Once Pined

Disappointment was starting to give way to anger. Riley knew that it was wrong to feel angry. She had no right. She didn’t even know why she felt that way. All she knew was that she couldn’t help it.

And what were they supposed to do right now?

Hug? Shake hands?

She sensed that Blaine felt the same awkwardness and indecision.

They managed to exchange terse goodbyes. Blaine went back home, and Riley went back inside. She found Jilly eating breakfast in the kitchen. Gabriela had put Riley’s own breakfast on the table, so she sat down to eat with Jilly.

“So are you excited about today?”

Riley’s question was out before she could realize how lame and clumsy it sounded.

“I guess,” Jilly said, poking her pancakes with a fork. She didn’t even look up at Riley.

*

A while later, Riley and Jilly walked through the entrance to Brody Middle School. The building was attractive, with brightly colored locker doors lining the hallway and student artwork hanging everywhere.

A pleasant and polite student offered her help and directed them toward the main office. Riley thanked her and continued down the hall, clutching Jilly’s registration papers in one hand and holding Jilly’s hand with the other.

Earlier, they had gone through registration at the central school office. They’d taken along the materials that Phoenix Social Services had put together – records of vaccination, school transcripts, Jilly’s birth certificate, and a statement that Riley was Jilly’s appointed guardian. Jilly had been removed from her father’s custody, although he had threatened to challenge that decision. Riley knew that the path to finalizing and legalizing an adoption wouldn’t be quick or easy.

Jilly squeezed Riley’s hand tightly. Riley sensed that the girl felt extremely ill at ease. It wasn’t hard to imagine why. As rough as life in Phoenix had been, it was the only place that Jilly had ever lived.

“Why can’t I go to school with April?” Jilly asked.

“Next year you’ll be in the same high school,” Riley said. “First you’ve got to finish eighth grade.”

They found the main office and Riley showed the papers to the receptionist.

“We’d like to see someone about enrolling Jilly in school,” Riley said.

“You need to see a guidance counselor,” the receptionist said with a smile. “Come right this way.”

Both of us could use some guidance, Riley thought.

The counselor was a woman in her thirties with a mop of curly brown hair. Her name was Wanda Lewis, and her smile was as warm as a smile could be. Riley found herself thinking that she could be a real help. Surely a woman in a job like this had dealt with other students from rough backgrounds.

Ms. Lewis took them on a tour of the school. The library was neat, orderly, and well stocked with both computers and books. In the gym, girls were happily playing basketball. The cafeteria was clean and sparkling. Everything looked absolutely lovely to Riley.

All the while, Ms. Lewis cheerfully asked Jilly lots of questions about where she’d gone to school before, and about her interests. But Jilly said almost nothing in reply to Ms. Lewis’s questions and asked none of her own. Her curiosity seemed to perk up a little when she got a look at the art room. But as soon as they moved on, she became quiet and withdrawn all over again.

Riley wondered what might be going on in the girl’s head. She knew that her recent grades had been poor, but they had been surprisingly good in earlier years. But the truth was, Riley knew almost nothing about Jilly’s past school experience.

Maybe she even hated school.

This new one must be daunting, where Jilly knew absolutely nobody. And of course, it wasn’t going to be easy to get caught up in her studies, with only a couple of weeks left before end of the term.

At the end of the tour, Riley managed to coax Jilly into thanking Ms. Lewis for showing her around. They agreed that Jilly would start classes tomorrow. Then Riley and Jilly walked out into the bite of the cold January air. A thin layer of yesterday’s snow lay all around the parking lot.

“So what do you think of your new school?” Riley asked.

“It’s OK,” Jilly said.

Riley couldn’t tell if Jilly was being sullen or was simply dazed by all the changes she was facing. As they approached the car, she noticed that Jilly was shivering deeply and her teeth were chattering. She was wearing a heavy jacket of April’s, but the cold was really bothering her.

They got into the car, and Riley switched on the ignition and the heater. Even as the car got warmer, Jilly was still shivering.

Riley kept the car parked. It was time to find out what was bothering this child in her care.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Is there something about school that upsets you?”

“It’s not the school,” Jilly said, her voice shaking now. “It’s the cold.”

“I guess it doesn’t get cold in Phoenix,” Riley said. “This must be strange to you.”

Jilly’s eyes filled up with tears.

“It does get cold sometimes,” she said. “Especially at night.”

“Please tell me what’s wrong,” Riley said.

Tears started to pour down Jilly’s cheeks. She spoke in a small, choked voice.

“The cold makes me remember …”

Jilly fell silent. Riley waited patiently for her to gone.

“My dad always blamed me for everything,” Jilly said. “He blamed me for my mom going away, and my brother too, and he even blamed me because he kept getting fired from whatever jobs he could get. Anything that was wrong was always my fault.”

Jilly was sobbing quietly now.

“Go on,” Riley said.

“One night he told me he wanted me gone,” Jilly said. “He said I was a dead weight, that I was keeping him down, and he’d had enough of me and he was through with me. He kicked me out of the house. He locked the doors and I couldn’t get back in.”

Jilly gulped hard at the memory.

“I’ve never felt so cold in my life,” she said. “Not even now, in this weather. I found a big drainpipe in a ditch, and it was big enough for me to crawl into, so that was where I spent that night. It was so scary. Sometimes people were walking around near me, but I didn’t want them to find me. They didn’t sound like anybody who would help me.”

Riley closed her eyes, picturing the girl hiding in the dark drainpipe. She whispered, “And what happened then?”

Jilly continued, “I just scrunched down and stayed there all night. I didn’t really sleep. The next morning I went back home and knocked on the door and called for Dad and begged him to let me in. He ignored me, like I wasn’t even there. That’s when I went to the truck stop. It was warm there, and there was food. Some of the women were nice to me and I figured I’d do whatever I had to do to stay there. And that night is when you found me.”

Jilly had grown calmer as she’d told her story. She seemed relieved to let it out. But now Riley was crying. She could hardly believe what this poor girl had gone through. She put her arm around Jilly and hugged her tight.

“Never again,” Riley said through her sobs. “Jilly, I promise you, you’ll never feel like that ever again.”