We’ve searched high and low. The police, the news, consulted fucking psychics; everywhere we can think. Now I’m coming here because I just don’t know where else to turn.
Please help! Our daughter has been missing for three weeks!
My husband and I became fathers to a bouncing baby girl about eight years ago. She was six months old at the time. When we adopted her, her name was Brenda but that was dumb so we changed it. She’s Peony now. Our pretty little flower, growing up so fast. Sometimes we call her Pea.
My husband was fearful of the type of parent he might be, and so, he was reluctant at first. It was just because he was afraid. He’s not anymore. He always knows what to do. He is a much better father than I am.
Peony was last seen in a pink-and-daisy romper. We think she has a doll with her because we can’t find it anywhere in the house. It may have been used to bait her away; she loves it so much, they’re practically inseparable. If someone got ahold of it, she’d climb into their van–no question. The doll is a very distinctive clown. She calls him “Morty.” You probably haven’t seen one in a while but if you’re over 30 you may remember it, or something like it. We got it at a vintage toy shop, and it was not cheap! She’s such a spoiled sweetie-pea-pie. It looks like this:
Red yarn sewn into curls on it’s head, a small, hard-plastic, red nose. It’s outfit is color block, blue, yellow, and red; featuring zippers, snaps, and buttons.
Peony is fair skinned. She has severe photosensitivity. The sun will make her skin rash and prolonged exposure will cause that rash to crack into abscesses and those abscesses will leak a clear viscous puss. She will get an infection, left untreated. It is very important that if you have her, know who has her, or see a clown doll and a little girl out in the sun with weeping sores, that you bring her inside immediately and contact the proper authorities. We need her back. She’ll need the salve.
We are completely distraught.
She has blonde hair. Her eyes are very blue. We think that she might be wearing yellow shoes because we can’t find those anywhere either. Her favorite food is spaghetti. Her favorite color is red. She likes to watch ‘Peppa Pig.’ I don’t know how this happened. We all went to sleep and when my husband and I woke up she was just gone. I’m a terrible father. My husband is a much better father. He shouldn’t have been afraid of fatherhood. I’m the one who fucked up.
Peony–our sweetpea–is gone and with her the light that was in my husband’s eye has been taken too. He is such a proud daddy. A good daddy. You just watch the way he is around her and you know it. He always knows just what to do; whatever she needs.
She likes to make up words. “Bookie na-na poe poe, pie-lie.” Things like that.
She makes up friends too. She’ll tell you all about them. She’ll say: “Jacoby has buckteeth, sliced peaches instead of ears and thin straw hair,” and “Lorri has a belly-button for a nose and 14 fingers,” or “Shelly’s voice sounds chalky, she is missing half of her face because the birds in the swamp ate it.”
Kids.
It’s the sort of adorable thing that makes you want to snatch her up and keep her forever. She’s incredibly creative and imaginative.
Her favorite animals are cats. Her favorite ice cream is strawberry. She doesn’t even know our address or our phone numbers. She’s too young to memorize stuff like that. She’s just 8. We went to bed and when we woke up we had no idea what happened, and I haven’t told anybody this part, but it’s definitely my fault that she got out of her cage.
She’s wearing a pink-and-daisy romper and yellow shoes and she’s very likely to be very dirty. The cage was lowered by chain down a hole we dug to keep her in. It’s in the dirt beneath the basement floor. That was my husband’s idea because it’s safest from the sun. She’s allergic to the sun. That’s the darkest place in the whole house. It’s also the furthest from our bedroom so we don’t have to listen to her scream and bitch to be let out all the time. He always just knows the right steps to take.
Of course we don’t always keep her there. Just for bed and when we want her to go away and leave us alone.
It looks like she may have climbed up the chain and out the hole. After she got outside we don’t know what happened. We think someone must have snatched her up.
She’s been missing for 3 weeks. Please, I beg you, if you have her, or know who does, and have any heart at all, bring her home. She may need the salve and she definitely needs her daddies.
She’s just a little girl, a child. 8 years old. She isn’t old enough to know how to pick a lock yet. That’s how I know this is my fault. I must not have closed the door all the way. It catches sometimes. I forget.
My husband would have closed the door all the way before lowering the chain. He always remembers everything and never would have let this happen.
He’s a much better father than I am.