A Photo of My Father's Kidnapper

I took a photo last night of my father’s kidnapper. We were all at the carnival and Christopher had gone to grab a snow cone. I didn’t want one, because my stomach was bothering me. I had gone on the Tangler too many times. There, across from me on the fairway, was the Man. His hair was silver and he had grown out his beard, but I knew who he was. I took out my phone and snapped a photo of him. Immediately, I pulled up an app for posting photos and I posted the photo with the caption “Kidnapper.” By then, Christopher had walked back over with two snow cones. He got me one just in case. He’s very thoughtful like that.

On the way home, he screamed at me. Why would I post that photo? My father has been dead for years. The kidnapping happened when I was a young child. How did I know it was that man? And even if it was, there was never any proof that the kidnapping wasn’t orchestrated by my father to get money from his father-in-law, my grandfather. Christopher said when I did things like that, I was embarrassing him and our children. He pounded on the steering wheel with palm of his hand, and I felt my teeth beginning to chatter. When we arrived home, the children were already in bed, and I paid the babysitter. After she left, Christopher was waiting for me in our bedroom. He made me kneel on the floor and told me to delete the photo. Delete it right now.

I wouldn’t.

Christopher left the next morning with my phone in his bag. Before he confiscated it, I emailed myself the photo. The children ran through the sprinkler outside while I stared at the Man on my laptop. He was smiling and talking to some other man who might have been his lover. There was an energy to the photo that indicated intimacy. When my father talked about the kidnapping, which he often did, he said that the man had a smell to him that was feminine. Something flowery, but also strong. I didn’t like the way my father gathered things into containers of masculine and feminine, but looking at the photo, there was something about the Man that made him feel maternal. He was lit by the rides and his shoes looked expensive. Who wears expensive shoes to a carnival? Why didn’t we take the children to the carnival with us? Christopher said we needed a night out, and the children get sick on rides anyway. I also get sick on rides, but that didn’t stop me from riding the Tangler over and over until I felt the striped bass we had shortly before leaving the house rear up in my throat. Christopher left me some tablets to take before he departed for work. I zoomed in on the photo. The Man wasn’t wearing a watch, but there were tan lines indicating that he regularly wore one. I wish I was a detective. I wish I was smarter. I wish my father were still alive so I could tell him that the kidnapper wasn’t dead and that he needed to be afraid, because my father was a cruel man who never seemed to be afraid of anything in spite of his past.

My father would have me sit at the dinner table, close my eyes, and describe my food. He didn’t want me to go through the world only able to see and touch and hear. He wanted every sense heightened. When he was in captivity, the Man would feed him various foods and my father never knew what they were, because he was often blindfolded. Maybe knowing what foods he was being served would have helped him in some way. When he was finally rescued after seven long weeks, his kidnapper had already been gone for nearly a day. My father had wet himself. A few people were dubious of his story, including my grandfather, but nobody could prove anything. I don’t remember my father being gone for those seven weeks, but I mostly spent my days in the nursery making my toys put each other on trial for crimes such as theft and lying. When he was returned to our family, my mother told me to hug him tightly, and when I did, my father yelled and nearly slapped me. After that, I was only allowed to see him at dinner when he would quiz me on what I was eating as I shut my eyes as hard as I could.

The children came inside and I showed them the photo. They agreed that the Man in the photo was a Bad Man and my daughter began to cry, because she swore that she’d seen him outside our house the day before, but I knew she wasn’t telling the truth, because my daughter cannot be honest to save her life. She is seven, and she’ll grow up being a terrible human being. My son will be spineless, but not a monster. Just not much of anyone. A person made of air. I had them go upstairs to take baths and go to bed early. When Christopher came home, I told him that I wanted a divorce, but I told him that every night, so he didn’t give it much credence. We made love in our backyard with the sprinkler still going, because I had forgotten to turn it off. Christopher said our water bill would be exorbitant, but he said it in a defeated sort of way. Dinner was striped bass again and asparagus and kale salad and grilled peaches for dessert. None of it was any good.

He made me kneel on the bedroom floor again as he handed me my phone. I could tell that he had gone through it, but he had not deleted the photo. He wanted me to do that. I refused. He sat down on the bed and began reciting a prayer for strength. I waited until he was done, and then sang a short song.

We went to bed.

I woke up in the night and looked at my phone. I pulled up the photo and made it my wallpaper. I made it my lock screen background. I took a hundred screenshots of it. I rubbed the phone against my arms and my legs. While Christopher slept, I memorized everything about it that I had forgotten to commit to memory while I was looking at it on my laptop. When I was done, I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. The water wasn’t hot enough, but I pretended that it was. I stepped into the shower and pretended the water was scalding. I told myself I couldn’t bear it. That it was burning my skin. The water began to grow warmer.

My teeth began to chatter.

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