Somewhere Out There(39)

I wanted to say more. I wanted to come up with some reasonable explanation for the choices I’d made. Instead, I shut the notebook and pulled the covers over my head, escaping into a troubled sleep, dreaming of my daughters, dreaming that I heard them crying in another room, and I was unable to get to them. I pounded on the walls, desperate to reach my girls, and then woke to realize the hammering I heard was the motel manager’s fist on my room door.

“Check out was an hour ago!” he yelled.

“Okay, sorry!” I said, blinking my swollen and scratchy eyes, wondering if I had it in me to invite him in and do whatever I had to to keep the room for another week. My stomach lurched at the thought, so I splashed some water on my face, got dressed, grabbed my backpack, shoving what was mine inside it before heading out into the warm August afternoon. The bright sunlight made me squint. Maybe I can find a good street corner and hold up a “will work for food” sign, I thought. Or maybe I should just find a park where I can camp out. The weather was warm enough that I could get away with it, as long as the cops didn’t show up and tell me I had to leave.

I counted the few bills I had left in my pocket—fifteen dollars and some change. Enough to take the bus to a nice suburban area where it was less likely a park would be patrolled at night. During the summer months, before I’d had Natalie, I used to take Brooke to Lincoln Park in West Seattle—we’d spend the afternoons playing on the jungle gym and splashing around in the wading pool, eating peanut butter sandwiches, and then spend the nights in our car. It was as good a destination as any, so I left the motel parking lot and hiked over to Third Avenue and Pike Street, where I knew the number 118 bus had a stop that would take me where I wanted to go.

A little over an hour later, I was there. The park was off Fauntleroy Way, near the Vashon ferry dock. It was heavily wooded but also had a large, brightly hued jungle gym, several sets of tall swings, and picnic tables scattered across the lush, vibrant lawns. I made my way to one of the empty benches that surrounded the playground and dropped down on it, my shoulders hunched. I felt lost. No one knows where I am. No one cares if I live or die. My daughters will grow up without me. I’m only twenty-one, and I’ve already ruined my life. I should have kept the phone number O’Brien gave me. At least then I’d have a way to make money.

A little girl’s voice jerked me out of my thoughts. “Mama!” she cried, and every hair on my body stood on end. I’d been so preoccupied, I had barely registered the other people in the park.

Oh my god. Brooke. My eyes shot like pinballs around the immediate area, looking for my daughter. For her mass of black curls.

“Mama, look!” the girl’s voice said, and I stood up, my heart thumping loudly enough that it echoed inside my head. I performed a frantic search of the children’s faces around me. It sounded just like her. Could she really be here?

“I see you, honey!” I looked over toward the swings and noticed a tall, dirty-blond-haired woman standing with a group of other mothers, and then back in the direction that she waved. A young girl with long, brown hair waved back, jumping up and down on the curved bridge that connected one part of the jungle gym to the other. She wore yellow Salt Water sandals and a black-and-white polka-dot sundress.

“Mama! I’m on the bridge! Do you see me?” She did a little dance, causing the bridge to jiggle. She looked to be about five years old.

“I do!” her mother called out. The woman made her way over to the climbing structure, and as she approached it, her daughter ran across the bridge to a platform, where she stood with her arms outstretched, bent at the knees, bouncing up and down.

“Catch me, Mama!” she cried, and her mother stood close to the platform’s edge. The little girl leapt with assurance, locking her tiny legs around her mother’s waist and her arms around her mother’s neck, the same way Brooke had often done with me.

My eyes blurred and my stomach heaved. I put my face in my palms, chest burning and shoulders shaking. Oh, god. My girls. Where are my girls? I hadn’t considered what it would feel like, seeing other children out in the world. In jail, I’d been protected from this particular brand of torture. What I felt in that moment was a prison all its own, with walls built out of shame, self-loathing, and blistering regret.

When I looked up again, I saw the blond-haired woman set her child on the ground and make her way back toward the group of parents she had been talking with at the swings. I watched as the little girl spun in circles, her head down, giggling as her dress whirled out from her body. She gave a small jump, and then did it again, spinning and spinning and spinning, only to finally stumble and fall over. Her head bounced on the black rubber mat of the playground.

I raced over next to her and squatted down. “Are you okay, honey?” I asked, pushing back the fine hair of her bangs from her sweet face. She was whimpering and tearful, though not loudly. I glanced over at her mother, and saw that her back was to us; she was busy talking with her friends. She hadn’t seen the fall. “Did you hurt yourself?” I asked the girl, and she nodded, pushing out her tiny and pink, chubby lower lip.

I gathered her into my arms and lifted her up. Her skin was warmed by the sun. She smelled sweet, like strawberries, tinged with just a touch of summer sweat. I squeezed her to my body, then started to feel dizzy, and my heart began to race. I closed my eyes and felt as though I’d been sucked through the dark vacuum of a black hole, back to that small room with my babies, holding them for the last time.