Believe Like a Child (21 page)
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fter breakfast, Alessa took Lucy over to the river and washed her face and hands, using an old tee shirt she had in her duffle bag. Then the child led her out of her new home and toward South Street. Lucy was right; there was food left out by the dumpsters of various restaurants. Alessa was careful as they sifted through the food, knowing it had been left out all night and could have been contaminated by animals or just spoiled from not being refrigerated. They paused at Jim’s Steaks, looking in the window to watch the men making steak sandwiches for people waiting in line to get them.
The two gathered all the salvageable food they could find and brought it back to their home. Lucy was quiet through most of the day. Alessa just kept gabbing and told her all about Ebby.
“Can we go and visit Ebby?” Lucy asked enthusiastically.
Alessa knew that was too risky. “No, not just yet,” she answered, “but I told Ebby I would call her. Let’s take a walk up to a pay phone so we can call her now. I promised I would and she’ll worry if she doesn’t hear from me.”
Excited by the prospect of calling Alessa’s friend, the child jumped up and grasped her hand. “Okay, let’s go!” she declared breezily.
They found a pay phone three blocks away. Alessa pulled out Ebby’s business card and dialed the number to the shelter.
“Hi Ebby, it’s me,” she said when the phone was answered. “I was just calling to check in and let you know I’m okay.”
Ebby’s voice betrayed her excitement when she realized who was on the other end.
“Alessa! I’m so happy to hear from you. How is it there? Are you doing okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” she replied.
There was something different in Alessa’s voice that Ebby caught immediately. She knew that either something was wrong or the girl was lying.
“What’s all that noise in the background?” she asked her, puzzled. “It sounds like cars.”
Alessa recovered quickly. “Yeah, it is cars,” she replied. “I took a walk into downtown Norristown.”
“Can I talk to Ebby?” Lucy suddenly piped up.
“Who’s that?” Ebby asked suspiciously.
“Her name is Lucy and she is staying at the shelter,” Alessa lied glibly. “I was telling her all about you and she wants to say hello.”
Ebby was confused. Normally, a shelter wouldn’t allow underage children to go out without their parents. “Where are her parents?” she inquired.
Alessa lied again. “Oh, they both had job interviews the shelter had set up. So I said I would keep her with me for the day.”
Ebby thought it rather strange, but accepted the answer. “Well, put her on,” she said.
Lucy got on the phone and chirped, “Hi Ebby. I’m Lucy and Alessa told me all about you. You’re like her mom. I wish my mom had been as nice as you. Alessa said she got to sleep over at your house. Maybe I can sleep over too sometime?”
Ebby laughed. “Sure, sweetheart! Maybe someday, you and Alessa can come over and we’ll have a sleepover party.”
Lucy was excited at the idea. “Alessa has to take care of me now,” she babbled, “because she’s the newest one in the family. I don’t mind, though, because I like her best. She talks to me about different things and we have fun together. Last night, I shared my blanket with her and today, we went out to get food together. Everyone else is nice to me too, but Alessa tells me stories about different people that she knows. She told me lots of stuff about you.”
Ebby listened intently, starting to realize that her instincts were right. She knew Alessa was hiding something from her.
“Well, it was nice talking to you, Lucy,” she said. “Can you put Alessa back on the phone?”
Lucy said goodbye to her, promising they would call again.
When Alessa got back on the phone, Ebby asked, “What did Lucy mean when she said you were the newest member of the family and that you had to take care of her? What’s going on, Alessa?”
Alessa didn’t know how to tell Ebby the truth. She wanted to be honest with her, but was embarrassed to admit that she was now homeless and living under a bridge in the city. “Oh, that’s just something the teenagers made up at the shelter,” she replied after the slightest hesitation. “The newcomer gets to hang out with Lucy. It just means that if her parents have interviews or job training, she stays with me.”
“Really?” Ebby said mystified. “That sounds odd to do at a shelter. You know the staff takes care of the children here, when their mom has other obligations. Are you sure everything is all right? “
Alessa assured her it was and got off the phone in a hurry, explaining that they needed to get back to the shelter before someone started to worry. “I’ll call you later in the week, Ebby,” she promised. “Okay?”
The moment they hung up the phone, Ebby reached for the brochure to get the number of the shelter where Alessa was supposedly staying. She felt a bit guilty about calling them, but her gut told her Alessa wasn’t being totally truthful with her. Since the girl was intrinsically honest, deception didn’t come naturally to her and it was easy to detect from her tone that she was lying.
When the receptionist at the shelter in Norristown answered the phone, Ebby asked to speak to the day manager. After a few moments, a friendly man answered and introduced himself. Ebby explained she was the day manager at Eliza Shirley and she was calling to confirm the identity of one of their residents.
The man hesitated. “I would love to help you out,” he said sincerely, “but you know how it works. I can’t give you any information about the people who are staying here. I have no way of confirming your identity. It’s standard procedure to protect all the residents who live here. I’m sure you understand.”
Ebby thanked him and silently chastised herself for even expecting to be given the confidential information she sought. She was disheartened at being back where she started, but did feel somewhat reassured that the man had refused to divulge any information about the residents. Alessa would be safe for now.
W
eeks had passed and it was early fall. Alessa had noticed how cold it was getting at night. She and Lucy huddled together under a blanket, stealing body heat from each other to keep themselves warm. Alessa wondered how they would possibly make it through the winter, if they had to remain outdoors day and night in this weather. Lucy had not yet spent a winter with the group and Alessa was concerned about how she would survive the cold. The two of them were inseparable. Even when a new teenage girl joined the group, Alessa insisted that Lucy stay with her. She was like her own child now and Alessa had grown was very protective of her, although the group of teens
was
like a family.
Alessa kept her own story close to the chest, not wanting to share her deep, dark secrets with everyone. She had told the group that her parents just hadn’t wanted her anymore and had told her to move out. She was just another throwaway child.
One morning as the two went to their usual spot to pee, Lucy cried out that her pee was burning her.
“It will be okay, Lucy,” Alessa reassured her. “We’ll get you some cranberry juice today and it will be all yours. No one else can share it. That will stop the burning. You probably just have a small infection.”
Lucy’s gaze dropped to the ground. “It burns the way it used to after my dad had put his penis in me,” she whispered.
Alessa had guessed something unpleasant must have happened to the child, but was shocked, nevertheless, to hear her put it in words. “Did you tell your mommy?” she asked her.
Lucy looked at her, undecided, wondering if she could trust her or not. Tears started to roll down her cheeks.
Alessa took her in her arms and soothed her. “It’s okay,” she reassured her, “you can tell me. I had really bad stuff happen to me too, when I was your age.”
Lucy looked surprised. “Really? Well, I couldn’t tell my mom because she already knew. She was always there when he did it to me. She would stick her fingers in down there and then tell my dad that I was ready for him. While Daddy was putting his penis in me, she would watch and put her fingers in her own, you know, down there.”
White-hot rage flared up within Alessa. She wanted to rip Lucy’s parents to shreds, to take them apart, limb by limb. She couldn’t believe how fucked-up people were. She willed herself to calm down and asked the child, “How long did they do this to you?”
Lucy seemed to shrink back in embarrassment. “I don’t know,” she mumbled. “I guess when I started kindergarten. Then they got caught sniffing some white stuff by this guy I never met. We had to run away from the apartment where we were living, because they said the man would hurt us, if he found us. We moved into a place with only one room. Then one day, we went to eat at McDonald’s. My parents told me to wait there while they went to the bathroom. I sat there until it got dark outside, but they never came back. I started walking down the street to look for them and then these weird boys began bothering me. I was really, really scared. That’s when my new family found me. They thought I was just lost, but when I told them how my mom and dad had left me at McDonald’s and never came back for me, the group brought me back here. For a long time, the boys from the group would take me back to that McDonald’s every day to see if my mom and dad had come looking for me, but they never did.”
Both girls were crying by now and clung tightly to each other. Alessa remembered the terrified seven-year-old she had been when her Uncle Danny had raped her. She knew that Lucy was confused and it would be many years before she fully understood the meaning of what had really happened to her.
“I will never leave you,” she assured the child. “We will always be together. Okay, Lucy?”
The little girl looked up at her. “I was afraid if I told you what had happened to me, you wouldn’t like me anymore. You don’t hate me, though, do you? How come?”
“Because the only people not to like are your mom and your dad,” Alessa explained, choosing her words carefully. “What they did to you was wrong and they should be very ashamed of themselves. They are bad people and you’re a good girl. None of this was your fault. You’ve been very brave. Do you know that?”
Lucy and she were kindred spirits and Alessa vowed to herself she would take care of her as if she were her own. With the child having unburdened herself, the two had drawn closer. Given her own horrific childhood experience, Alessa was more capable than most of helping Lucy cope with what had happened to her. They talked often about what her parents had done to her. And they always chose to stay together. Alessa and Lucy picked through dumpsters during the day, looking for useful items or food the group could use. At night they sat and talked with the others by the small fire they would light inside the ring of rocks. They were all one big family.
They did not, however, neglect to call Ebby at least twice a week.
Finally, Lucy said one day, “I want to dial the phone to call Ebby.”
Alessa inserted the money in the pay phone and handed the child the number. That was their new thing now; Lucy would always dial the number and talk to Ebby first.
Ebby had not given up probing. She continued to ask Alessa what was going on, but the girl stuck to her story about staying in the shelter in Norristown and helping to take care of Lucy. Though she had never met the child in person, Ebby had also grown attached to her. She could tell that Alessa was evolving as a person and, she believed, for the better. Her relationship with Lucy seemed to be helping her deal with her own past. Little by little, Alessa’s confidence in herself was beginning to bloom.