Why were her father’s shoes on the floor? Where was her father? Grownups didn’t lay down on the floor the way kids sometimes did. Suddenly gripped by the cold hand of caution, Antsy crept closer. Instead of her father, there was a pair of scuffed brown shoes that stuck out just past the edge of the aisle. He should have been right there at the end of the aisle, watching her with the little smile on his face that he reserved for what he called her “feral child moments,” what he called the times when she ran wild and free and unfettered by the expectations of a world that was inevitably going to come crashing down on her soon enough. That was one of their first and firmest rules she could be allowed to free-range through the toys as long as she could see them, but she couldn’t let them slip out of sight, not ever, because the world was full of people who wanted to snatch up pretty little girls and walk away with them.īut her father-her tall, strong, broad-shouldered father with the hair as bright a red as hers-wasn’t there anymore. Her parents never left her alone when they were at Target. Antsy stopped running right in the middle of the aisle, too confused to move. And one minute he was there, watching indulgently from the end of the aisle as she ran wild and gleeful past ranks of Disney princesses and their jewel-toned plastic accessories, and then he wasn’t there anymore.

That was the way things were supposed to be. Mommy was going to go back to work as soon as Antsy started first grade, but until then, it was just the two of them all day while Daddy was at work, and that meant Saturdays were for Daddy and Antsy, Antsy and Daddy, just the two of them out in the world. It was a daddy-daughter day, something Antsy still viewed as a special treat, even though she knew that it was really to give her mother a few hours of peace after a long week of raising her hyperactive child. She had never been hungry for longer than it took to tell an adult, never been hurt worse than a skinned knee or banged elbow, never truly been afraid. She was only five years old, made of wiggles and giggles and still enough smaller than her name that no one ever called her anything other than “Antsy,” not even her parents.

THE FIRST THING ANTOINETTE Ricci ever lost was her father, but she was so young when it happened that she never really felt like she could be held responsible.

The book of lost and found review