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    Daddy Love: A Novel
    Daddy Love: A Novel
    Daddy Love: A Novel
    Ebook265 pages3 hours

    Daddy Love: A Novel

    By Joyce Carol Oates

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    From the author of Bellefleur: A “psychologically incisive” glimpse into the mind of a deranged predator and the boy he abducts to be his son (Booklist).
     
    Robbie Whitcomb is five years old when he’s taken from his mother in a mall parking lot. In her attempt to chase the kidnapper, she’s left badly injured and permanently disfigured. Such are the methods of the man who calls himself Daddy Love—a man known to the rest of the world as charismatic preacher Chester Cash.
     
    For the next six years, Robbie is to be Daddy’s son. That means doing whatever Daddy says—and giving him whatever he wants. Soon Robbie learns to accept his new name, Gideon. He also learns that he is not the first of Daddy Love’s sons. And that each of the others, after reaching a certain age, was never seen again.
     
    As Robbie’s mother recovers from her wounds, her life and marriage are a daily struggle. But as years go by, she maintains a flicker of hope that her son is still alive. Meanwhile, Robbie approaches the “bittersweet age” with no illusions about his fate. But somewhere within this tortured child lies a spark of rebellion. And he knows all too well what survival requires.
     
    “After all these years, Joyce Carol Oates can still give me the creeps.” —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
     
    “A lean and disturbing tale that reverberates after its ending.” —The Columbus Dispatch
     
    “Oates makes us squirm as she forces us to see some of the action through Love’s twisted and warped perspective.” —Kirkus Reviews
     
    “This unsettling tale showcases Oates’s masterful storytelling.” —Publishers Weekly
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateJan 8, 2013
    ISBN9780802193650
    Daddy Love: A Novel
    Author

    Joyce Carol Oates

    Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the 2019 Jerusalem Prize, and has been several times nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys; Blonde, which was nominated for the National Book Award; and the New York Times bestseller The Falls, which won the 2005 Prix Femina. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.

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    Reviews for Daddy Love

    3.5/5

    67 ratings13 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I'm not, generally, a squeamish reader, but this 'unflinching' tale was a pretty tough read. When a sweet, much-loved five year old is abducted in a mall cap park, the parents spend six years in limbo. Meanwhile Robbie is held hostage by the menacing Chester Cash, aka 'Daddy Love' - a sometime preacher - who veers unpredictably from affection to fury...Joyce Carol Oates is a poweful writer. But I was glad to finish this.
    • 1/5
      I have read many books on the subject of child abuse and pedophilia and many of them were quite good. This one is not. What do you do if you have one hundred and fifty pages of content and you want to write a book over two hundred fifty pages long. First, you refer to the characters by name over and over again. Daddy Love must be in the text a thousand times. I read Mommie, Robbie and Gabriel so many times that I wanted to scream. It wasn't just names that were constantly repeated - many other aspects of the book were also.After spending 2/3 of the book with Daddy Love Oates drops him like a hot potato and goes back to lives of the missing boys parents who have been absent for five years. This is the literary equivalent of listening to fingernails scratching a chalk board..
    • 4/5
      My heart broke reading this book. It's not a long book and very simplistic. The emotion within it's pages however is riveting. I wanted so badly to reach through the pages and give this young child all the love he was missing thru this horrible time in his life.This story is just one of many of hundreds of children and It brings me to my knees in grief that this stuff really happens.
    • 3/5
      I have had an awkward track record with work by Joyce Carol Oates, despite the acclaim she has received, and primarily I requested this novel in yet another effort to connect with her writing. Oates has published more than 50 books, many of which probe sensitive, dark subjects. In Daddy Love, Oates explores the shocking abduction and abuse of five year old Robbie Whitcomb by a sadistic pederast who keeps him captive for six years.The story of Daddy Love was no more than what I expected, confronting, disturbing and thought provoking. It is difficult to read of Diane’s despair at the loss of her son, her misplaced feelings of guilt and shame. It is horrendous to read of Daddy Love’s justifications for his deviant behaviour, his remorseless manipulation and abuse of young children and to know that such monsters walk amongst us undetected. It is utterly heartbreaking to imagine the fear, pain and sense of utter helplessness experienced by Robbie whose innocence is destroyed and will never be the same.And yet somehow Oates fails to move me, my reactions are dictated by the subject matter rather than the way in which she tells the story. I find her style spare and distant, even dry at times. Perhaps that is necessary in writing about such an emotive issue to reduce the risk that the reader will be overwhelmed by the sheer, shuddering horror of the situation but for me the result was a disconnect I am hard pressed to articulate.Even though Daddy Love left me with a painful ache in my chest, and desperate to keep my children a little closer to my side for a little longer, I think I will have to admit I am defeated by Joyce Carol Oates.
    • 3/5
      Oates is obviously a very talented author, but just the couple of books I have listened to have not quite measured up for me. Although I can't say I loved this novel, I do have to admit that it did still captivate me in a way that had me eager to get back to my car and listen to it. I think Williams narration helped my appreciation of this book.The beginning of this book was very confusing for me. It seemed to repeat the opening scene continuously, maybe giving a different perspective or giving just a little bit more information each time. I think almost the entire first disc was spent repeating that scene and I started to wonder if that was going to be the entire book. Luckily, it wasn't, and once it moved on my annoyance passed quickly.When Robbie is kidnapped the book alternates perspectives between Robbie, Dinah, and even the kidnapper, Chester Cash. Sometimes I have problems keeping books like this straight, especially in the audio form, but that was not the case with this one. Williams did a great job of narrating the different parts and I was able to follow along easily. I think Oates did a great job of depicting the situation as we followed the boy and his kidnapper for years afterward. We a get a glimpse into Robbie's head as he yearns for a normal life, wanting to have friends and participate in school activities, rather than being hidden away. And on the flip side of the coin we see what life is like for the parents that are left behind with a huge whole in their lives.Although the book started out rocky for me, it did pick up allowing me to enjoy the story. Although the storyline is ripped from the headlines, Oates goes a bit further by relating the feelings of all involved. She really is a talented author and this makes me want to go get her latest novel. With themes of love, trust, and deceit, you may also enjoy this book. I do recommend this book for those that are interested in this type of storyline and also think it would make an interesting book club discussion.
    • 4/5
      If this shockingly dark tale of depravity fails to make you cringe with every turn of the page, something is definitely wrong. Oates masterfully transports readers into what some reviews have aptly described as a "nightmare." There's no doubt that many readers will be repulsed by this riveting novel. It's clearly not for the squeamish. I agree with one reviewer who said this work reminded her of Emma Donoghue's "Room," another exceptionally good book. If you found "Daddy Love" riveting, check out Oates' "Zombie."
    • 2/5
      In my opinion books needs to do at least one thing – entertain you, make you think, make you laugh, teach you something, take you out of your life for a few hours – in the end it should give you a feeling of satisfaction. This book just made me feel like I needed a shower - from the inside out. Robbie has been taken from a parking lot by a very, very bad man. You will soon find out in no uncertain terms just EXACTLY how bad this man is. Many years are going to pass in which this bad man has our Robbie/Gideon, brainwashed Robbie/Gideon, and abused Robbie/Gideon.Meanwhile Mom’s life is falling apart, yet we never really get the story from her. We just get bits and pieces of what it must be like in her shoes.Child abduction/sexual abuse is an important subject matter, don’t get me wrong – but the way Ms Oates handled it left me quite uncomfortable. Perhaps that is the good thing about this novel. Perhaps one shouldn’t be able to read about a subject like this without some trauma to the reader.You view the meat of this book mostly from Daddy Love’s perspective and it is a ‘dirty’ view, so be prepared. When you hear from the mother – especially the first section of the book –you may just get annoyed at the repetition of it all. You KNOW that everything is important to the reader but do you really need things repeated 3 or 4 times on a page or two?This is thankfully a very fast read coming in at about 250 pages or so – but while reading it, you might feel, as I did, that you have been reading for eons. I have ever read anything by this author before, but I have always heard what a wonderful writer Ms Oates is. An after reading this book, I must agree. Ms Oates has a way with words. Unfortunately, for me this may not have been the best book for me with which to start reading this author. This is one of the most uncomfortable subjects I have ever read about, but since it is an important one, I felt like I could trust Ms Oates to get me through it with my sanity intact. Ms Oates writing style with this book manages to drag you into the story kicking and screaming. You just know you have to finish the book, if only to see just how everything resolves.
    • 4/5
      Joyce Carol Oates has an astounding way of getting inside the heads of sexual predators and their victims. Hers is such a talent, in fact, that her darkest novels (and, with Oates, dark is a relative term because almost all of her novels can be called dark) are a challenge to a reader’s emotional sensitivities. And, the author’s latest, Daddy Love, in which a five-year-old is violently snatched from his mother in a shopping center parking lot, is even more disturbing than most.As Diane and Robbie walk through the mall parking lot, they play a game designed to teach the little boy to pay attention to his surroundings. His mother is subtly guiding Robbie back to their car while asking him to help by telling her which way to turn and whether they are going in the right direction. But the truth is that Diane is finding it difficult to remember exactly where she parked and, because she is so distracted by her own confusion, she never notices the man preparing to knock her down and steal away with her son. Later, despite having been severely injured during her stunned efforts to save her son, Diane finds that she will second-guess herself for the rest of her life.Their marriage will be so severely stressed by the loss of their only child that Diane and Whit Whitcomb will barely manage to stay together. Through it all, Diane, even though battling physical and emotional trauma that will scar her forever, refuses to believe that Robbie will not one day come home. Years later, she is still waiting for the magical phone call announcing that her son has been recovered from his abductor.Robbie’s kidnapper is Chester Cash, a serial child-abductor who insists that his victims call him Daddy Love. Cash, a part-time preacher and full-time ladies man, is brilliantly evil. He disguises his contempt for women so well that he easily manipulates a string of lonely and insecure ones to do his dirty work – from cleaning his pig sty of a house, to doing his laundry, to giving him their money – all the while, playing mind-games with his young victims that turn them into willing victims for years at a time. Cash’s usual routine of rape and torture, followed by rewards for pleasing him, works until Robbie begins to comprehend why Daddy Love’s earlier victims have all disappeared. He figures out that around age twelve, which Robbie is fast approaching, Cash will no longer find him sexually appealing. If he is going to survive, Robbie has to make his escape soon because he is running out of time.The most horrifying aspect of Daddy Love is the novel’s portrayal of the effectiveness of brainwashing suffered by young victims at the hands of sexual perverts. Robbie, because he becomes so dependent on Daddy Love for his physical and emotional wellbeing, never makes a break for freedom or cries for help despite having ample opportunity to do so. He simply cannot imagine a life without Daddy Love. Oates, by telling Daddy Love’s story from both his and Robbie’s viewpoints, shows how a child’s innocence is so easily and completely overwhelmed by an adult evil enough to want to do so.Not easy to read, and even harder to forget, Daddy Love is a reminder of the shadow world that threatens our children…a world parents cannot afford to ignore.Rated at: 4.0
    • 1/5
      I read another book written by Joyce Carol Oates and I absolutely hated it. Despite that, I thought I would give this novel a try. As it turns out, this was way worse than the other book I read from Oates. I absolutely hated every aspect of this novel. For starters, the writing style was so irritating, I couldn’t handle it. Whether in Dinah’s perspective or Daddy Love’s perspective, the narration grated on me to the point where I couldn’t take reading it for another second or I would have to find the closest window to jump out of it. The characters were awful and one-dimensional. They did not resemble real people. Also, the novel, although short in word count, is long-winded. The narration goes on and on and nothing happens. It’s as if Oates is writing words for the sake of writing words. I only made it about a third of the way through this novel, and I almost always finish novels that I start, no matter how bad they are. This is one of the worst I’ve read.Carl Alves – author of Blood Street
    • 4/5
      I almost abandoned this book about a little boy, Robbie, who is abducted and sexually tortured for six years. The early chapters were just too disturbing. Either I hardened my heart or I just got caught up in the suspense, but I’m glad I stuck it out. It’s a riveting portrayal of a despicable monster and it raises interesting questions about how trauma and abuse shapes a child. Note: to this reader, the first few chapters were excruciating. Describing the abduction of the boy outside a shopping mall, Oates repeats the same facts over and over from slightly different perspectives, and I lost patience quickly. Then as the story changes over to Robbie’s life with the predator, Oates abandons the technique of repetition and the pace of the book speeds up considerably.
    • 5/5
      The subject matter of this book is off putting. As mentioned not for the faint of heart. I have read works by Joyce Carol Oates that I loved, and some I couldn't get into, and some I hated. I found this book grabbed me from the first page and did not let go til the last. Actually still is not letting go. I forgot that the characters were not real and I worried that something would happen while I was gone, closing the book to do my real life stuff. Would Son be alright??????? All of that is the sign of a well written story. Granted this escape at times is not a pleasant one, but was what I read books for. Thank you for a great read.
    • 4/5
      In the interest of full disclosure, I really had to work myself up to reading Daddy Love by Joyce Carol Oates. What finally tipped me over the edge into trying it was (definitely not the few reviews I read) the smaller size of the book.I've tried to read Joyce Carol Oates before. I failed at reading Blonde and, although I'd heard her writing is exquisite, I struggled with getting myself to a place where I could try again. So when I saw she had written a book that was less than 300 pages I thought... here we go, and picked it up. Then I put it down when I saw what it was about. Then I picked it up again because.. "never judge a book by its cover" right? You get the picture.So, contrary to what many reviews say, this book is not entirely from the perspective of "Daddy Love," nor does it gratuitously detail obscene and horrible acts committed. Rather, it's the story of desperation, resilience, depravity, and how all three of those things come together to show that sometimes the "happy ending" involves some not so happy results.Daddy Love is told from a few different viewpoints. The viewpoint of Dinah, the mother of young Robbie; the viewpoint of "Daddy Love," the man who abducts Robbie, the viewpoint of "Gideon," the young Robbie renamed. Dinah made me feel complete and total despair; Daddy Love made me feel like I needed to shower - repeatedly; Gideon made me weep. This book reminded me quite a bit of Emma Donaghue's Room. I had to guard myself emotionally a few times. Was it worth it? Honestly, I don't know how to say it was other than to say that everything is written for a purpose. With the horrors that happen today we struggle to figure out why someone would do the things they do and who better than the authors to give us a glimpse into the mind of just one person in order to allow us to understand how that person was molded.I was blown away by the quality of writing here. There's a reason Joyce Carol Oates has the place she holds in the literary world. Daddy Love was a thought-provoking, bone-chilling novel that I'll be thinking about in the days and months to come.
    • 3/5
      I hated the way this ended.

      1 person found this helpful

    Book preview

    Daddy Love - Joyce Carol Oates

    DADDY

    LOVE

    Also by Joyce Carol Oates

    The Barrens

    Beasts

    Rape: A Love Story

    The Female of the Species: Tales of Mystery and Suspense

    The Museum of Dr. Moses

    A Fair Maiden

    Give Me Your Heart: Tales of Mystery and Suspense

    The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares

    DADDY

    LOVE

    JOYCE CAROL OATS

    Mysteriouslogo.tif

    The Mysterious Press

    an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

    New York

    Copyright © 2013 by Joyce Carol Oates

    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 or permissions@groveatlantic.com.

    Published simultaneously in Canada

    Printed in the United States of America

    ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-9365-0

    The Mysterious Press

    an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

    841 Broadway

    New York, NY 10003

    Distributed by Publishers Group West

    www.groveatlantic.com

    For Warren Frazier, and for Moses Cardona

    I

    APRIL–SEPTEMBER 2006

    1

    YPSILANTI, MICHIGAN

    APRIL 11, 2006

    Take my hand, she said.

    He did. Lifted his small hand to Mommy’s hand. This was maybe five minutes before the abduction.

    Did he see their car? she asked him. Did he remember where they’d parked?

    It was a kind of game she’d played with him. He was responsible for remembering where they’d parked the car at the mall which was to teach the child to look closely, and to remember.

    The car was Daddy’s Nissan. A silvery gray-green that didn’t stand out amid other parked vehicles.

    He was an alert child most of the time, except when tired or distracted as he was now.

    Remember? Which store we parked in front of? Was it Home Depot or Kresge Paints?

    Mommy narrowed the stores to two, for Robbie’s benefit. The mall was too much for his five-year-old brain.

    He was staring ahead, straining to see. He took his responsibility for the car seriously.

    Mommy began to worry: she’d made too much of the silly game and now her son was becoming anxious.

    For he was fretting, Is the car lost, Mommy? How will we get home if the car is lost, Mommy?

    Mommy said, with a little laugh, Don’t be impatient, sweetie! I promise, the car is not lost.

    She would remember: the lot that was often a sea of glittering vehicles was now only about one-third filled. For it was nearing dusk of a weekday. She would remember that the arc lights high overhead on tall poles hadn’t yet come on.

    The harsh bright arc lights of Libertyville Mall. Not yet on.

    It was in a row of vehicles facing the entrance to Kresge Paints that she’d parked the Nissan. Five or six cars back. The paint store advertised itself with a festive rainbow painted across the stucco facade of the building.

    The Libertyville Mall was a welcoming sort of place. As you approached the entrances, a percolating sort of pop-music emerged out of the very air.

    Didn’t trust her spatial memory in these massive parking lots and so Dinah never walked away from her car without fixing a landmark in her memory. A visual cue rather than trying to remember the signs: letters and numerals were too easy to forget.

    Unless she jotted down the location of the parked car on a scrap of paper, which she had not done.

    Searching for the car Robbie was becoming increasingly fretful. Tugging at Mommy’s hand in nervous little twitches. And his little face twitched, like a rabbit’s.

    She assured him: I’m sure the car is just over there. Next row. Behind that big SUV. Perpendicular to the paint store.

    Robbie was straining to see. Robbie seemed convinced, the car was lost.

    And how would they get home, if Daddy’s car was lost?

    Mommy asked Robbie if he knew what perpendicular meant but he scarcely listened. Ordinarily new and exotic words were fascinating to Robbie but now he was distracted.

    Mommy what if . . . Lost?

    Damn she regretted the silly parking-lot game! Maybe it was a good idea sometimes but not now, evidently. Too much excitement in the mall and Robbie hadn’t had a nap and now he was fretting and on the verge of tears and she felt a wave of protective love for him, a powerful wish to shield him, to clutch him close and assure him that he was safe, and she was safe, and the car was only a few yards away, and not lost. And they were not lost.

    Except: when she came upon the row of vehicles in which she was sure she’d parked the Nissan, it wasn’t there.

    Which meant: she’d parked in the next row. That was all.

    It’s right here, Robbie. Next row.

    You must hide from your child your own foolish uncertainties.

    You must hide from your child your own sudden sharp-as-a-razor self-loathing.

    Dinah was thinking more positively—(a good mother is one who insists upon thinking more positively)—what a good thing it is, that a child’s fears can be so quickly dispelled. Robbie’s anxiety would begin to fade as soon as they sighted the car and would have been totally forgotten by the time they arrived home and Daddy came home for supper.

    And Daddy would ask Robbie what they’d done that day and Robbie would tell him about the mall—the items they’d bought, the stores they’d gone into, the plump white pink-nosed Easter bunnies in an enclosure in the atrium at the center of the mall and how he’d petted them through the bars for it was allowed for visitors to pet the bunnies as long as they did not feed them, or frighten them.

    PET ME PLEASE DON’T PINCH ME.

    And Robbie would climb onto Daddy’s lap and ask, as he’d asked Mommy, Could they have an Easter bunny? And Daddy would say as Mommy had said, Not this year but maybe next year at Easter.

    And to Mommy in an undertone, Jugged hare, maybe. With red wine.

    Pulling Robbie through a maze of parked vehicles and certain now that she saw the Nissan, parked exactly where she’d left it, Dinah was prepared to say in relief and triumph: See, honey? Just where we left it.

    2

    Please take my hand, Robbie.

    He did. He lifted his pudgy hand to Mommy’s hand, and she squeezed his fingers. Between Mommy and the five-year-old passed a shivery sort of happiness.

    Apophatic came to her mind. That which is beyond words.

    So much in motherhood she was discovering is beyond words.

    Do you see our car? Daddy’s car? Remember where we parked?

    The car was Daddy’s 2001 Nissan sedan. Cool green-gray of the hue of weathered stone.

    On their outings together, Mommy used such opportunities to instruct Robbie. It was Mommy’s intention that their son would not be a passive child like so many in this electronic-media era but a child actively involved in whatever Mommy was doing that had some reasonable learning-purpose to it.

    And Robbie definitely helped Mommy locate stores on the mall-map, for his five-year-old brain was quick to coordinate colors, and quick to match names and numerals with patches of color, as in a board game.

    Robbie had been responsible for remembering the location of the car when Mommy parked, since the age of three.

    He was a quick bright sweetly docile boy most of the time—given to happy chattering. A nonstop barrage of questions for Mommy and Daddy—Why? Why? Why?

    The flood of speech had begun when he’d been two. In three years, Robbie’s vocabulary and way with words had developed considerably.

    And it was a task, to get such an active-minded child to sleep through the night. Often waking at 3:30 A.M. and coming to their bed claiming he was all slept-out, so it must be morning.

    Mommy was asking gently: Remember? Which store we parked behind? Was it Home Depot or Kresge Paints?

    She’d narrowed the stores down to two, for Robbie’s benefit. The mall was somewhat overwhelming to him and shopping here left him both excited and fatigued.

    Home Depot or—Kresge Paints?

    Robbie stared, strained to see. Robbie was taking his responsibility for the car seriously.

    This was a game and yet not entirely a game. Now Dinah began to worry that she’d made too much of it and if Robbie couldn’t locate the car he’d be disappointed in himself, and upset.

    The downside of an active-minded child is that he sets high standards for himself, if but unconsciously. And it should not be a five-year-old’s self-judgment that he might fail.

    Shopping with Mommy Robbie was like a little bird fluttering its wings—so much energy! And so much to look at, and question! Mommy what’s this? Mommy what’s this? A display of plump white pink-nosed Easter bunnies in the mall had thrown him into an ecstasy of excitement. He’d tugged at Mommy so hard that her arm was aching. She’d joked to friends, as to Whit, that she was becoming asymmetrical—a slight stoop to her right shoulder, from leaning down to their little boy.

    He was a happy child. He was not a fretful, whimpering or whining child. Yet, sometimes when he was frustrated, particularly by a task he’d presumably learned to do, or by some accident having to do with the toilet, Robbie burst into tears of disappointment, hurt, rage. The woundedness in a five-year-old’s face! It would require a Rembrandt to render such exquisite subtlety, such pain. At such times Dinah was in awe of the child.

    For at such times he seemed to her not her child, but the child.

    Robbie was saying in a worried voice that their car wasn’t where it was supposed to be—was it? The car was lost—was it?

    And Mommy said no, the car was definitely not lost—Just wait a minute. Maybe we’ll see it in a minute.

    Robbie was asking how they would get home, if the car was lost?

    "Sweetie, don’t be so impatient. I promise, the car is not lost."

    Recalling how, as a child, she’d been subject to little spells of anxiety about being lost.

    All children must feel this anxiety in some way. Lostness as a condition of which no one can speak clearly for it is a mystery—the lostness deep within the soul.

    Dinah would remember that the lot, often a sea of glittering vehicles, was only about one-third filled at this time, nearing dusk of a weekday. She would remember that the lights high overhead on tall poles hadn’t yet come on. There’d been a mistiness to the air that made her vision seem blurred and her senses less alert than usual. And yes, she was tired.

    Tired was what she’d never admit to her husband, let alone her son. Tired was her secret shame, alarm, disappointment in herself for she believed that tired was just ordinary weakness. If you are happy in your life and living a good life you are not ever tired but suffused with the strength of happiness.

    She wasn’t a religious person. Yet, in the deepest region of her soul she would say Yes I believe.

    Whit would laugh at her. Whit laughed at such clichés. Whit laughed at weakness not his own.

    It was facing the entrance to Kresge Paints she’d parked the car. Five or six rows back. The paint store advertised itself with a rainbow painted across the stucco facade of the building.

    Didn’t trust her spatial memory in these big lots and so she never left her car without fixing a landmark in her memory. She preferred a visual cue rather than trying to remember the signs: letters and numerals were too easy to forget unless she wrote them down.

    Though she did remember, the car was in Lot C.

    Robbie, over-excited by the mall, each window display having drawn his attention, and some of the displays (electronics, toys, sports gear) having stimulated a barrage of questions to put to Mommy, seemed to have forgotten Kresge Paints though, when they’d left the car, Mommy had pointed to the gala rainbow facade. Too much had intervened, evidently. Too much to look at. Robbie was tugging at Mommy’s hand in nervous little twitches. And his little face twitched, like a rabbit’s. She wanted to kiss him, he was looking so perplexed; at the same time so responsible.

    At such a juncture a cruel parent might have said It was your responsibility to remember where the car was parked. If you can’t find the car we are lost and have no way of getting back home. But she was not a cruel parent and she would never have said such a thing.

    Though her own mother might have said such a thing to her when she’d been Robbie’s age.

    Not seriously of course but as a joke. Dinah’s mother liked such jokes.

    Don’t go there! Back up.

    Honey, the car is over there, I think. Behind that SUV. We can’t see it just yet but—it’s perpendicular to the paint-store entrance. OK?

    Robbie was uncertain. Robbie was straining to see.

    The paint store? With all the colors? The car is there.

    Robbie shook his head—his forehead crinkled in worry—the car was not there.

    "Robbie, wait. Stop pulling at me, please! The car is there."

    Dinah had to smile. Though a child is small, a child is strong.

    But the fact is, an adult must always be aware: a child is small.

    It was easy to forget this simple fact sometimes. When she and Robbie were together for an uninterrupted period of time—in the car, or at home; watching videos, reading a storybook (reading what was Robbie believed he was doing though Mommy knew he’d memorized the words to his favorite stories from having them read to him many times); when he was sitting with her, and they were almost of a height; or Robbie was sitting on her lap, which made him seem taller. Or Robbie was chattering and she was laughing and half-listening and thinking, as the child’s father had observed, that there was something about their son’s personality that made you think he was your size, essentially.

    And quick, and smart. Fascinated by words.

    ‘Perpendicular.’ D’you know what that means, sweetie?

    Impatiently Robbie shook his head no.

    "It means, like, an L—Mommy made a shape with her hands, to indicate perpendicularity—one thing is going this way, and the other is going this way. See?"

    Robbie nodded uncertainly. He was looking anxiously about for the car—where was the car? Why couldn’t he see the car yet?

    Firmly Mommy gripped the pudgy little hand and walked forward in the direction of the car she’d parked only an hour before, making her way between parked cars, waiting for a lone vehicle to pass with headlights shining faintly, gripping the anxious child’s hand and just slightly annoyed now, not so much with Robbie but with herself, for encouraging this silly game as a way of strengthening the child’s memory, or his sense of responsibility, which she was thinking now hadn’t been a good idea maybe; or, if a good idea originally, not so great an idea now. It frightened her, sometimes seeing young mothers lose control and scream at their small children in the mall, or in the vast parking lot; there was something about the anonymity of the mall that seemed to encourage such outbursts; and sometimes the young mother shook her child, and you could only stare in horror, you could not look away from such private, devastating moments; but you must shield your child from seeing, and so you did—you hurried away—no backward glance . . .

    The good thing was, of course Robbie’s anxiety would vanish in another few seconds, when they found the car (which wasn’t exactly where Dinah had thought it was, after all; must be the next row, and not this row) and Robbie would soon know, and a few minutes later Robbie would have totally forgotten his anxiety for in a five-year-old emotions rise and fall like gusts of wind. She would say, in triumph: See, honey? Right where we left it.

    But she was stammering. Words like bits of concrete or chalk in her mouth. Trying to say I can’t remember.

    I guess—I can’t remember.

    We were almost at our car when something hit me—the back of my head—it seemed to fall from the sky like a large bird—like a swan—it was just above me and beating me with its wing—but the wing was sharp like a sword . . . Then I was gone.

    I was gone, and Robbie was taken from me. I felt his fingers wrenched from my hand . . .

    I was gone and could not scream for help but it was like I’d been pushed into the water, and came up again, to the surface, and somehow I was on my feet—I don’t know how I managed to get up but I was on my feet—I guess I was running after them—him?—I was screaming and I was running after the SUV—I think it was—or a van—he’d gotten Robbie from me and into the van—it happened so fast—they said it was a concussion from the first blow—when I was on my feet—now I could scream and I was screaming at them—at him—I was stumbling after the van—we were at the end of a row of parked cars, the lot was emptying out—nobody seemed to see us—I was running after the van screaming and then somehow it happened, I couldn’t see for the blood running into my eyes, the van was turned around—the driver had turned it around—he was going to run me down—I could see his face—I could see his grinning teeth—his whiskers—some kind of a hat, a baseball cap maybe, pulled down low over his forehead, and he was wearing glasses—dark glasses—his eyes were hidden behind those dark reflector glasses like motorcyclists wear—and I guess—I wasn’t going to step

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