Somewhere Out There(29)

I nodded. “I want to try and get them back, but I just got out and I don’t have a place to stay . . .” I let my words trail off and kept my eyes on her face, trying to read her response before she spoke. I couldn’t decipher the cloudy look in her eyes, so I rambled on. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but it wouldn’t be for very long, I promise. Just until I get back on my feet. I can help out. Clean or cook . . . I actually worked in the prison kitchen . . .”

She stared at me, as though she was trying to decide how to respond. “Hold on,” she finally said. She disappeared from the doorway, then returned less than a minute later with a thin stack of cash in her right hand. “Here,” she said, holding out the money to me.

I dropped my eyes to the bills and then lifted them back to hers. “I can’t stay?”

She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “I’m sorry, but Derek just wouldn’t be okay with it. He’s very . . . structured.” With her free hand, she reached out and grabbed my arm, pressing the cash into my palm. “Take it, okay? I know it’s not much, but it’s all I had in my purse. I can try to get you more later this week.”

“But, Mom,” I said, blinking back my tears. “I’m trying to fix things. I want to go back to school. Make a fresh start. Please. I just need a little help.” I hated how desperate I sounded.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I wish things were different, but that’s all I can do.” For the second time, she threw a glance nervously toward the back of the house, where her new husband was sleeping, and I wondered to what extent his “structured” personality might go.

“Mom, please!” I whispered.

“Take care of yourself, Jenny,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll be fine.” And then she slowly shut the door in my face.

Dazed, I turned around and walked away from the house, shoving the money she’d given me into one of my front pockets. I felt numb, barely able to process what had just happened. I’d told my probation officer I’d be staying with her. I worried I might go straight back to jail if he came looking for me and I wasn’t there. My car had been auctioned off and the proceeds used to pay the fines that went along with my sentence, so all I had was the money my mother had just given me, and the aching desire to find my children.

I need a place to stay. I need to figure out what I’m going to do. I trudged back toward the bus stop and checked the schedule when I got there, deciding that I should head back downtown, where I knew of a few cheap motels, places I’d stayed with my daughters.

An hour and a half later, I found myself in a small, dingy room with a full bed and a television that the manager told me only had three channels. The walls were covered in dark wood paneling, and the well-worn bedspread was a print of large orange and brown flowers. I’d used a few dollars to buy a ham sandwich and a Snickers bar at the corner gas station, so I sat on the bed and wolfed them down, then drank metallic-tasting water using a smudged glass next to the sink. The room smelled of body odor and mildewed, sour towels, but I was too exhausted to care. All I wanted to do was sleep.

I lay down on top of the covers and stared up at the ceiling, counting the muddy brown spots that stained the white tiles, replaying the events of the day, sorting out everything I’d have to do in the morning. I’d need to call my probation officer and let him know where I was. I’d need to find Gina’s phone number and call her, too. I needed her to tell me that even without my mother’s help, I could get my daughters back.





Natalie


Holding the tattered white box in her hands, Natalie left her mother’s house in a daze and climbed into her car. She had a sister. The sentence felt foreign, so apart from her normal lexicon that she had to keep repeating it in her mind to try to absorb it as the truth. She reached over to the box and pulled out the manila folder that held all the paperwork from her adoption. Flipping through it, she found the page indicating that her unnamed birth mother had relinquished all of her parental rights, both to six-month-old Natalie and to her four-year-old sister, Brooke. Their father was listed as unknown.

“We thought it would be easier for you this way,” her mom had said, just moments ago, when Natalie was still inside. “Your dad and I only wanted what was best for you. The social worker said it was up to us, how much information we gave you. You were only six months old. It wasn’t like you’d remember her.”

“Did you meet her?” Natalie asked, still clutching her lavender blanket. “Did you even think about adopting her, too?”

Her mom stared at Natalie for a moment, then shook her head. “We really only wanted a baby, and were advised that older children tended to have behavioral problems. I didn’t think I could handle something like that. Your father and I thought it would be better for her if she was adopted by someone more experienced. Someone better equipped than us.”

“I don’t know what to say.” Natalie leaned against the kitchen wall, thinking about her mother’s distaste for anything messy, shocked to hear that this predilection had extended to the possible emotional issues of a four-year-old girl. She could have grown up with a sister. She had a sister. Her muscles buzzed; her skin felt too tight for her body. Her mom was silent, her fingers laced together in front of her, waiting for Natalie to continue. When she did, it was with tears in her eyes. “I don’t think I can be here right now.”