“I really do.” She finished chewing. Swallowed. Fixed me with an almost curious look. “Not as much as you do, of course, because I just knew her that one night, and she didn’t come out of my own body or anything like that. But she’s just an amazing little kid.”
I still wasn’t eating. For some reason just listening to her was occupying all my faculties.
“What do you think is amazing about her?”
“You don’t think she’s amazing?”
“Of course I do. I just wondered what you noticed most.”
“She’s only two,” Molly said. And took another enormous bite. Talked with her mouth full again. “But she was quiet when I told her we needed to be. I mean, sometimes she couldn’t stop crying completely. She’s a baby. But she understood, and she really tried to do what I asked, and she barely knew me. At first, I mean. And she’s so little.”
“She cares for you, too,” I said.
She stopped chewing and just stared at me. “How do you know that?”
“She says your name over and over.”
I watched her eyes go soft. I realized something about Molly in that moment. She had been searching for somebody who would love her as she currently stood. Who wouldn’t judge her. And she had found that person. But it wasn’t me.
“Didn’t I say that in my note?” I asked her. “I thought I did.”
“Yeah, I guess you did, but I didn’t know you meant she said it like she loved me. Or . . . cared for me, or whatever you just said.”
“Sometimes in her sleep,” I added, “she’ll say something that I’m guessing she heard from you. She’ll whisper, ‘Brave girl, quiet girl.’ Did I say that in the note, too?”
“I think you did, yeah. Yeah, I said that to her. Kind of sang it to her. I think it helped.”
“Obviously.”
“Oh!” she said. So loudly I jumped. “I just remembered! The most amazing thing she did! Right before the police drove by, when I was trying to flag down a car and nobody would stop for me and I sort of gave up and walked back over to the curb with her and sat down. I guess I was having this meltdown, because it was too much responsibility for me, and so she said it to me. She said ‘Brave girl, quiet girl’ back to me, because she knew it’s what you say when somebody needs comforting, and she knew I needed it right about then. And she remembered. I mean, isn’t that amazing? And she’s only two!”
I opened my mouth to speak. To say that it was amazing. Even to me, and I adored her. But surprise tears spilled over, and my voice quavered too much. Enough that I didn’t try to follow through.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault. I’ve just been unusually emotional since the incident.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I can relate.”
Then she put her head down and pitched back into her food. And I put my own head down and ate, too.
It helped.
“I know you’re going to try to get me to go back to that foster home,” she said.
It was several minutes later. She had just downed the last bite of her dinner. Set down her fork. She wiped her mouth with her napkin and stared straight into my eyes. Possibly for the first time ever. No, not literally the first time. There had been that one time at the police station. But it had been short.
“I met her,” I said.
“‘Her’ who?”
“That foster mother.”
“Oh. Her.”
“I don’t like her,” I said.
“I don’t either.”
“I think she hit you.”
She quickly looked away again. She didn’t answer.
“Did she hit you?” I asked. I felt it was an issue I needed to press.
At first, nothing. Then she muttered something so quiet as to be inaudible.
“I’m sorry. What?”
“With a broom handle,” she said. A little louder this time. “Ten times.”
“That’s abuse.”
“You’re telling me.”
“Just tell your social worker. Maybe she can put you someplace better.”
“Exactly,” she said. “Maybe. It’s the maybe part that I’m worried about.”
“How about dessert?” I asked her.
We had been quiet for a while. Nursing a pall that had fallen over the table. Over our attempts at conversation.
She let out a long, loud syllable. Something between a groan and a growl.
“I’d really, really like that,” she said. “But I couldn’t fit one more bite of food down there. I’m not used to eating such big meals.”
“Take it to go, then.”
No answer. I looked up to see her staring at my face. As if she were doing math in her head. As if the answer were hiding in my eyes.
“I can really do that?” she asked. Her voice sounded awed. “It’s not cheating?”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
“There’s no cheating, Molly. I’m offering to buy you dessert. Get something that doesn’t melt, like a piece of pie. Take it home for later.”
But my voice stuck on the word “home.” I looked away again, embarrassed.
“This is weird,” I said after a time.
“What part of it is weird?”
“Taking you out for a meal and getting to know you a little, and then I’m supposed to take you back to that . . . crate. And just leave you there in that awful industrial neighborhood in the dark by yourself. Like somehow I’m supposed to pretend it’s a suitable place for you to live.”
She didn’t answer for a long time. I was looking down at the table. I wasn’t sure I wanted to brave a look at her face.
When I finally did, it seemed to unstick her ability to speak.
“You could talk to my social worker,” she said. “That lady cop knows who she is. You could ask her if she’d put me someplace better, but if she isn’t sure she can, or you don’t think she will, you can’t tell her where I am. You have to promise not to tell her where
