she woke up. looked around the dark house and realized she wasn't at home in her room with her toys. she remembered earlier that night when the two policemen and that lady in the suit dragged her to the car. she wanted her mommy and started crying quietly to herself.
noone told her anything. they said she was too little to understand, but she knew she was old enough. she remembered that time when mommy got really sick and started to throw up in the bathroom she knew how to call for the ambulance. and she knew that mommy said not to touch that white powder in her room.
she just didn't understand. she missed her brother he was just a baby and noone else knew how to cut up the banana's he liked to eat. what about her best friend across the hall they were supposed to play dress up tomorrow after school.
all she remembered was mommy screaming. "you can't take my babies!"
that's when she ran into her room and opened the window with her teddy bear to go out on the fire escape. she was too scared to go down and the policeman caught her as she dropped her favorite bear the 8 floors below. she screamed for her mommy as they picked her up out of the house.
she sat in that office until it was really late. the lady kept offering her food but she just wanted her mommy. "i don't care what drugs are i just wanna go home!"
so there she laid. in a shelter on a bed that wasn't her's without her small family. she fell back asleep crying.
one of the other kids stole her blanket that night. she woke up shivering with a cough. she looked at the big clock on the wall and remember when her grandmother taught her how to tell time that summer before she passed away. "it's 8.30" she said to herself.
there were a lot of kids there and she tried to look for someone old to ask questions. then she saw this pudgy lady in an office sitting in front of a computer. she remembered she had one, but mommy had to sell it to pay for something she needed.
she knocked on that wooden door and pushed it open. "hiii...how are you?" asked the lady. she got nervous and answered "fine". "umm...do you know when i can go home to see my mommy?"
"not for a while sweetie. your mommy was doing something very bad. and that's why we had to take you here for a little bit" the lady told her. "but what about my brother? mommy said he was teething and she said he needed us" she asked. "honey he had to go somewhere else so they could take care of him better"
she felt her stomach drop to the floor. she began to walk away. the lady from the office called out for her. she passed out and hit the floor.
two weeks had passed and today was the first day she would get a supervised visit with her mommy. the lady held her hand as she walked underneath the dull lights on the ceiling staring at the purple walls. the lady opened the door.
she saw her mommy and shrieked as she ran into her arms. mommy had gotten skinnier since that night. the talked for the time they had left. until the lady looked at her watch and said "times up". she hugged her mommy and said "I'll see you in two weeks right?"
her mother hugged her very tightly and said "promise me you'll always love me"
she was confused but said "duh mommy I'll love you forever and ever"
the door closed behind her.
that night her mother's body had been found on 158th st. in the tunnel below the long island rail road tracks. she had overdosed on cocaine, and the people she was with threw her out of the car.
she sat there in the room. she couldn't believe what she had just heard. "mommy's not dead. i saw her yesterday" her skin had begun to tighten up and her eyes were filling with water. she started to cry and laid on the floor screaming.
she knew she had no family left and everyone she had made friends with kept telling her that she would never see her brother again. she was only six and she just wanted someone to hug, someone to love her. but there she knew she was empty.
she looked out of the window of the office building she was in. it overlooked the lirr tracks a block away from where her mother was found. she grabbed the walls and dug her nails in.
she was forgotten.
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