A Few Days with the Grissom Family Chapter 3
…Movement and a tiny grunt from the corner brought Sara from daydreams to reality. She found her shirt, her underwear, and pants, and was almost dressed before the sound became a whimper. She lifted the baby from the crib.
"Hi, Annie," she whispered. The baby was warm and wiggly and instantly smiled at the sound of her mother's voice. Her tiny fist rubbed an eye as she put her head against Sara's shoulder. With her free hand, Sara covered the second sleeping child, picked up a juice box and a new diaper, and whispering into the baby's ear, opened the door to a small enclosed patio.
This was the child who worried Sara more than any of the others. At birth she weighed less than her sister, Ava. She was slow to crawl, last to walk. Grissom and the pediatrician insisted she was gradually catching up; a battery of testing showed she was "within normal range"—whatever that meant, Sara thought.
Annie was delighted to have her mother's full attention. A quick diaper change, a few sips of juice, and she was snuggled into the crook of Sara's arm as they walked in the enclosed garden patio filled with flowers. Sara said the color of each flower as she pointed to purple and pink and white blooms. Annie would bury her nose into each flower and gurgle and babble attempting to form a word.
This beachside motel had looked the same for over a decade, its doorways, windows, and patios overgrown with red bougainvillea, yellow jasmine, pink fuchsia, and geraniums in a rainbow of colors. It was the first place Gil Grissom had loved Sara Sidle; if she remembered correctly, it was a blue room that faced this same patio.
When she laughed, the baby looked at her with wide-eyed surprise. Sara explained, knowing none of what she said would be comprehended but getting a certain joy from telling the story of how she had ended up in this place for one long afternoon.
"I knew I loved your daddy that day," she explained. "And for days and weeks, even years, that passed, I would always think of that afternoon when he showed me that love was more than a song on a radio." Sara hummed an old song and slow danced around the patio holding the baby who giggled with her as they danced.
The two did not hear the door slide open as they were joined by Grissom and Annie's twin sister. "May we join this dance?" He said as an arm went around Sara. The toddlers played as their parents moved together. "You are happy."
As an answer, she kissed him. Annie and Ave giggled and ran back and forth across the white patio stones; within minutes Eli joined them and Sara and Gil braded yellow star jasmine and geraniums into wreaths to wear in their hair.
"Do boys wear flowers?" Eli asked as Sara wove flowers and leaves together.
She laughed. "Yes, they do. And we'll put purple clematis in yours." He grinned as she placed the wreath atop his head. She got to her feet. "I'll wake Bizzy—she's slept long enough."
Grissom nodded as he worked with stems and flowers trying to figure out how Sara had completed three little circles while he worked on one.
Inside the room, Sara found an empty bed where her daughter should have been sleeping. She checked the bathroom, finding it empty as well. The second bed, each crib, the second bathroom—all empty. She knew the child had to be in the two rooms. She glanced at the patio seeing three children and Grissom. No Bizzy.
"Bizzy, where are you?" She called, keeping her voice low, but an uneasiness creeping into her mind. She checked the door—locked with a deadbolt and returned to the beds again, looking underneath each. She opened the small closet, finding nothing but their clothes. The kitchen cabinets were filled with pans and plates, but no child.
How could a child disappear from a locked room? Her thoughts did not want to go there. Bizzy had to be in the two rooms. She stood at the foot of the bed before impulse made her pull covers back and smooth them across the bed. She found a crumpled gum wrapper and smiled at the recollection of a shopping spree with four children in a convenience store.
Again, she checked outside seeing only three children. One more quick look before she called Grissom, she thought. This time, slower, she searched the cabinets, the bathrooms, underneath each bed—knowing she would find nothing. She would not panic—the child had to be here.
Her hand touched the door separating the two rooms as she realized the open door made a small triangle of space behind it. She pulled and had found her sleeping daughter.