Like flipping a switch, she went back to her cake and ice cream, smiling and humming softly to herself as she ate while I stared at her, bewildered, and wondering what just happened.
She never spoke of it again. I was too afraid of what else she might say if I asked, so like everything else dark and scary in my life, I jammed it into a closet somewhere in the back of my mind.
Looking back, that was a colossally stupid move. The fear and doubt she left with me that night have colored nearly every minute of the almost three years since. Had I known my mother would disappear on me a few months later, I would have pushed for answers, no matter how awful they might have been.
When my friends found out she was gone, somebody’s parents called Child Protective Services. I was motherless, fatherless, and had no other relatives to speak of, so it all ended on a quiet Tuesday morning. With nobody stepping up to take me in, I said goodbye to everything I knew. Filling a black garbage bag with my things, I became just another cog in the foster system machine.
I lasted four and a half months before I ran.
Sleeping through the night is a trick I’ve never mastered, and being trapped in this hellhole of a group home doesn’t make me inclined to figure it out. The fears that whisper during my waking hours here are ten times louder in the dark of night.
Lights out was hours ago, but I’d only managed to doze off fitfully, every car that passed outside my window and every dog that barked in the distance jarring me back to my shitty reality.
Hearing the soft shuffling sounds too late to defend myself, I’m powerless to stop the hand that snakes out, gripping a handful of my long, thick hair by the roots and scraping short jagged nails roughly along my scalp. Dragged head-first out of bed, I land awkwardly on my back. Squinting through the near-perfect darkness and stinging pain in my scalp, my watering eyes can barely make out the doughy, round face of my latest nightmare before her fat fist lands, with full force, square in my stomach.
With the wind knocked out of me, there is nothing I can do except curl into a tiny ball on the dirty floor in a vain attempt to protect myself as blows mercilessly rain down on my face and torso. Grabbing for my hair again, she yanks my head back with one hand, her other landing a shot to my nose with a sickening crunch that has hot coppery blood flooding down my face and into my gasping mouth. The metallic scent seems to appease the junior sociopath because she climbs off me and slowly backs away.
Before my punch-drunk brain can figure out how to get up, I catch a hard kick to my mid-back that knocks the wind from my lungs again, and that's when I realize she must've brought friends. A few well-placed ratty sneaker kicks to my back and stomach later, they raise a collective snicker and slut-sneeze their way out of my room.
Finally left alone, I lie on the peeling linoleum, listening to my nose gurgle, broken bits of time floating back to me.
Pieces of me that don’t quite fit together anymore.
With adrenaline still pumping through my veins, panic starts to follow, so I begin counting slowly backward from one hundred. Somewhere around thirty-five or so, my breathing returns to a more regular rhythm and my nose stops actively gushing. Heaving myself up, I stagger like a drunken prom queen to the windowless bathroom at the end of the hall. Not wanting to even glance at my mashed up face in the mirror, I bend over the small toilet and retch until there’s nothing left.
After cleaning myself up as best I can and shutting off the bathroom light, I quietly shuffle my way back to my assigned room. Grabbing a handful of cheap tissues from the box beside my bed, I drop them on the blood-dotted floor and use my feet to wipe up as much as I can. Kicking the resulting reddened mess into the corner of the room, I tell myself I’ll clean it up properly in the morning.
Gingerly, I arrange my bruised body into a bearable position on my small single bed and stare at the ceiling until morning.
Fighting my way back to the present, I stand on rubbery knees and retrieve my relatively ancient iPhone from beside my bed. The catalog of music stored on it is extensive. I settle on Thom Yorke's 'Hearing Damage’, plopping the phone on the kitchen table in hopes of finding some calm within the ebb and flow of notes.
When I was tiny, my mom introduced me to music as if it were a living, breathing creature that twined around your ankles and crawled under your skin. I learned to hear in color, and every person I’ve met and every experience I’ve had has become a part of my soundtrack.
The urge to crawl back under the covers is strong, but I force myself to sit down. Reluctantly, I reach into the open wooden box for the pristine envelope that bears my full birth name. My finger slides under the back flap, and with my stomach crawling up my throat, I pull out a matte black business card and a folded sheet of paper made of the same expensive-looking stock as the envelope.
DEAREST STELLA,
I HOPE THIS FINDS YOU. THIS BOX BELONGED TO YOUR MOTHER, AND I THOUGHT IT SHOULD BE YOURS NOW. THOUGH IT HAS TAKEN ME YEARS TO FIND YOU, PLEASE KNOW IT WASN’T FOR LACK OF TRYING. YOUR MOTHER MADE THE CHOICE A LONG TIME AGO TO LEAVE, AND SHE KEPT YOU BOTH VERY WELL HIDDEN. YOU AND I ARE ALL THAT’S LEFT OF OUR FAMILY NOW.
I UNDERSTAND IF YOU WISH TO CONTINUE TO BE ON YOUR OWN, BUT I SINCERELY HOPE YOU WILL AT LEAST MEET WITH ME ONCE. SHOULD YOU WANT TO MEET ME AND SEE WHERE YOU COME FROM, PLEASE CALL THE NUMBER ON THE ENCLOSED CARD AND THEY WILL ARRANGE A PLANE TICKET TO THE WEST COAST FOR YOU.
IF YOU CHOOSE NOT TO COME, KNOW THAT YOU ARE LOVED.
ALWAYS, AUNT CECILY
Flipping the letter over, I stare at the California address and phone number written on the back. Somehow I don't even notice the tears streaming down my face until they leave tiny wet dimples on the paper clutched in my fingers.
Giving in to the quiet sobs struggling to break free, I let the letter flutter to the floor as I wrap my arms around myself. As I try to calm my racing heart, one question echoes on repeat through my brain: I have an aunt?
After a mostly sleepless night spent questioning pretty much my entire existence, I make swift work of the three-block walk to The Juneberry the next morning. Pulling open the heavy back door of the popular local diner and stowing my purse in the tiny break room, I tie on my clean apron and give Sally a kiss on her round, flushed cheek as I walk through the kitchen.
The morning shift is one of my favorites. Busy, but not crazy, with most of the crowd consisting of blue-haired regulars and the occasional group of college kids looking to nurse their hangovers with a tasty, greasy breakfast.
When I found my way to Baldwinsville after running from the group home, it seemed like the perfect place to become invisible. Small enough to not be on any CPS radar, and just large enough to blend in. Sally, the tiny blonde diner-owning dynamo, took pity on my not quite sixteen-year-old self and gave me a job even though I was underage. A few months of washing dishes later, I graduated to waitressing.
People here know me as Stella, though I still use Ellis as my last name. I couldn’t risk using my full birth name on the off chance my mother had been right about me being in danger, and I couldn’t use the name she raised me with in case CPS was looking for me. So I settled on a combination of the two. An acquaintance with somewhat less than legit ties got me set up with a passable ID so I could at least open a bank account and register for online high school classes.