So I run.
I run to a crosswalk. I run straight across as fast as I can without looking. I keep running and running. I run past stores and buildings. Then behind one building I see a Dumpster.
A Dumpster is like a big garbage can except you throw big things in it like old couches or broken chairs. The Dumpster is next to a brick wall. I run to the Dumpster and stop. I know that I need to put litter in its place so I throw the broken milk jug over the top. It is like scoring a basket at Special Olympics. Only there’s no one here to cheer. There are no people here at all. I look around to see if I can find someplace to sit down or get warm. There’s a fence across from the Dumpster and through the fence I see a big open space with weeds and dirt and snow and some garbage blowing around. And more buildings on the other side of the open space. There are no trees like there are at the Blue House. And at the Blue House there aren’t any train tracks.
I stand at the fence for a long time. I see a seagull flying. I hear a police siren far away. I wonder if the police officer saw me and is on his way. Then I hear another noise. A rumbling sound. It doesn’t go away like other noises do. It is getting closer. Then I hear a horn that is not a car horn. It is a train horn and it is long and loud and coming faster and faster.
The train tracks are right in front of me on the other side of the fence. The train is coming too fast and there is nowhere for me to go. I run back to the Dumpster and climb behind it and press my body against the brick wall of the building and cover my head with my hands. The train is coming closer and closer and it is getting so loud that I want to kick and yell but there is nowhere to move because I’m in a small tight place. Then the train is here and it is so loud that I recoil and throw myself backward. I hit my head on the brick wall. It hurts so much and the train is so loud I can’t hear the words I’m saying in my own brain so I scream and I scream and I scream.
86
EXACTLY 11:28 IN THE MORNING,
TUESDAY, JANUARY 25TH
There are three ladies standing with me in a small room with one window. There is a table in the room with a cushion top. A scale and some machines hanging from the wall. One of the ladies takes my watch. Another one of them puts a white plastic bracelet on my wrist where my watch used to be. I want to fight her but I’m so tired I can’t. Another one says they’ll give my watch back when it’s time for me to leave. It’s a rule that you can’t wear a watch or jewelry when you get admitted to the hospital, she says. And besides, one of the other ladies says, there’s a clock in every room.
Which is true. I know because I remember.
Because the hospital is where you go if they want to see if something’s wrong with you. I went to a hospital four other times. Once to this one when Crystal with a C tried to leave me at school. Then to two different ones before that when I ran away from my Forever Homes. What was wrong with me those other four times is that I was stuck on the wrong side of the equation. The wrong side of Forever. I had to subtract myself because I wasn’t where I was supposed to be.
But this morning I went back to the right side of Forever. I was with Gloria and my Baby Doll but everything was all wrong. I stayed fourteen years old and my Baby Doll was six. So I’m not sure what the problem is. I’m not sure why I’m still (-Ginny).
“Let’s go see your room,” one of the three ladies says.
One of them puts her hand up to touch my shoulder. Then she puts it down. And smiles. We walk out of the room. The lady with her hand on my shoulder points to a long hallway. All of us start walking.
Because my room is the place where my bed is. It’s the place where I keep all my things. Which I’m guessing means I’m going to live at the hospital now.
And that doesn’t make any sense at all. The hospital is not a place for people to live. You’re not supposed to stay. I didn’t get to live here before when I ran away and got kidnapped.
I think and I think and I think. I walk and try to think about how this happened.
How I got to the hospital is the police found me. They pulled me out from behind the Dumpster after the train went by. I tried to fight them but my head hurt too much from when I hit it on the brick wall. When they put me in the backseat of the police car they told me that a waitress from a restaurant called them. They asked me my name. I said I didn’t know. They asked where I was going. I said I didn’t know. Then they asked if I was the girl from the Amber Alert back in October and I said, “No, I’m the girl who went to have a little rendezvous with her Birth Mom but her Baby Doll grew up and has a different head.”
They took me right to the hospital after that.
“Here we are,” says one of the ladies.
I come up out of my brain. We are standing in front of a doorway with the number 117 next to it. I look hard at the number.
So I say, “But I’m only fourteen years old.”
The lady smiles. “Come on in. You’ll love it.”
We go inside. The room has a bed and a chair and a bathroom in it and a giant television. There aren’t any pictures of Michael Jackson. There aren’t any shelves. Two of the ladies help me sit in the chair and the other one looks at my hair. “Let’s get you all cleaned up, and then we’ll put a bandage on your head. You have a little bump.”
I go with them into the bathroom. In the mirror I see my face but it isn’t the face I want to see.
I scowl.
The ladies take my clothes off and stay with me while I take a shower. After that I step out. They give me a towel to dry myself with. They give me a brand-new bathrobe. They help me put it on but I can’t tie it.
Because the ties are in the back.
None of this happened the last four times I was at the hospital. I just went into a small room and a doctor looked at me and that was all. Now they want me to live here and the strings on all the bathrobes are on the wrong side. Which means that nothing works right anymore. And I am definitely still on the wrong side of Forever.
And the giant equal sign at Cumberland Farms must have been the wrong one.
That’s why I’m still (-Ginny) and I didn’t get to be nine years old when I walked across it.
But I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to find the right equal sign. I don’t know if I can find a way to get things back to exactly how they were before the police took me out from under the sink. And I remember now that I don’t really want them that way because I know that Krystal with a K will be safe after Gloria gets caught.
When I come up out of my brain I am sitting in my new bed. The mattress is raised so I can sit up. The sheets are white and the pillow is hard. And Brian and Maura are here. Standing next to me on either side.
I blink.
“Hi, Ginny,” says Brian.