“At nine o’clock,” I say because nine is when I like to wake up. It helps me remember how old I’m supposed to be.
I go to bed. I’m ready for Santa to come but I still want to know what’s in the big present on the porch. I’m guessing my Forever Dad knows because he read the letter. I wish he would tell me what it said.
So I’m guessing that the present is from Gloria because they try not to talk about her. I’m guessing Gloria brought me a present for Christmas and left it on the porch. Which means if we’d been home when she came here my Forever Parents would have called the police.
I start picking at my fingers.
In the living room I hear my Forever Parents talking but I can’t tell what they’re saying. I want to go out there to talk with them about the present and about Gloria but I know they’ll just get mad. So I stay in bed. I will sleep until exactly nine in the morning like I’m supposed to and then I’ll get up. There will be lots of presents to open but I won’t care because it will be light and I’ll be able to look out the window. I’ll ask my Forever Dad again to tell me about the present. I’m hoping he’ll just tell it straight like Patrice.
57
EXACTLY 6:16 IN THE MORNING,
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 25TH—CHRISTMAS DAY
We are supposed to open presents when I wake up which will be at exactly nine but it is only 6:16 and my Forever Mom is in my room. She says I need to wake up early because we have to go to Grammy’s house again. We are going to open my presents there instead.
“But it isn’t nine yet,” I say. I look at the clock and now it is only 6:17. My curtains are still closed and the lights are on in the room.
“That’s because we’ve had a change of plans,” my Forever Mom says. “So go ahead and go to the bathroom and get dressed. Use the upstairs bathroom, okay? We already have the car packed, so as soon as you’re ready, we can go back to Grammy’s.”
Now I am brushing my hair in front of the mirror. It is still dark outside. I press my head against the cold black window. My breath fogs up the glass. The big present from Gloria is out there on the porch. Crystal with a C said that Gloria loves me like crazy. But she doesn’t know how to take care of little kids or babies at all. She doesn’t know how to take care of herself either or she wouldn’t have brought the present here. Because it was really, really dangerous even though I want to know what’s in the box. It’s like Forever is a thing she has to break through and she’s using the present to get through it. Like she’s in there trying to break through the dark. The dark inside the present. Or like she’s cracking her way out. She’s trying hard, hard, hard. First she made a crack by the Blue House and then she tried to break through the doors at school and now she’s trying to break out of the dark inside the present she left for me on the porch.
I lean back from the window and finish brushing my hair. In the mirror I see my glasses and what I’m wearing. My nice pajamas with the little owls on them. The scrunchie holding up my hair. I have a lot of nice things now. I didn’t have nice things when I was in the apartment. And my body looks different. I’m still really skinny but not as much as I was before. I really hope my Baby Doll remembers me when we all get up to Canada. I hope it won’t see that I’m (-Ginny).
I go downstairs. My Forever Mom is coming out of the other bathroom. From the living room I look out the window.
The porch light is on and I can see that the present is gone.
Where is it? I look and look but I don’t see it anywhere.
“Time to go,” says my Forever Dad. He is carrying a diaper bag. My Forever Mom is holding my Forever Sister in its car seat.
We go to the car. I look for the giant present but still don’t see it. When we get into the car I see that the seat behind me is down and there are lots of bags there. They are filled with presents from Santa and from my Forever Parents. I am anxious because I want to know what Gloria sent me. I want to know what the letter said so I keep moving my knees back and forth and pulling up my socks and talking and being careful not to say the wrong thing. My Forever Sister is next to me in its car seat and the presents are behind me and my Forever Parents are putting on their seat belts. “I want to open my presents as soon as we get to Grammy’s,” I say. “I want to go inside and take my boots off and hang up my coat and then go right to the Christmas tree. I want to open the big present from Gloria first.” It is freezing cold and I can see my breath in the car when I breathe.
“What makes you think the big present is from Gloria?” my Forever Dad says.
Then before I can answer my Forever Mom says, “The big present isn’t coming with us.”
I don’t know if I should answer the question or tell my Forever Mom that I am angry. Because she interrupted me before I even started talking and We do not interrupt. But if I say that I’m angry we’ll get into an argument and then I’ll never figure out where the present is. So I say, “I want to go right to the tree and open all my presents. The ones from Santa and the ones from you.”
“We aren’t going to open presents as soon as we get there,” my Forever Dad says. “It’s really, really early and we’re going to be guests at Grammy’s. We have to remember that we’re not going there just to open gifts. We’re going there because Grammy and Granddad invited us back.”
“Why did they ask us to come back so early?” I ask.
“Don’t you think this is fun?” my Forever Mom says in a funny voice. “I know I just love getting up before the crack of dawn on Christmas Day after we’ve been up all night watching the windows because someone gave out all our personal information on Facebook and now the Queen of White Trash knows where we live. Especially when it’s only ten degrees outside and we have a two-month-old baby. Don’t you think?”
She asked a question but I know I don’t have to answer it. She wants me to say something so she can yell at me. I sit quietly in my seat and push my hands together between my knees and imagine I am in a box.
58
EXACTLY 4:00 IN THE AFTERNOON,
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 25TH—CHRISTMAS DAY
We are still at Grammy and Granddad’s house. We have been here all day. Officer Joel came to visit us here. I tried hard not to hiss at him. He talked with my Forever Parents for a long time in the kitchen while I stayed in the other room and played with my new toys. I got a Michael Jackson Pez dispenser and a Michael Jackson calendar and a Michael Jackson key chain and a book about Michael Jackson. That makes four more Michael Jackson things. And I have a new backpack with two pockets on the sides and a special secret pocket inside that closes with a zipper.
It will come in handy when it’s time to go up to Canada with Rick.