Flint, Mich. – Mildred Johnson lives in the land of in- betweens.
Since she found out Tuesday that her granddaughter Aaroné Thompson is missing in Aurora, Johnson is caught between anger and confusion, living in the half-light of her home. Though she is there, she doesn’t come to the door. Though she can hear it, she doesn’t answer the ringing telephone.
Until she knows whether her 6-year-old granddaughter is alive or dead, she is trapped, not knowing whether to worry or to grieve.
“Every time the phone rings, I’m afraid to answer,” said Johnson, 67. “I’m afraid of the phone call that says she is dead.”
Sixty miles away in Detroit, Lynette Thompson, Aaroné’s mother, is gripped with the same confusion and fear.
“I want to know what happened to my baby,” she said.
For Aaroné’s family in Detroit and in Flint, confusion over the life of the little girl is nothing new. Lynette Thompson says she hasn’t seen her daughter, who was born in Michigan, since Oct. 22, 2001.
That’s when Aaron Thompson moved with the children to Denver. Lynette Thompson said she was supposed to go, too. But her foster mother became ill and she stayed to care for her.
Before Lynette was to join her family in Denver, she said Aaron Thompson called and told her to stay away. Lynette Thompson now lives in a homeless shelter in Detroit. And Aaron Thompson has refused to give her his phone number or address, she said.
Still, Lynette Thompson and her family can’t understand the allegations.
“I never thought he would be the man to not protect those children,” she said. “We took care of them; he was always the first one to run to them when they cried.”
Mildred Johnson and Lynette’s son Hakeem Johnson, who lives with Mildred in Flint, said they haven’t seen or heard from Aaroné since she was 2 years old.
Mildred and Hakeem hear only snippets of updates about the case, in the local media and through the grapevine. The ominous words of police in Aurora – homicide investigation, protective custody, people of interest – get lost in translation 1,100 miles away.
“So what’s that mean?” Hakeem, 16, asked. “Is she not going to be OK?”
Mildred extended her left arm and placed her hand on his back, gently rubbing just between the shoulder blades.
“We just pray that she will be,” she said.
