The whole thing just kind of came down on my head as I was running up the hill, and I could hear the baby fussing, gearing up for a good cry. Even though there were thousands of cars thumping on the freeway over our heads, with everybody going to work and all, but still I could hear her.
And it was all just too much for me.
I sort of fell apart running up that hill, because of how it was all just too much for me, but in another way I didn’t fall apart, because I couldn’t, because I had to hold myself together for that baby.
So I sort of broke into a million pieces but didn’t let the pieces all tumble apart. Like I tried to just be cracked all over but not shattered.
I dove back under the cardboard and I said, “I’m here, little girl, I’m here, don’t cry, I’ll take of you.”
She kept fussing a little but she didn’t actually scream like I knew it would be so easy for a kid her age to do.
I sang to her “Brave girl, quiet girl,” over and over and over, and I gave her some more apple juice and some goldfish crackers and that seemed to help.
My mouth was so dry it felt like cotton and my tongue was sticking to my teeth and the roof of my mouth because I’d been giving apple juice to the little girl but not taking any for me. Because I knew we’d run out pretty soon.
And my stomach was so empty it was cramping up, because all I’d had to eat for a whole day was that one banana, and I was saving the crackers for the little girl. I had an apple in my pocket still, but I was saving that for her, too, in case the crackers ran out.
It’s more important for a baby her age. They can’t be without food and something to drink like we can.
I sang to her and fed her and told myself maybe the guy really did hear me and really did call the police. I listened real close, and peeked out from under the cardboard, hoping to see flashing red lights. But at least an hour or two went by and nobody else walked by on the sidewalk under our hiding place, and the police didn’t come.
And it was a lot of stress for me.
Too much stress, let me tell you.
I was sitting up under the cardboard, but way hunched over, because that hole we were hiding in was not very deep at all. It was deep enough for the little girl to sit up in, especially since I was holding the cover up a little bit on one side with my back. But for me it put me in a weird and uncomfortable position.
I was facing the top of the hill—in other words I had my back to the street—because I had to leave the cardboard cover down on the street side. But this way some light and air got in, which was a very big deal for the little girl, because she was getting fussy and impatient and pretty scared.
It was hard to blame her, really, because how long can you expect a little kid her age to just lie there holding perfectly still in the dark?
It’s not a natural thing to ask a baby to do.
We were playing clapping games. You know, like patty-cake, only for older girls. The kind that have a song or a chant, but I only just hummed it real quiet under my breath, and then you clap each other’s hands, or you clap your hands together, or you clap your hands on your knees. There’s a pattern to it.
The baby was really sort of more pretending to know how to do it than actually doing it. She couldn’t get the pattern of when to clap where, because she was too little to learn a thing like that by heart. So she just sort of mixed it up and clapped wherever she felt like it, whenever she wanted.
Except for one thing—when I held my hands out, she always clapped her hands against mine.
And it just made me love her even more, because her hands were so tiny and perfect and warm, and it sort of broke my heart, especially because her little, helpless, delicate self was in such a bind right now, and she had nobody but me to sort it out for her. And I wasn’t enough. I was mostly frozen up and broken and too scared and confused to be doing her much good, and she deserved way better and I knew it.
But it didn’t matter what I knew, because I was all she had and that’s just the way it was.
She was too perfect and good to be in so much trouble, but that’s the world for you, I guess.
Well. We were in so much trouble, I should say.
The fact that she was bad at the game and really didn’t know the pattern at all made it easier for me to clap and worry at the same time, because there was nobody there who would notice if I made a mistake.
Then all of a sudden I saw a lady about to go by. An older lady, but not like elderly old—more like maybe fifty. She had hair piled up on her head in this bright shade of red that nobody’s hair could actually be without dyeing it.
I had the cardboard angled so I could see left and right a ways up the street, but just the tiniest bit—like I could see somebody’s head if they were coming, but the rest of them was blocked by the hill and the edge of our hole.
I stopped clapping.
“I’ll be right back,” I said. “I have to ask this lady to
