Micah grabs hold of both shoulders and looks me dead in the eye. “Iris, babe, I need you to calm down. Take a breath.Breathe,Iris! She can’t have gotten far. We’ll find her, just breathe for me.”
“I lost her …” My whole body shakes. I’m wheezing, and I start to think that paper bag is a real necessity.
“Iris, please, baby, I need you to calm down.” Tears brim in Micah’s eyes as he cups my face with both hands—or is it just my vision blurring from crying and lack of oxygen? “Iris, we can’t find her if you’re hysterical. Slow down. Breathe with me. In. Out. In. Out. Good. Slow and easy.”
Thankfully, Micah’s mantra seems to do the trick. My heart still thunders in my chest at a breakneck pace, but I manage to get control of my diaphragm and fill my lungs with a few good breaths.
“There. Good. Stay with me, okay? We’ll find her. Let’s find an employee and start looking.”
I hiccup and nod, and Micah takes a firm grip on my hand. We head for the closest uniformed zoo employee, a janitor from the looks of it, and ask for his help. I’m still a sniffly, snotty, crying mess, but Micah somehow maintains a calm exterior. I know he’s got to be freaking out. Maybe he just doesn’t want to make a scene. Once we find Hailey, he’s going to take us back to the house, where he will dump my ass for my incompetence.
Oh, please, God, let us find Hailey! I’ll accept getting dumped if we justfindher!
The janitor radios for the other zoo employees to keep an eye out, and the three of us rush from enclosure to enclosure, looking everywhere for Hailey. I even resort to peeking behind bushes and rocks, hoping she’s just playing hide and seek. With each failure to find her, my heart sinks further into my stomach. Waves of nausea assault me, and I swallow back bile.
Did she climb over a railing and fall into an enclosure? Will we find what’s left of her with the lions? Did someone grab her? She’s an adorable kid. What if someone took her?
Other uniformed employees appear and join in the search. Radios buzz off and on as the zookeepers try to coordinate. We ask random zoogoers if they’ve seen a blonde four-year-old with braids walking around by herself, but no one’s seen Hailey. How could they not notice a kid that young wandering alone?
Though I’m a powder keg of nerves, the workers seem calm. There’s a sense of urgency about them, but they’re not in a state of absolute panic. They’re probably used to kids running off.
A woman in a tan suit with an official-looking badge walks up while we’re searching through the butterfly house. She extends her hand, and Micah lets go of me for a second to shake it.
“Hello, sir. Ma’am.” She nods at me, but I’m trembling too much to take her offered hand. “I’m Kathleen, the zoo manager. We’ve got every available employee looking for your daughter. We’ll find her; don’t you worry.”
Don’t worry? Hailey ismissing! How can she expect me not to worry?
A radio at the manager’s hip beeps, and she takes it out of the holster to respond. “Yes?”
The answer is so garbled I don’t know how anyone could make it out. Kathleen smiles, though, and across the park workers stop their searching.
“What?” I say, looking from Kathleen to Micah and back. “That was gibberish. What did he say?”
Micah rubs my back. “Didn’t you hear? They found her. She’s over by the damn monkeys.”
The relief is so sudden that my knees buckle from the shock of it. Micah grabs me again, catching me before I fall and holding me up while I try to regain my balance.
They found her. They found Hailey. ThankGod, they found Hailey!
I cling to Micah as Kathleen leads us to the primate enclosure. Sure enough, there’s Hailey, sitting in a zoo employee’s lap and excitedly pointing at different monkeys in the habitats. She’s got Monkey Iris and Monkey Daddy in her other hand, squishing the life out of the stuffed animals.
Micah and I both bolt for her, running side by side. We skid to a stop next to Hailey and the zookeeper, and she looks up at us with the most innocent smile, like she has no clue we were just panicking over losing her.
“Hey, Daddy! I found the monkeys!”
I collapse to my knees by Hailey and scoop her into my arms. I know I should probably leave that greeting to Micah, but I’m just so happy to see her alive and well that I can’t stop myself. The waterworks start all over again, and I sob into Hailey’s shoulder as I hold her.
“Daddy? Why is Miss Iris crying?”
Micah crouches next to us and rubs my back. “Honey, you scared us. I told you to stay with Miss Iris, and you left her all alone. Why did you run off?”
“You wouldn’t let me see the monkeys!”
Micah’s voice gets stern. “Hailey, you promised to be good and patient and wait until we got to this part. Do you know what this means now that you’ve been bad?”
Hailey’s body sags in my arms. “Am I in trouble?”
“Yes, you are. We’re leaving the zoo now and going straight home. No more monkeys for you.”
