Bang(11)

“I get in trouble.”

She nods her head and continues, “Well, your father is in trouble, and he won’t be able to come home right now.”

“What did he do?”

“I’m not quite sure just yet. But for now, you’re going to come with me. I work for the Department of Children and Family Services, which means I’m going to find you a home with really nice people that you will stay with while your father is in trouble and can’t be here with you, okay?”

“B-But, I don’t want to leave.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t let you stay here alone. But you can bring some of your things with you. How does that sound?” She says this with a smile, but it doesn’t help the churning of my stomach.

Quietly, I slip off of the chair and start walking to my room. I go over to the tea set that’s on the table and pick up the pink daisies. My princess flowers. I sit down in the chair that he was sitting in and look over my shoulder to see Barbara walking into the room.

“Do you have a bag?”

I point to the closet and watch as she starts going through my dresser, packing up my clothes. She roams around, going back and forth between my bedroom and the bathroom as I clutch the flowers to my chest.

“You ready to go?” she asks when she steps back into the room, but I don’t want to look at her because I don’t want to go.

Staring out the window and up into the blue sky, I ask, “When can I come back?”

“I’m not sure,” she responds. “Probably not for a while.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see her move across the room and kneel down beside me. As I turn to look at her, she says, “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay.” She looks down at the daisies. “Those are pretty flowers. Do you want to bring them with you?”

Leaving the house, we walk out to her car and I hop into the back seat. As I look out the window, I watch the policeman shut the front door to my house and lock some sort of black box onto the door handle.

“What’s that?” I ask Barbara, who’s sitting up front.

“What’s what, dear?”

“That thing he put on the door.”

She looks over to see what I’m talking about and responds, “It’s just a lock since we don’t have the keys,” and then starts driving away while I hold tightly to my flowers.





IT’S BEEN THREE years since I was taken away from my home and placed in foster care. Three years since I’ve seen my dad. I was told he was trafficking guns to South America. I still don’t understand everything, but then again, I’m just an eight-year-old kid. A ward of the state of Illinois. Three years and I miss my dad every day. No one will take me to go see him since he’s over six hours away, serving his nine-year sentence in Menard Prison.

I sit in my room and wait on my caseworker, Barbara, to come pick me up to take me to my new home. Three years and I’m leaving my fifth home to go to my sixth. The first place I went was in the same town of Northbrook, where I’d lived. But after getting caught sneaking out of my bedroom window a few times during the night, they said they couldn’t manage me, and so I left. The same thing has happened at each home I’ve lived in.

At first I was scared. I cried a lot. I missed my dad and would scream for him, but he never came. I didn’t understand then, but I do now. I’m not gonna get to see him until he gets out. I’ll be fourteen years old. Fourteen is my new lucky number. I count everything in groups of fourteen just to remind myself that the time will come when I can see him again and we can go back to our life together in our nice house in our nice neighborhood. I miss his smile and the way he smelled. I can’t explain it, but sometimes when I’d be at preschool, I can faintly remember lifting my shirt to inhale his scent when I was missing him. The smell of my dad.

Comfort.

Home.

When I hear the doorbell ring, I know it’s time. I’ve been through several home switches before. You’d think I’d be scared, but I’m used to it now. So I grab my bags and head out to the front door. Barbara is standing there talking to Molly, the foster mom that doesn’t want to deal with me anymore. They both turn as I approach and say hi.

“You ready, Elizabeth?” Barbara asks.

Nodding my head, I walk past Molly as she places her hand on my shoulder, saying, “Wait.”

She kneels down to give me a hug, but I don’t return it. I’m sad, but I don’t cry; I just wanna leave, so when she lets go, that’s what I do.

While I sit in the passenger seat, watching the buildings pass by as Barbara drives, she turns down the radio and says, “Talk to me, kid.”

I hate when she calls me kid, like I’m not special enough for her to use my name. She only uses it when there are other people around, but alone, I’m kid.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I’ve found five good homes for you, and you’ve managed to get kicked out of every one of them. You keep me busy, you know that?”

I’m not sure if she really wants a response, so I stay quiet before she adds, “You can’t keep sneaking out at night. What the hell are you doing out on the streets in the middle of the night anyway?”

“Nothing,” I mutter just to say something to appease her. Truth is, I started sneaking out to see if I could find Carnegie. Sounds stupid now, but when I was five, I thought he’d be there, waiting for me to find him. So I would sneak out and walk around, hoping to stumble upon that magical forest. It never happened, and now I’m old enough to know fairytales aren’t real, but I still sneak out and look for the forest anyway.