myself from speaking the words, I mentioned that she could come home with me. I still remember those huge, blue eyes, the color of the ocean, looking up at me. The fear had been so evident in them it gripped my heart. “You’ll take care of me?” she’d asked, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her I meant just for the night.

Just until Social Services lined someone up.

Just until she came to terms with the new normalcy of her life.

She was the kid with the dead parents. The kid that survived the most gruesome and terrible tragedy that this town had ever seen.

She’d be gone within a week.

Ten years ago