Seen

“Understand this if you understand nothing: it is a powerful thing to be seen” ― Akwaeke Emezi, Freshwater

In her mind she sat at the water's edge, her toes dug deep in the coarse moist sand, admiring a sun-pillar on the horizon - light stretching to the heavens like a beacon of hope. The view was reminiscent of the Star Wars poster her mother had hung in their home office that had previously been her sister's bedroom. She clung to the imagined rhythm of the lapping waves, seagulls cawing, taste of salt in her mouth, and children giggling somewhere in the distance, the breeze coming off the gulf coast carrying the scent only found close to the ocean - a sweet, pungent smell that she knew was caused by bacteria, but she chose not to focus on that detail and instead revel in the calm it’s imagining brought. With her eyes closed, she inhaled deeply and was accosted instead with the smells of those in, near, and around the small room she now occupied. She was disappointed not to experience the floaters one gets from accidentally looking at the sun when she opened her eyes and fixated on the woman sitting in front of her.

Keep it together.

Notes were jotted on a yellow legal pad, several pages turned under that lay on the table before the frazzled woman - script that was barely legible to the girl and which she had no hope, or interest, of reading from her vantage point. Large looping letters in red felt. Most likely something along the lines of “avoidance due to maladaptive social anxiety disorder,” or “combative.” One thing she had learned in her three months in the system is that people loved to assign labels to things that they didn’t quite understand or couldn’t comprehend themselves. She’d been accosted by not only well intended psychological testing but also unwarranted physical examinations to ensure she had never been sexually abused. She recoiled and kicked at the nurse performing the task which had led to more notes that she was sure didn’t include the truth - her great discomfort at being examined. She was sure the records would not indicate that the only form of sexual molestation she’d experienced was at the hand of state sanctioned fact finding.

Everyone seemed to need reasoning in this place - a way to explain what they found unexplainable. She believed this boring and tiresome but understood it explained away all of the bags under their eyes and the nervous energy they couldn’t seem to let out - always fidgeting and chattering, and afraid to be alone with their thoughts. She considered closing her eyes again and utilizing the method of loci - back to the waves, sand and wind. Anywhere but here.

Betty, that was the name she assigned to the woman that sat across from her, was frantically scrolling through her phone, and rationalizing without actually looking at the girl, again and again for being so distracted - she was overworked, it had been explained. Such a heavy caseload, so much going on, no idea how she found the time, blah, blah, blah. This one was younger than the others but the MO was the same. The girl rubbed her locket between her thumb and the meat of her pointer finger, tracing its heart shape and appreciating the slight protrusion. Inside were pictures of her parents - Gayle and Annabelle Garrett-Lindsey, and a baby tooth from her little sister Maya who had been killed at the age of six by a stray bullet in a grocery store. Another had claimed Gayle, a third paralyzing Annabelle, from the waist down and the tooth held in the locket had been the catalyst for their trip to change a twenty dollar bill - the tooth fairy didn’t leave debit cards, you see, and Maya wanted to pick out her own ice cream. The casket had been tiny - too small for imagining. The girl harboured guilt that she had gone to a slumber party that night. Her casket would have been bigger.

She could hear people bustling outside of the small room aware of exactly how unaware they were that their voices carried. Complaints about their weekends being too short, marriages being too boring, resources being too thin. Chatter about feeling unappreciated and undercompensated and anger over every trivial thing - no silver lining to be found in sight, apparently. Constant bitching.

Betty, whose watch, phone, and laptop all chimed in succession, over and over and over again in a cacophony of notifications jotted something else on the notepad before finally focusing her attention on the girl who simply looked back in wonder.

The woman smiled too quickly, a false reaction to placate or endear. Teeth too exposed. A lie of a smile that didn’t carry to her eyes which looked kind, but sad. A doll's smile, or a politicians. It had the girl straightening in her chair. The exchange would begin now - as it had several times before. She would be asked how she was fairing? Fair to middling considering everyone I love is dead. How are the therapy sessions going? Reductive and dismissive - but you have those notes I assume? They say you’re not eating. No one should consume what they serve in the cafeteria, it’s probably tantamount to soylent green. My notes say you’re not participating in group. That depends on your definition of participation. How? I show up and practice active listening. But you don’t engage? Why? Because I actively listen. I’m aware that I have nothing to add, and nothing I have to say could possibly make the situation better for them. Might that be perceived as “reductive and dismissive”? Perhaps. Does that bother you? Not in the slightest. Why? Because, Betty, feelings are not facts and no one can make anyone “feel” any kind of way. People can do things that trigger your own feelings, but not cause them, Personal accountability, Betty - it’s necessary. The girl inhaled, having carried the entire conversation out in her head, and waited for the litany to begin.

Betty’s expression had changed. The smile had faded. Apparently the girl's internal dialogue had given away something on her face that the confused woman found off putting, or unexpected. Pressing the record button on her tablet she leaned forward placing her elbows on the table between them.

“Our records indicate…. There’s very little information on you for the last four years. It appears your Mother pulled you out of school so that you could care for her. Are you going to tell me about that? We need as much information as possible to try to help you.”

“I could but it won’t change anything.” A hangnail on the side of her thumb had snagged on the latch of the locket and the girl placed it in her mouth to bite it off and grimaced from the act.

The woman recalibrated, “We’ve been able to get in contact with your grandparents - they’ve agreed to take you in and will be here the day after tomorrow. It’s been recommended by Dr. Doner that you would do better in a family environment.”

Leaning forward the girl placed both hands on the metal table, spreading her fingers out before bringing them together to clasp in front of her. She swallowed hard and cleared her throat before beginning.

“I would prefer it if that were not the case.” she began looking the woman directly in the eyes, “As I’ve told the case worker before you, and the one before her, and the one before that, I don’t want to be with anyone who has ‘agreed’ to take me in. The people you call my grandparents have had nothing to do with me or my family due to my parents marriage and now that their only daughter is dead I don’t really want to be that balm that soothes their guilt ridden souls, if you know what I mean. I don’t know those people.”

“I can understand that, but...” pings came from the electronics in front of them, the woman tilting her wrist to read the notification before huffing and briefly directing her attention back to the girl in front of her. “There’s very little chance of us finding a placement for a girl your age, and I..” more notifications sounding.

“I’ll be back,” the woman stated absently, holding up one finger and exiting the room, the sound of the metal chair scratching against the linoleum.

The girl closed her eyes again looking for a respite from the situation at hand. She thought of the little house they had lived in - barely big enough for the four of them situated on a wooded piece of land, with a creek that ambled through the backyard. Deer, racoons, and the occasional bear meandering through the small vegetable patch which eventually fell into disarray after the shooting. She missed the taste of fresh salted tomatoes, grown in old rubber tires, and eaten like apples. She missed the breeze blowing through the open windows as she and her mother would play chess at the kitchen table. She missed curling up in the hammock they had hung the Summer before the deaths that she would curl up and read in. Her mind was reeling from all of the things that she missed as the door loudly creaked open and her senses were accosted with the noise from outside the room.

Keep it together.

She wiped away a tear that had escaped as Betty took her seat across from her once again pressing a button to record their exchange.

“We need to be quick, ok? If you could just answer my questions, there’s a lot of paperwork before they can release you to your grandparents.” She huffed as her phone beeped again, and before the girl could stop herself words began to flow.

“Am I ok? Am I O.K.? No, I’m not o.k. Half of my family was killed by an angry disgruntled white man whose facebook group told him it was fine to buy a gun at walmart and shoot up some lesbians, because we all know a little random murder makes incels feel better. My mom died a slow agonizing death which left me an orphan at the age of seventeen and this place wants to ship me off to live with people I don’t know because of some quota it’s trying to hit.” she said waving her arms about her, “In this place I am considered a freak because I don’t feel the need to give one single solitary fuck about people who can’t be bothered to actually engage in real human connection or seem to function without some online presence telling them they’re valid. Why don’t I engage in group? Because it’s escapism, not realism. Hell, you’re driven by the damn pinging of your phone like Pavlov’s fucking dog. No, I am not o.k. Everyone talks about this mythical dystopia - one day things will be so bad, we’ll have to do without, we’ll be controlled. Big brother is coming… Oooo.. We’ll starve without ten year old canned peaches. The ‘one day’ is a lie. This is dystopia. NOW in this room is dystopic. The utter lack of connection and acknowledgment, the loss of empathy, the…” she trailed off, inhaled deeply, and wiped away the tears born of anger and frustration.

The woman, who appeared to actually see the child for the first time, reached tentatively in front of her and turned the recorder off on the tablet. She closed the laptop and placed them both along with the phone and notepad in the bag that was sitting on the floor. She then looked closely at the scared, angry, and lonely girl in front of her who refused to meet her gaze.

“Hello, Elise,” she began extending her hand, “my name is Cadence. I’m here to help you, if you’ll let me. Would you feel comfortable telling me your story? I’d like to hear it.”