Chapter Text
“Never in his life had Edward been cradled like a baby. Abilene had not done it. Nor had Nellie. And most certainly, Bull had not. It was a singular sensation to be held so gently and yet so fiercely, to be stared down at with so much love. Edward felt the whole of his china body flood with warmth.”
Kate DiCamillo, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
The Miraculous Journey of Charlotte Bradford, Chapter 1
After mommy falls asleep and won’t wake up, the entire world becomes very scary, very quickly for Charlotte Bradford.
She sits by mommy’s side even when her body is cold and the house is cold and she gets cold. It’s winter, and mommy normally turns the heat on for at least a few hours a day so they don’t freeze, but Charlotte is too short to reach the thermostat, so she sits there wrapped in a blanket by her mommy’s silent, motionless body.
She sits and stares.
She doesn’t eat or sleep or even go to the bathroom until there’s a knock on the door what feels like days later.
She doesn’t cry when her mommy is taken away, and she doesn’t speak to the woman who wraps her in a blanket and puts her in the back of a car and takes her somewhere warm.
She hears words like overdose and heroine and relatives, but she doesn’t know what any of those words mean. She doesn’t know where she is or who these people are.
All she knows is that she wants her mommy.
“Hey, Charlotte,” a soft voice says, and the little girl turns to look at the woman approaching her. She’s smiling and she has pretty, light brown skin. Her hair is long and pulled back into lots of little braids, and her eyes are kind.
She looks nice, but Charlotte still doesn’t speak.
“Do you know where your daddy is?”
Charlotte shakes her head, because she doesn’t have a daddy. She’s never had a daddy. Mommy said that daddy left when she was a baby and never came back, so she doesn’t think her daddy ever loved her or her mommy very much.
“Are you hungry? I have some snacks.”
Charlotte knows the woman is trying to get her to speak, she’s not stupid. And it’s not that she doesn’t want to, she just can’t. Every time she tries the words get stuck in her throat.
She perks up, however, at the mention of snacks, and her stomach chooses that moment to growl.
The woman laughs and holds out her hand. Charlotte stares at it, and then up at the woman’s face.
“My name is Rachel. I’m going to help you find someone to take care of you, but for now, I’m going to help you find some cookies. Sound good?”
Charlotte nods and reaches out to take Rachel’s hand.
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She stays the night in a home with lots of other kids, but in the morning Rachel is back and smiling more widely than ever.
“We found your daddy, Charlotte,” she says, and she helps Charlotte carry her backpack. Her backpack has her sweater and her bunny in it, and nothing else. She hadn’t had time to grab anything else before she’d been taken away, not that she’d had much. Mommy said they didn’t have much money, but that it was OK because they had each other.
I don’t have a daddy, Charlotte wants to say, but her throat closes up and her chest hurts.
She takes Rachel’s hand and lets her buckle her into the car. She stares out the window as they drive, and she counts all of the trees she sees. They live in California, mommy had said, and there aren’t many trees in the city, but she counts up to 31 before the car stops.
Charlotte takes Rachel’s hand again once they’re out of the car, and she sticks her thumb in her mouth even though her mommy had told her that only babies suck their thumbs. She looks at the building in front of her, and it looks nice. It’s tall and has lots of windows, and there are flowers and trees out front. There’s a swingset and a small playground inside of a fence, and Charlotte can see other kids playing on it. She stares at them with wide eyes, and Rachel smiles as she bends down on the sidewalk next to her.
“This is where your daddy lives. He lives in an apartment on the third floor. That’s the playground for the apartment complex. I bet if you ask your daddy, you could go play there.”
Charlotte nods, but she doesn’t hold out much hope.
She doesn’t have a daddy, so she’s not going to get to stay here, even though she really wants to.
It’s nice and clean, and it doesn’t smell like her house did. There are no sharp needles and it’s warm when they walk inside the building.
She’s never been this warm in winter before. Mommy said that it cost too much.
They climb the stairs, Charlotte’s little backpack on her back, and she feels her heart thumping madly in her chest as they stop outside a door with the numbers 312 on it.
“OK, here we go,” Rachel says, and she smiles at Charlotte before she knocks.
Charlotte hears noise on the other side of the door, and she inches behind Rachel’s legs as the lock turns and the door opens.
“Hello,” Rachel says, and she smiles at the man who has answered the door. He’s a nice looking man, Charlotte thinks. He’s not smiling, but he has kind eyes, too, and Charlotte thinks it would be nice if she did have a daddy.
“Hi, you must be Rachel,” the man says. He looks down at Charlotte and he looks nervous like Charlotte was on her first day of school.
She hadn’t stayed in school long, because mommy said all of the teachers were stupid, but she’d had fun once she’d gotten to know some of her friends.
“I… I tried to get everything ready, but like I said on the phone, I had no idea that Isabel was even pregnant. I’ve been overseas for the past six years, and … oh god, I can’t believe I have a daughter.”
Rachel chuckles and then tugs on Charlotte’s hand.
“Well, we’re just thankful she put you on the birth certificate. It made tracking you down easier. Here, this is Charlotte.”
The man drops down on his knees and reaches a hand out, and he’s still not smiling (in fact, he looks scared), but his voice is soft se he speaks.
“Hey, Charlotte. I… I’m your daddy.”
Charlotte looks at his hand, and then at his face, and then reaches out slowly, cautiously, and takes his hand in hers.
She still doesn’t speak, but she smiles around her thumb as he shakes her tiny hand with his large, warm one. Charlotte hopes with all her heart that he is her daddy, because if he’s not… if she has to leave the warm, clean apartment she sees beyond the doorway… then she’ll be all alone in the world, and that's even scarier than meeting someone new.
“It’s nice to meet you,” her daddy says softly, and then he takes her hand and guides her inside.