The Missing Daughter

 

PART ONE

 

At the Iona Elementary School, Clarice Redfield is waiting to pick up her daughter, but Raven does not show up.

Panic-stricken, she goes to the front of the school and tries to open the heavy brown doors. They are locked. But she does not give up. Sweat stars dripping down her forehead, and her hands feel heavier than bowling balls. She then goes to the schoolyard, wondering if her daughter might be playing there. But there isn’t a single student left in the playground.

She walks back to the front steps of the school and checks her watch, having heart palpitations. Her daughter is usually already out by 3:15 pm.

The mother and daughter usually walk home after school together to their one-bedroom apartment. Clarice lives in the living room, while Raven gets the bedroom to call her own space. Clarice is a receptionist at a fertility clinic, unable to afford anything except life’s essentials. The apartment is sparse. Her ex-boyfriend, Thomas’s Green’s, record collection fills a lot of Clarice’s space. He moved to the West Coast when Raven was two years old. He is a professor of literature, nerdy and kind. He was forced to transfer as English departments were closing in Montreal. They had to end their relationship.

Once at home, Clarice calls 911. Two female detectives, Amour and Lavigne arrive 30 minutes later.

They ask her a bunch of questions: Could Raven be at a friend’s house? Could someone want to harm her? Could she have run away? Is there a father in the picture? Any family she might be visiting? Do you know her friends?

“No,” she answers numbly to their questions. She looks shrivelled up from all the worrying and crying. The detectives also learn that Clarice’s closest family is in Ontario.

The police tell her, “We can put an amber alert right now. Can you text us some images?”

She sends them a picture of her chubby, nine-year-old Raven, who does not look too much like her blonde mother, except around the eyes. She is wearing a white crocheted dress that you can tell was bought in a thrift store. Raven also has brown eyes and a face plastered with freckles.

The police ask if she has any exes, to which she replies, “When I was twenty-three. He was nine years older than me, Thomas Green. He is an English high school teacher in Victoria.”

The police jot down the name. They ask where the father is. She tells them it was a one-night stand and can’t remember too much about him after a night of partying. He was an American from New York City.

The police tell her to stay put and give her the number of an organization that helps parents with missing children. They go to inspect Raven’s room. She has a bed, a small desk, and a huge collection of teddy bears.

After leaving the apartment, they can hear Clarice sobbing.

They decide to knock on the other five doors in the building, and Detective Lavigne slips her card under their doors with a note. Call me, a child has gone missing. Urgent.

 

PART TWO

 

Afterward, the detectives scout the neighborhood, showing passersby the picture of the mother and daughter. No one seems to recognize them.

They get their first lead when a senior female stops to look at the pictures.

“I buy my grandchildren clothes and toys from Vintage Pour Enfants down the street.”

“Thank you, Madame, you are the first lead we have received.”

Once inside the store, they recognize the clothing style that was in Raven’s closet and the type of stuffed animals they carry.

They go to the counter and ask the woman working behind the cash register if they have seen Raven or her mother in the store.

“I have never seen the child, but the mother is a loyal customer of ours,” she says looking at the pictures.

“Thank you,” Lavigne says.

 

                                                   #

The next day, the detectives sit across from the principal of Iona School.

“Raven Redfield rings a bell. Let me check my database for that name.”

The detectives wait. 

“She is not a registered student with us. However, she was in daycare with us from nine months until the age of two.”

It was noted that the mother seemed to be having a nervous breakdown and was referred to a psychiatrist by the social worker at the time, Debbie Finestein.

“By any chance, can we speak to Debbie?”

“Debbie was with us for 40 years. Sadly, they did not detect her breast cancer on time. She was a chronic user of baby powder.”

“We are sorry. That must have been a huge loss for the community and the children,” Amour says, gently.

“I hate to continue, but I need to ask if you have the name of the psychiatrist she was referred to?”

“I do not. I hope Raven is safe,” the principal says, concerned. “But she does have a sister in Ontario.”

Back in the car, the police call into the station to see if Raven Redfield might have been kidnapped or adopted. And the phone number of her sister in Ontario.

They go to the local McDonald's and get a call from one of the junior detectives. It appears Raven was neither adopted nor reported kidnapped or missing in the past.

Lavigne calls the sister’s number. They catch her at home.

“Hello, this is Detective Lavigne calling from Montreal. Has your sister contacted you about your missing niece?”

“Is this a joke? Clarice is single and has never had any children,” her sister says, taken aback and fidgets.

“Sorry, we must have your sister mixed up with someone else.”

“No, worries.”

“Does your sister see a psychiatrist?”

“Yes, Dr. Feldman or something?”

“Do you know what for?”

“She had a nervous breakdown about 7 years ago. My sister has not really been in touch unless I call. And our conversations are usually trivial. I will check in on her tonight.”

“That’s a good idea. She might be having another breakdown. Your help is appreciated,” Lavigne says.

“That’s so bizarre that her sister did not know she had a child for two years,” Amour responds.

The two stop eating and grab their fries to go. They find three psychiatrists around the neighborhood with the same name.

The second private office that the officers checked for Feldman and Coney is the one.

“Come in? How can I help you?” Dr. Feldman says.

“It’s about one of your clinic’s patients, Clarice Redfield.”

“We need to speak to Dr. Feldman.”

“I am her; follow me to my office.”

Once they are seated, Lavigne says. We are looking for her missing daughter?”

“That’s impossible, she does not have children.”

Amour says, “Her daughter was last seen at the age of two.”

She puts a picture that the school gave her under the nose of Dr. Feldman.

The doctor sits back in her chair, surprised.

“We need to know anything you can tell us about her? She might have murdered this child,” Lavigne says.

“Clarice’s parents died at the age of nine in a car accident. It seemed the two sisters had a normal upbringing with their aunt in Toronto, who adopted them. Clarice moved back to Montreal as a young adult to go to secretarial school. She wanted a simple life and job. She mentioned that she had a daughter and that it was hard being a single mother. I put her on heavy antidepressants, and I called her sister in Toronto, who was confused, citing that Clarice had never had any children.

“I diagnosed her as having Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPSTD) and Age Regression Disorder. I believed the child was a made-up version of her. Interestingly, she is now reporting her daughter missing at the same age when her parents died.

“After the death of her parents, Clarice went catatonic for a year and was in psychiatric care at the New Children’s Psychiatric Hospital in Ontario. I was told her aunt and sister visited her three times a week. One day, she just snapped out of it without any explanation. She just said I want to be with you now at the age of ten.”

“How has she seemed lately?”

“She ended her sessions a year ago. She said she finally realized the child was not real.”

“Could you come with us to her place?”

“Yes, anything that I could do to help. But it can be in two hours. I have back-to-back patients coming in soon,” she says, stressed.

 

PART THREE

 

Clarice opens the doors in her blue two-piece flannel pyjama set. She heads back into her daughter’s room. She grabs the largest teddy bear and sits on the floor, rocking back and forth, humming a tune that would soothe a baby.

The doctor instructs the detectives to wait outside the door. They do so and listen in.

“Clarice, I’m sorry that I never believed you had a daughter.”

“I do.”

“Is she dead?”

“No, she is safe, Dr. Feldman. I had to protect her.”

“Protect her from whom?”

“My family.”

“You told me that you loved your sister.”

“Oh yes, when I was in the hospital as a child, whenever she came to visit, she would whisper in my ear I love you to the moon and back. Please come back to me.”

“She was the one who saved me. I need to protect her. I need to save her from more pain.”

“You are not responsible for your sister’s pain. She is an adult, but you do need to protect your child. Is she in danger?”

“She left with my boyfriend, Thomas to Victoria. He promised me he would keep my secret and raise her as his own. Thomas is the kindest man I have ever met.”

“So, what secret was that?”

“I was raped by my sister’s husband, Max Green. She started to look like him around the age of two; she needed a safe place. My daughter could never know who her real parents are or how she was conceived,” Clarice says shakily.

“I’m sorry that happened to you, Clarice.”

“I think we need to make Thomas her legal guardian. Would you like that?”

“I don’t want my family to find out about her. I would die if they did.”

“We will get you a lawyer to help you.”

The doctor looks at the police. They nod, showing that everything will be alright.

“I will stay with you tonight.

“We can call Thomas tomorrow to make her his legal guardian. He will need a lawyer, too.”

“I’d like that. Can I head to sleep now?” Clarice asks in a child-like voice.

“Yes.”

Clarice heads to sleep in her daughter’s bed, while Dr. Feldman closes the door behind her as she leaves.

“This woman is having another breakdown. She has endured too many traumas in her life.

“I work at the local in-patient trauma clinic. I will take her there in the morning,” she says, and hands the police the card of the clinic’s address. "We also have an amazing social worker who can help her.

“I knew how sad she was when Thomas left,” Dr. Feldman says, “But now I know why.”

“Could we talk to her some more tomorrow once she has been transferred to the clinic?” Amour asks.

“No, it’s not a good idea in her state. I will contact you when the medication and care protocols have been established.”

“Here is my card,” Amour hands the psychiatrist.

“I also recommend that you wait and see if she wants to press charges against her sister’s husband.”

“We will wait and alert the local police in Toronto to see if his description comes up in any other assault cases. Maybe, someone else could press the charges,” Lavigne says.

The officers leave, and Dr. Feldman goes to alert the clinic that she is bringing a woman in tomorrow with CPTSD. She then grabs a blanket from the hall closet and settles in to sleep on the dingy sofa that Clarice normally sleeps on.

Dr. Feldman tosses and turns, going through all the conversations in her head that she has had with Clarice until she falls into a deep sleep from exhaustion.

Meanwhile, in her room, Clarice packed a bag and escaped the outdoor fire case. She is on her way to get her daughter from Thomas. As she walks to the closest bus depot, she frantically repeats, “I must protect my daughter.”