“Your mother is in the third room to the left. I have to wait out here, but if you need me, just come back through these doors.” He looked up, and I noticed that a nurse in pink scrubs stood to my side. He nodded to her, and she placed her hand on my shoulder. I wanted to shrug her away, but I didn’t have any energy. She guided me to the waiting room, which was nothing more than a hole-in-the-wall with a few blue vinyl chairs lining the walls.
When her puffy, tear-soaked eyes met mine, my mother sobbed into a tissue she had pressed against her mouth, her freshly honey-highlighted hair knotted and disheveled. I’d never seen my mother cry. She was always so happy, or at least that was the illusion I had become accustomed to. I felt like I was on autopilot, unable to think or feel. I was thankful for the numbness that had taken over, because my mother was in no state to comfort me. She lurched toward me, wrapping her arms around my shoulder and squeezing me with all her strength. She pulled back, her hands on my face, and frantically rubbed my hair as if she was examining me to make sure I was okay.
“I brought you food,” I mumbled, realizing how stupid it was to think a chicken sandwich would somehow take away her pain, but I wasn’t ready to hear about my father’s condition.
She smiled, her hand still trying to tame my hair as she sniffled. “I had lunch at Franklin’s Deli, but you should eat something, baby.”
Overwhelm
Chapter 3—Ella
Overwhelm: to defeat completely
I rubbed my damp palms over my jeans as I looked over the printed newspaper clippings that hung from pushpins across my faded-yellow bedroom wall. The timeline dated back ten years to when I was only eight years old. I’d never been this close to finding out the truth, and it was nearly overwhelming. After losing most of my research after a break-in, I had almost given up, but thanks to the Internet and the local library, I was able to rebuild my paper trail, with a few new clues along the way. My own personal memories began when I was much younger, when my world began to crumble and the wheels of fate began to spin.
* *
“I don’t want to go to Grandma’s. She’s mean and makes me eat peas.” I rubbed the back of my hand across my nose as I sniffled, struggling to hold back tears. Momma always fought to be tough for me, and I owed her the same. I knew this wasn’t what she wanted to do, like going to the doctor, but it was important because it kept me healthy.
“Don’t think of it that way, baby. Think of it as…you’re Cinderella, and you have to go stay with your fairy godmother for a while.” My mother was on edge, constantly glancing out of my bedroom window as she gathered a few of my things. My dresser drawers were left open, with clothing strewn about the floor. It felt like good-bye, one of the many times we’d run in the middle of the night, but this time was different. I wasn’t going to be by my mother’s side. I was being left behind. It stung in a way I had never felt before and couldn’t quite understand.
“But she’s an evil stepmother.”
My mother ran her hand through my long, mahogany-colored hair and smiled sadly, her eyes glossed over in unshed tears.
“Then you can be Belle.”
“But I don’t like to read.” I whined as I clung to my doll baby, whose hair was a matted knot the same color as my own. Her leg had fresh blue stitching from my mother repairing it.
“Sweetheart, you can be anyone you want to be, okay? Just like last time. Anyone you want, but we have to go.”
“But Daddy said he’d come be with us soon!”
“Ella, when did you talk to your father?”
I shrugged as I fixed the yarn hair of my homemade doll, pulling at one of the many knots. “He came to day care and said he would come to be with us soon.”
“Oh, Ella. Sweetie, you have to tell me if your daddy comes to see you. Remember? We talked about this.” I could hear the disappointment in her voice, but her smile didn’t waver.
“He said it was a surprise for you!”
She shook her head. She looked upset, and I was worried she was mad at me for ruining the secret.
“Daddy wants you to go too. He knows it is the best thing for you right now.”
“You talked to Daddy?” I couldn’t contain my excitement. It felt like it had been a lifetime since we were all together, after the cops came and took Daddy away to help them get more of the bad guys. My daddy was a hero. He promised me he would come back for us and we would be a family again when his job was done. But Momma hated having to wait for him and would always move us around a lot.
“I’ll tell you all about it on the way.”
* *
I gathered my long, stick-straight, dark hair into a ponytail, pulling an elastic band from my wrist and securing it in place as my eyes danced over the clues. My story wasn’t an uncommon one. A lot of kids get put in the system and never get a reason as to why their lives had been turned upside down. But mine had a twist, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that something sinister lay just below the surface of the details. My father was a criminal, and my mother was a thief, even if she struggled to keep that reality from me. But it’s hard to keep a secret as big as ours.