A local woman missing- Mary Kubica

remember, Leo, how this happened?” I ask again. This time he
shakes his head.
Leo asks for his bath toys. I get them for him. But this time when
he lines his whale and fish up on the edge of the tub, they don’t
gracefully swan dive into the water as they usually do. Instead, they
kick one another into the tub. It’s aggressive. Mean. The much
bigger whale uses its big blue fin to firmly kick the tiny, unsuspecting
red fish into the water. The fish falls, becomes submerged. But only
for a moment. It floats back to the surface.
Leo grabs the fish. He sets it back on the edge of the tub. It
happens all over again.
“Leo,” I say. My voice is more firm. “Did someone do this to you?” I
ask, pointing for a third time to the bruise.
Leo doesn’t answer with words. Instead, he lifts a finger to his lips,
says, “Shh.”
Suddenly my heart is in my throat. Did someone do this to him and
tell him not to tell?
After I get him out of the bath, I call Charlotte. Charlotte should
have told Josh at pickup if something happened to Leo. I ask Josh.
She didn’t. He goes to see the bruise for himself.
Charlotte answers on the third ring.
“Hi, Meredith,” she says. Her voice is singsong. Charlotte is older
than me. She was a teacher once. She taught at an alternative
school in town. It’s what they call an “in lieu of expulsion” program.
Kids that would otherwise be expelled from their current schools get
transferred there. Burnout is high. Charlotte didn’t last long before
she started her own in-home day care.
I tell Charlotte why I’m calling. I say what I saw in the bath. I ask,
“Did Leo fall at your house? Did he get hurt? Do you know?”
“Let me think,” she says. Charlotte watches a number of kids.
They range in age from eighteen months to twelve years. The older
kids, like Delilah, are in school most of the day. But at three o’clock,
Charlotte and the others walk to pick them up. Then her number of
charges doubles. It’s organized chaos whenever I’m there.
“No,” Charlotte says after a short hiatus. “I don’t remember
anything happening to Leo. I didn’t see anything happen. Leo didn’t