Where Is My Daughter?

My Little Miracle; My Big Secret

My boss wasn't happy with another late start to my day, but she wasn't going to fire me. The truth is I was working a deadbeat job for next to nothing pay. Nobody wanted to be a childcare teacher—nobody except for me. The turnover in places like this was horrendous - usually, new teachers lasted less than one year. I had been there for two. With credentials that would have allowed me to work in excellent facilities, I was a rare breed my boss couldn't afford to lose.

I wasn't given much information about my daughter, except that the family who they chose for her lived was from this general area. Then one day, when I was driving by this daycare, I noticed the "help wanted" sign above the door, and the idea had struck me. Perhaps my daughter would come here. Indeed, her assigned "parents" must have had good jobs to be approved for parenting, which means they would likely be needing a daycare center. It was an unlikely shot in the dark, but I was willing to try everything. I also silently hoped that watching stranger's children could offer some form of therapy for my pain.

This job had started to fill the void of needing to find my daughter. But it had evolved into a beast on its own. I had fallen in love with some of the children I watched, and I had steadily worked my way up the rings until I was one of the best teachers the center had. Parents would frequently come in, requesting their child be put in my classroom. I had a waitlist, and I was given the option to choose the children I would be willing to take.

So what if I was late to work every day? I was indispensable, and I had made sure of that. I needed a steady income if I ever expected to have a parenting license again. This job served that purpose.  It did not, however, act as the anesthetic to the emotional pain that I had hoped. It was, instead, a constant reminder of what I couldn't have. Something that so many other people seemed to get with relative ease. I was an outsider - watching what my life should have looked like through the windowpane of my enclosure.

I never expected to be a single parent, but I knew I had always planned to be a parent eventually. So I didn't go out searching for that opportunity. Still, when it presented itself, I realized how badly I had needed her in my life. I spent 9 months enthralled by her existence in my body and overjoyed by the immense blessing she was. She gave me a reason to live again, one that I hadn't even realized I needed badly until she came to be. She dug the hole and filled it with her existence. If there was a god, she was my miracle.

The first person I told was my mother, who kept her shrewd remarks primarily to herself. To her credit, she never asked who the father was, considering at the time, the closest thing I had to a steady boyfriend was Netflix and a bowl of popcorn. At first, she seemed skeptical, but she changed her tune when I was approved for parenthood. She fell head over heels in love with the child she never even had a chance to meet. My mom furnished her bedroom, filled her wardrobe with more clothes than any baby could ever find time to wear. She even bought her toys she would be too small to comprehend for the first several months of her life.

My mother arrived in my hospital room shortly after I had woken up from my heated discussion with Dorian. Her cries echoed mine when I choked out an explanation of my new reality. It had taken a fleet of nurses to calm her down without the assistance of the sedatives they had used on me. My denial utterly crushed her. Yet, I could see in the brokenness of her eyes that she knew my pain must have been unparallel.

When I got home from the hospital, the baby's room had been stripped. She had packaged, folded, hidden, and stored every item that could remind me of my lost daughter. Then, she painted the room back to the same shade of grey the rest of my house had been adorned in. It was as if Paisley had never existed.

When I walked into her room, I was crushed. I'm not sure how long I laid on the floor, my head in my mother's lap as she gently stroked my hair, but the soreness in my neck and back told the tale of hours I had spent there.