Chapter 24
Lavinia Robertson Women’s Shelter, San Francisco
The Past
I HAVE A FRIEND! Her name is Dolly. She was named after a country singer named Dolly Parton who has blond hair, big boobs, and a high voice.
Mama J moved us to this shelter after a social worker came sniffing around our station wagon asking my age and if I was in school.
It was my fault. I left the car to spy on the kids in the playground.
One of the teachers must’ve seen me, told someone who told someone who sent the lady with a clipboard.
Mama J got real sick after that. Not from the medicine. From not taking the medicine.
You’re the worst thing that ever happened to me, she said that first night, doubled over with cramps, body soaked in sweat.
I can find you some medicine, I offered. There’s a guy named Soto on the corner who Mama J dates sometimes.
The shelter won’t let us stay if I’m high.
I felt bad for Mama J but wasn’t sorry to move into the women’s shelter.
There were other girls, and I met Dolly.
Plus, I got to take a class, learn my ABCs.
Pretty fast, I could read a book about Jane and a dog named Spot.
Dolly says I’m real smart, that it took her much longer to learn how to read.
Being smart makes me feel so good. Every time the teacher, Ms. Flatley, puts stars on my workbook, my insides explode like fireworks.
Ms. Flatley said even though I’m eight and behind, I can catch up real fast. I’m afraid, though, that I won’t be here long enough to do that.
Dolly and I play “house” with my kitty, Daddy, and her stuffed bear, Dennis. That was the name of her second dad. They lived in a real house with three bedrooms on two floors. Dolly misses the house, her very own bedroom, and Dennis a lot, even though he broke her mom’s arm.
Mama J is also taking classes. Parenting, Cooking, and Job Hunting.
Her clothes are starting to fit better, and the scabs have mostly disappeared.
Tonight, we’re going to watch a movie with everyone.
It’s about a rabbit who goes on adventures.
Dolly says it’s a dumb cartoon, but I don’t mind.
There’s going to be popcorn. Right now, though, I’m refolding the clothes that Yasmin, the nice lady who runs the shelter, gave me.
I have two new T-shirts, a pair of purple velvet sweatpants, and jeans that only have one patch on the knee—it’s a yellow smiley face, so I don’t mind.
Dolly got a sweatshirt with a rainbow on the front that made me jealous, but it’s okay ’cause we’re friends and friends share.
“Whatcha doin’?” Mama J now asks. She shuffles into the bunkroom we share with Dolly and her mom.
Her eyes are glassy, and she moves like her bones have gone to mush. I leap up, quickly shut the door. But it turns out that it’s too late. Someone tattled. The social worker shows up a few hours later, tells Mama J she’s got to leave the shelter; that I’m going to be placed in a foster home.
I don’t know what a foster home is, but as soon as the lady leaves us alone to pack our things, Mama J and I sneak out of the shelter and run.
I struggle to keep up, afraid she’ll leave me behind because I’m not lucky, and sometimes the worst thing that’s ever happened to her.
But deep down I get that Mama J is Demeter and I’m Persephone.
She’ll never let me go. That idea should make me happy, but it doesn’t as much anymore.
“Will the lady find us?” I gasp, a stitch in my side.
Mama J shakes her head. “No one really wants to. They just got to check the boxes.”
It takes us a while to find a tent city, scrounge cardboard and blankets.
But in a few days, we have a new home. I feel bad that I took the rainbow sweatshirt and Dennis with me.
But Dolly gets to stay at the shelter, go to school.
She doesn’t need the stuffed bear or new old clothes as much as I do, and at least Daddy gets to keep his only friend.
“Stop boo-hooing about missing Dolly,” Mama J snaps after a week.
“I’ve never had a friend before,” I sob. “It feels like something died inside me.”
“Friends will always let you down.”
“You’re wrong!”
“Oh yeah? How do you think Dolly felt when she discovered Dennis was gone?”
When she puts it that way, I’m ashamed, and hope Dolly doesn’t hate me. Still, I can’t return to the shelter, give Dennis back. The social worker will take me away from Mama J, and she needs me to survive.
A new feeling rolls through me that’s hard to name.
While at the shelter, Dolly and I watched a documentary about wolves on the nature channel.
Ranchers trapped them so they wouldn’t kill baby cows and sheep.
They used these steel jaws, and if the wolf was lucky, the trap snapped its neck.
If it got a leg, the wolf suffered until the rancher put a bullet in its head.
One wolf gnawed her own leg off to escape and be free.
Dolly thought that was crazy. But maybe I get it now.