DEIRA
I was feeling cautiously optimistic about life. Cassius had asked his broker to send some apartment options, and amazingly, there were a lot of nice places that were in my budget. Makayla had spent a few more afternoons with Cassius, and she seemed to really like him.
Work was still going well too. The first campaign I worked on had done really well, and I genuinely liked the team I was working with. The only problem was, my manager had just asked me to work overtime that weekend. Makayla and I actually had plans to meet Cassius for another day at the park. If I was honest with myself, I was really looking forward to it. Still, I was reluctant to say no, since I was the new recruit.
I sighed, and texted Cassius to ask if he was okay going to the park alone with Makayla. As I predicted, he replied immediately, saying he was happy to help.
The next day, Makayla and I met Cassius outside the company. She happily skipped off with him to go to the park, and I reluctantly went into the building alone. Cassius had brought me coffee, and I was grateful for that as I sat at my desk, flipping back and forth through project briefs and doing my best to go through the work quickly. I was hoping that if I worked fast, I would be able to finish by lunch and join Cassius and Makayla at the park after I ate.
No such luck, though. I finished the coffee Cassius had brought me and made another cup for myself. Every time I finished a task, there was some other small thing to be tweaked, and as soon as I started looking into it, it turned out to be not so small after all. This was the first project I'd worked on mostly by myself, and I was being a bit of a perfectionist about it. I wanted it to be really impressive. It was a drag to be stuck in the office while I knew Cassius and Makayla were out having fun, but I also felt sort of satisfied. It was kind of exciting to be able to work on something I was good at, and to know that Cassius was taking care of Makayla, so I could concentrate on just this.
It was around noon when I realized I had drunk all of my second cup of coffee. Looking at what I had left to do, I estimated it would take me a few more hours. I stood up and stretched, wondering if I should take a break for lunch.
That was when my phone rang.
It was Cassius. I picked it up, hoping it wasn't him calling to ask to buy Makayla something ridiculous.
"Hello?"
"Deira," he said, and my heart dropped. His voice sounded panicked.
"What is it? What's wrong?" I stood up instinctively.
"I... Makayla, she..."
"Cassius, what's wrong?" I asked again. I was imagining the worst, all the possible terrible things, and I needed to know which it was.
"I can't find Makayla," he said.
"Where are you?" I asked in a panic.
"Still at the park," he replied. I hung up the phone, my coat already halfway on as I rushed out the door.
I sped over to the park, barely paying attention to the lights or other cars on the road. It was a miracle that I made it in one piece. All I could hear in my head on the way over were Cassius's words on a loop: "I can't find Makayla."
I parked and got out, and Cassius immediately saw me and came over.
"What happened?" I asked. My eyes scanned the playground. It was small, there was really no way you could lose track of a child on it, but I had to check. Maybe Cassius just had bad parental instincts, and had missed something, like checking the slides, or the swings. Or maybe he just wasn't used to looking for her, so she had blended in with the other kids. But no, she was nowhere to be found.
"I just took my eyes off her for a second," he said.
"You what?" I turned on him, unable to believe what I was hearing.
"It was really just... I got a phone call that I had to take. It was a foreign client, I've been trying to get them on the phone for ages, the timing never works, and I..."
I turned away from him. His explanation was irrelevant at the moment. The only important thing was that he'd stopped watching Makayla, and she'd disappeared. I tried not to jump to the worst possible conclusion, but I couldn't help but think how easy it would be to grab a kid. What if someone realized Makayla had a rich dad and wanted to cash in on that?
"Call the police," I told him, interrupting whatever excuse he was sputtering. "I'm going to go look from the other side."
He immediately took out his phone. I walked around the whole playground, willing myself to see Makayla's blond head pop out from around some piece of playground equipment. Every moment that passed where that didn't happen was increasing my panic.
The police arrived quickly, and Cassius explained the situation to them. By that point, other parents in the park had noticed, and some of them were offering to help look. One of the police officers went across the street to check with the people working in the nearby shops.
Cassius looked terrified.
"I'm going to walk around the block," he said. "Maybe she just wandered off down the street." I didn't care what he did.
"Fine," I said without looking at him. The other police officer was arranging the parents who had offered to help, instructing them on the best way to form search groups around the park. I went with one of the groups, where one of the moms gave me a sympathetic look and squeezed my hand.
"We'll find her, dear," the mom said. I wanted to believe her.