Edge of Lightening

The table had been cleared a while. Annie handed the table over to the next shift waitress, who kept their drinks filled as the lunch rush came and went. Seth busied herself with the crayons and pencils that Annie had left with her, and Mike leafed through the local Tucson paper. The new waitress joined them, and Mike asked if she would stay for a moment while he used to phone.

“What are you drawing?” She asked as she sat peering sideways, trying to get a view of what she was working on.

“Oh, just whatever.” She pushed some discarded pictures across the table. “That’s the sky and the Superstition Mountains. This one is my mom, that’s my doll... these aren’t anything, in particular, just scribbles.” The woman looked them over.

“These are pretty good for a young lady, what are you 5?”

“Six.” She didn’t lookup.

“These don’t look like what my little girl draws. She’s about your age.”

“I have always drawn. My mom would always make sure I had supplies, even if it was inconvenient to stop. She taught me my letters and numbers too. See.” She took a new piece of paper and perfectly wrote the whole alphabet in cursive and numbers to 50.

“You’re amazing. I bet your mom is very proud of you. I hope she keeps teaching you like this.”

“She can’t. She’s dead.” She took up the doll picture again and began to fill in shadows of the dress and hair.

“I’m so sorry. Are you waiting for your dad?”

“No, I don’t know who he is. I’m going into….” What had the detective called it… “States Custody? It’s whatever. I’ll be fine. Mom always taught me that nothing in life is guaranteed. Enjoy life and every moment, make happy memories to keep. If you carry those, your heart will always be full. Hey, is there anything fun to do here? Do you have any tourist maps or brochures?” The waitress sat stunned, heartbroken for this little girl.

“Yes, we do have a rack up at the front. I’ll go grab some.” The woman hopped up and was back quickly. “My girl Jenny loves the Children’s Museum. They have all kinds of things to play with, and she just runs around and goes crazy.” Seth took the brochures.

“What about camping or hiking? She unfolded one with a map. “We camped in the mountains, and I really liked it. I would like to go again one day. If I can.” The waitress winced inside. She knew that it was unlikely that this girl would get a foster placement that was worth a damn. If she was lucky enough to get a placement at all, she would probably end up in a group home because so many adoptive parents want a baby, a six-year old with a spotty past would be damaged goods.

“Maybe one day you can check out the trails. These geological features have been there forever, and they just grow right up out of the ground. They take school groups all the time. Maybe one day you can go on a field trip to those.” Seth nodded but was still studying the map. The waitress didn’t want to get the girl’s hopes up, because she doubted life would be accessible from now on for the child before her. Mike returned to the table, and the waitress jumped up, relinquishing the seat once again to the uniformed officer. “Quite the little lady here. How are your drinks? Did you want to order more food?”

“I’ll take some fries and buffalo wings and a little more tea.” Mike held up his cup. Seth chimed in.

“Can I have more water and ice?”

“Of course.” She left.

“Thinking about doing some day-tripping?” Seth looked up from the map.

“Not so much, just getting familiar with this area since it looks like I’m going to be here a while.”

“Well, I like this place.” He said, holding up a brochure. “They do these wild west shows and its super fun to watch. They used to do these when I was a kid. It reminds me of when I was little.” He looked at the pictures to which he had not paid any attention while reading the paper.

“Wow, look at these letters. Did the waitress draw these for you to trace?”

“No, I did that. Mom taught me my letters and numbers. We would always have school books around. She always said if we settled somewhere, she wanted me to walk into any school and keep up. I can do the math, read, write my words, a lot of words, and I know most of the presidents and all the planets.” He was stunned.

“and you can really draw.”

“Yea, she didn’t teach me that, it’s just something I can do.”

“What’s this?”

“That’s the sunset from or campsite in Peralta Canyon. We stopped at this high place and camped. We could see the Superstition Mountains. It was beautiful. My mom told me stories about long ago and far away until I fell asleep. This one is her.” She pushed another from the bottom of the pile.

“That actually looks like a person. Can I have this?”

“Sure. You can have them all. I don’t need them.” The waitress had returned with drinks and another entrée. They pushed the drawing to the side and began to nibble on the wings.

“These might be kinda spicy.” Mike said while salting the fries. Seth uncapped the ketchup and slapped the back, shaking it from the glass jar.

“I’ll take it slow.” She dipped a fry in the ketchup and began to chew, drawing in air as she chewed to cool the molten fry. “So what’s Iraq like?”

“Miserable. Hot. Dusty. I imagine there are nice parts of it, but I didn’t see anything I thought was worth saving. I think we would be better to turn it all into glass and keep the oil for ourselves.”

“Mom said that that guy killed his own people. My dad told her he used chemicals. Like the ones the Nazis used to kill the jews that it wasn’t about oil, it was because he didn’t like his people.”

“Saddam did that; he used chemical warfare to get rid of populations of his people that he didn’t want. It was exactly like what the Germans did to the Jews. The worst part is that many people blamed us for the killings and thought we did it. So they would attack us and sabotage our camps. There’s probably leagues of orphans out there who are hell-bent on killing Americans one day just because of the lie perpetrated by him.”

“Did you catch him?”

“No, we messed up a few of his houses pretty good, but they’re still looking for him. He got a lot of people keeping him hidden. You know what else. For all the things they told us about how hard his soldiers were and how they had been through all these battles. They all gave right up. They couldn’t surrender fast enough. They were drafted and forced to be soldiers. They made all that killing because they were told, and if they had the gall to stand up together against that tyrant, then we wouldn’t have had to go out there and fight, get hurt or die to help them overthrow him.” He put down a chicken bone and picked up another. “How did your dad tell your mom about what he was doing?” She scratched her head.

“I’m not sure exactly. I was pretty small at the time. We would go to post office boxes or like a bus station, and she would say she lost her key and have enough information that they would open it for her, or she would find a key someplace that he had hidden it.”

“That’s very Cloak and Dagger. Do you think there’s still any out there?” He wiped his face with a napkin and sweat from his head. “Man these are hot. My mouth is on fire.”

“If there are I don’t know of any, but there would probably be money or valuables in it because that’s one of the things mom used to keep us traveling. We would get low on resources, and she would say, ‘Ok, we’re going to Texas,’ and we would go to Dallas and open a locker at the bus station and be back on the road.”

“Did you go anywhere specific, like were you following a music group or something?”

“No, just travel around. Hang out. Sometimes we would meet up with people she knew, but nothing specific. I think mostly she was spending time with me and resting.”

“Was she sick?”

“No, she just needed to rest a lot. That’s why I got so good at drawing. I used to draw when I had nothing else to do, sometimes I would just cuddle with her and daydream.” He smiled.

“Those are the best memories.”

“Yea, I had my mom all to myself for a while. I wish I had the power to change things. Mom could always make things change, maybe one day I will too” Just then, a portly blonde woman came through the door and went to the counter, the waitress motioned toward them.

“You know I think it’s unfair what’s happened, but life’s not fair, sometimes it just stinks, but I think you have the right attitude to go somewhere and do perfect things. Never forget how much she loved you for the time that you had together; you will always have her as long as you don’t forget those times.” Seth nodded and grabbed the last wing and began to devour it. “It looks like Mindy is here to take you away. Here’s my card. It’s got my number at dispatch. If you ever need anything, just leave a message or ask dispatch to call me on the radio.”

“Thanks.” She put the card in her pocket with the other that the detective had given her. Hurriedly she began to eat the last of the fries and drink her water. She started shuffling the brochures and folding the map, secreted it in her pocket.

“Hi I’m Mindy, with Tucson Family services.” She shook Mike’s hand as he stood.

“Yes mam, and this is Seth. We have had a couple meals here, but she seems pretty hungry so try not to let her miss any meals. She’s quite an amazing kid.” Mindy sized up Seth, not the usual pick up but then what was expected in her work line.

“I’ll take good care of her. Come on, let’s go. I’ve some others in the car, so we have to go.” Mindy took Seth’s hand and led her away. Seth complied, looking over her shoulder at the uniformed officer, who smiled lightly and held up his hand in a gesture of goodbye. He turned on his radio and went to the counter to collect the bill and pay. He watched as she climbed into the front seat of Mindy’s sedan double-parked outside on the street. Waving again, Seth looked back through the car window and the store’s front window; they drove away. He felt sorry that he had to hand off his charge so unceremoniously, thinking to himself that she deserved better after having been through so much.

Going back to the table, he collected the drawings she had made. He looked again at one of Seth’s mother. She colored the hair blonde and eyes green, taking care to feather brown and blue in the inner rims. Adelaide’s cheeks were well winnowed with shape and shadow, and the portrait was exquisite while not perfect. The drawing’s 3-dimensional aspect was reasonably true to life, and he wondered if it was a close enough representation of the as yet missing and unidentified mother to have the police artist redraw. He resolved himself to help Seth bring closure, and if her father was out there, maybe help her get back to him. He radioed his location and prepared to go back to the station. Flipping through the other pictures as he walked across the street. He had just sat down at his desk to write his report when dispatch called him to meet Detective Fitch at the AMR site.