Chapter 6
Ms. Alvarez took her hand off the folder.
“You can tell me now,” she said, “or later.”
The social worker remained near the window. No one moved closer.
I pictured the backyard in the dark. The porch light reached partway to the fence, but not all the way. On dry nights, my stepmom left an old blanket folded beneath the back steps. I had to carry it to the kennel after I finished cleaning.
“There’s a blanket,” I said. “It’s blue, but mostly brown now.”
“Where is it kept?”
“Under the porch steps during the day.”
Ms. Alvarez opened her notebook. “What happens at night?”
“I take it to the kennel.”
“Does someone tell you to?”
I nodded.
She waited.
“My stepmom sets the kitchen timer,” I said. “When it rings, I’m supposed to be done cleaning. Then I take the blanket outside.”
“What kind of timer?”
“The white one by the stove. It twists.”
Ms. Alvarez wrote for several seconds. “Would it be all right if the other investigator looked for the blanket and photographed the timer?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to see any of those photographs?”
“No.”
She closed the notebook immediately. “Then we won’t show them to you.”
On the drive back to the safe room, rain dotted the car windows. I counted red taillights until Ms. Alvarez’s phone rang through the dashboard. She answered without putting it on speaker.
“Yes,” she said. “She identified it independently.”
I pressed my knees together.
Ms. Alvarez listened.
“Under the back steps?”
Another pause.
“And the timer is present?”
She glanced at me in the mirror, then looked back at the road.
“Document both. Don’t move anything until you’ve completed the photographs.”
When the call ended, she said, “They found the blanket where you said it would be. They also found the timer.”
I watched rainwater join into crooked lines on the glass.
“Does that mean you believe me?”
“It means what you told us led to things that can be verified.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No,” she said gently. “It isn’t. I believe you. The investigation still needs facts that other people can review.”
I thought about the difference. Believing lived inside one person. A record could leave the room without them.
At the safe room, a county placement worker waited at the table with forms spread in front of her. She explained that the county was asking for permission to keep me somewhere temporary while the investigation continued.
“Will it be here?” I asked.
“Not for long. This room is for emergencies. We’re looking for a home where you can stay and keep attending your school.”
“With people I don’t know?”
“At first.”
The word home bothered me. People used it as if every house deserved it.
“Will they lock the door?”
“They lock outside doors at night, like most families do,” she said. “They won’t lock you in a room or outside the house.”
“Will there be a dog?”
“We can ask for a place without one.”
“I don’t hate dogs.”
“I understand.”
I looked at the forms. My name appeared near the top in capital letters. Beneath it were boxes about school, food, sleep, and things that frightened me.
“Can I say I don’t want a dog anyway?”
“Yes.”
“Then write that.”
She did.
The next afternoon, a county attorney spoke with Ms. Alvarez by telephone. I sat at the other end of the room coloring a picture I didn’t care about. They kept their voices low, but I heard the words temporary placement and no unsupervised contact.
After the call, Ms. Alvarez crouched beside the table.
“A judge approved the temporary plan,” she said. “Your stepmom can’t pick you up from school or contact you privately while the investigation continues.”
“For how long?”
“Until another decision is made.”
“Did she say I lied again?”
“She disagrees with the report.”
That meant yes.
I colored outside the line of a tree and pressed so hard the green crayon broke.
“What happens if she comes to school?”
“The office has instructions not to release you. Staff have her information. They’ll call the county.”
“What if somebody forgets?”
Ms. Alvarez sat in the chair beside me. “We’re putting the same instructions in more than one place so your safety doesn’t depend on one person remembering.”
Later, my teacher called the safe room. The worker held the phone, and I listened without speaking at first.
“I saved your desk,” my teacher said. “Your papers are still inside.”
“Did anyone ask where I was?”
“Yes. I told the class you were absent and that your privacy mattered.”
I picked at the paper wrapper around the broken crayon.
“They found the blanket.”
There was a small silence.
“Thank you for telling Ms. Alvarez about it,” she said.
“I almost didn’t.”
“You got to choose.”
That night, the placement worker showed me a photograph of the room where I would stay next. I had agreed to see that picture. The bedspread had yellow squares. There was a lamp, a dresser, and a window with curtains that stopped above the floor.
“No dog?” I asked.
“No dog.”
I packed my red uniform in a paper bag. The teacher’s pen went into the front pocket.
Before we left, Ms. Alvarez read my new safety plan aloud. My stepmom couldn’t take me from school. She couldn’t call me without county approval. Any future meeting would include another adult.
At the bottom was a blank line for my name.
“You don’t have to sign if you don’t understand it,” she said.
I understood enough.
May you like
I wrote EMILY slowly, pressing each letter into the paper.
The blanket, the timer, and the school records belonged to the adults now. My name belonged to me. For the first time since my sleeve had slipped, I used it to agree to something instead of trying to disappear.
