Life Will Have Its Way (2 page)

“I would want to tell you my name, but my mommy said I should never talk to strangers,” the girl blurted out once the bunny was safely stowed.

“Oh, okay, I see.” I said. “So then where exactly
is
your mommy?”

“She’s at home.”

“She… is?”

“Yeah, with my daddy and brothers.”

“Oh.”

She looked outside. “I think they’re probably asleep now.”

“Yeah, probably,” I replied, “it is starting to get late.”

“But it’s okay if I stay up late,” she added convincingly, “cause I’m almost six.”

“You are?” I was actually quite surprised, judging her by her small fairy-like appearance I would have guessed that she was much closer to being almost four than almost six.

“I just lost a tooth,” she pushed her lower jaw forward to show off the open space between her bottom teeth.

I smiled and nodded, not sure what else you were supposed to do to celebrate the loss of a tooth. “So… you think your mommy is at home, huh?” I asked, trying to gain some sort of control over the conversation.

She nodded.

“Is your home somewhere close by?”

She shook her head side to side.

“It’s not?”

She shook her head again, this time with even more enthusiasm.

“Then how did you get here?”

“I walked.”

“But you said it wasn’t close.”

“It’s not.”

“Did you come all this way by yourself?”

“No.”

“Then… who did you come with?”

“Petra.”

“Who’s Petra?”

“My grandma.” 

I fell back into the couch, feeling somewhat relieved that we might finally be getting somewhere. “But, then… where did your grandma go?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? Did she just leave you all alone?”

She nodded her head, “Yeah… but she always does that.”

“She always does what?”

“She always leaves me by myself.”

“Why? Why would she leave you by yourself?”

“I guess she must have other stuff to do.”

“Well, I can’t believe she would really just leave you all by yourself.”

“But she does all the time,” she replied, confused by my concern.

“That doesn’t make it right!”

“But she comes back! She always comes back!” she added defensively.

I couldn’t understand what kind of person would think it was all right to leave a small, helpless child alone in an unfamiliar garden. “So why do you think she didn’t come back
this
time?”

“I don’t know. She usually comes back when I call her.”

I perked up, why hadn’t I thought of trying to call her grandmother… of trying to call her mother, her father, someone, anyone?
“Do you have her number?” I asked with a sudden sense of optimism. 

Her forehead scrunched together and her eye lids tightened, she looked at me as though she thought I might be trying to trick her.

“Her telephone number?” I repeated.

“What’s a tel… uh… fone num… ber?” she asked, her forehead bunching.

She seemed serious, how could she possibly not know what a telephone number was? I pulled the phonebook from the cupboard and asked if she could just tell me her grandmother’s full name so I could look it up for myself.

Her head moved slowly side to side.

“Her last name? I just need your grandmother’s last name, what is it?”

“Uh,” she scratched the back of her head, “she doesn’t have one.”

“She must have a last name.”

“No… she doesn’t have one,” she trailed off, “her name is Petra. Just Petra.”

Well then, easy enough, all I had to do was find a woman named Petra, just Petra, who thought it was okay to leave a tiny five year old unattended and far away from home. I wasn’t exactly sure I wanted to find this Petra woman, and I was sure she wouldn’t want to hear the strong words I had for her when I did.

I walked toward the window, hoping to look outside and see a woman, an older woman, bundled up in a dated woolen jacket with her hair tied in a colorful scarf standing patiently in the garden waiting for her granddaughter. There was no one there. The garden was empty, the sidewalk deserted.

The girl joined me at the window.

“Do you think your grandma might be back for you tonight?” I asked.

She shook her head and started fiddling with her hair, twisting it round and round her fingers, then letting it loose in long golden spirals. I could do nothing but sigh. The cute little girl that sat in my living room wasn’t making it very easy for me to help her. I turned back toward the window, from a block or so down the sidewalk on the other side of the street someone exited the small café, the only shop in my view with its lights still on. It looked like it could have been a woman. “Look, look,” I pointed toward the moving silhouette. “Do you think that might be her?”

She barely bothered to look out the window.

“Right there,” I tapped on the glass, “the woman walking this way.”

Without making any effort to look again she shook her head back and forth, as far as it would go to each side. I could tell she was getting bored, but I was determined to keep her focused on the window, on the street outside, hoping somehow, if we tried hard enough, we might actually will her grandmother back to the garden.

The street seemed even more quiet than usual. I couldn’t help but remember the old adage about watching water boil. I felt as though the pot I was trying to watch was a pan filled with ice water that was apparently never going to get hot, let alone boil. I perked up when I saw a pair of lights flicker and bounce as they moved slowly down the street ahead of their car. I grew even more hopeful when I saw that the car was a taxi. It made perfect sense. Of course the grandmother wouldn’t have her own car. My heart fluttered, this had to be her grandmother. Maybe the woman was old and forgetful, she probably just wasn’t used to bringing the girl to the city and had accidently left without her. The car drew nearer, it looked as though it was going to stop directly in front of the garden. I started to stand, I would have to go out immediately, before the grandmother had time to panic when she saw that the bench, the bench where she’d left her little granddaughter sitting, was empty.

The cab pulled to the curb. The bright red lights of the brakes flashed, then froze behind the car. The driver got out and went to the rear passenger door. He would feel he should help an old woman out of the car, he would know she was unfamiliar with the city, unfamiliar with riding in a cab altogether. The man leaned to pull the handle. His movements were slow and deliberate, as if he were on film that had been intentionally slowed. The door swung open and a pair of feet dropped from the back of the car, the person, whoever it was, put their hand on the top of the door and pulled themselves up out of the cab.

It wasn’t a woman. My heart sank for a second then quickly recovered. “Is that your grandfather?”

The girl jumped up. She cupped her hands to the window and looked in the direction I was pointing. She continued to look for some time.

“Well, is it?” I asked anxiously.

She pulled her face back from the glass, and turned to me, with a sad, half-smile, she shook her head, she looked as disappointed as I felt. I took one long last look down the street and realized it was time to give up on the window, time to give up on trying to will someone to the garden.

The girl had already moved to the couch, I watched her small head as it teetered back and forth, suddenly too heavy for her neck. It would slip to the side then her eyes would fly open at the same time that her head jerked back into place. I went for blankets and a pillow and a bed was soon made up for her. She was asleep by the time I’d cleared her dishes from the table.

I slunk down in the chair next to her, my thoughts were beginning to spin in nervous, repetitive circles when a familiar knock interrupted the cycle.

“Yoo-hoo, it’s me!”

Anja had lived in the building forever but I’d only known her myself for the last few of years. I figured she must have been in her fifties, but never dared ask. We didn’t really have much in common but I found myself immediately drawn to her quirky style and sweet, feisty spirit.

She usually popped over when she felt like having dessert or better yet, had her hands on some kind of dessert mix. Mixes were the best. All of the ingredients were pre-packaged and almost everything you needed was right there, ready to go, you didn’t have to forage or beg, speculate or substitute. As soon as I would answer the door Anja would smile mischievously, push whatever she was holding in my direction and ask if I didn’t mind whipping something up. For someone who loved sweet starches as much as she did, she seemed to have an unusual disinterest in baking. 

“You don’t happen to have extra flour, do you?” she asked as she forced a can of peaches into my hand, her eyebrows rising slyly up and down.

I pulled her quickly inside and started to tell her about the girl while she slipped out of her shoes. She raised her chin to look over my shoulder, her eyes scanned the room and she pushed herself past me. She got close to the couch then stopped short. She stared at the sleeping child, straightened the sides of her shirt, then brought one hand to her mouth, holding her elbow with the other. She bit the side of her lower lip, then shook her head slowly side to side.

“She was just sitting there? Alone? All by herself?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Did you call the police?”

“Of course not.”

“Does anyone know she’s here?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

Anja turned and hurried toward the windows, she drew together the curtains in the living room then rushed to the kitchen to try to see what she could do to cover the window over the sink.

“No one must know she is here,” she looked at me intently.

“Okay, okay.”

“Now tell me again where you said she came from?”

“I didn’t say where she came from… I don’t know where she came from.”

“What do you mean you don’t know where she came from?” Anja asked. 

“She was just sitting there in the garden when I walked up, it’s not like I saw someone drop her off or anything.”

Anja produced an exaggerated moan as she scratched the back of her head. “We’re going to need a lot more than that.”

“Well, she did tell me that she came here with her grandmother,” I added quickly.

“Then where is she? Where is this grandmother?”

“I don’t know. She said her grandma always leaves her and then comes back for her later.”

“Well then… obviously something has happened to the grandmother.”

“Maybe I should check the hospital and see if there’s anyone there with her grandmother’s name.”

Anja grabbed me by the shoulders, “No!” she said sternly. “You must not contact the hospital!”  

I was taken aback, I pulled away, “Then what am I supposed to do with…” I stopped short and looked toward the girl.

“Have you asked her where she lives?”

“She wouldn’t even tell me her name. The only useful thing I could get out of her was that she didn’t live anywhere close by.”

“Did she take a bus? The subway? Was she brought here in a car?” Anja asked impatiently.

“No. She said she walked.”

Anja threw her hands in the air, “Well then, it must not be
that
far away.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Are you absolutely sure no one saw you bring her in?”

“I don’t think anyone saw us. It was getting late by then, there was no one outside and there was no one in the hallway or anything, so yeah, I’m pretty sure… I guess.”

“You guess? You guess? Well. I hope you’re right.” Anja said brusquely. “Do you have any idea what will happen if anyone finds out she’s here?” She didn’t wait for my response and seemed more than willing to answer her own question. “The police will come and take her away, and depending on the mood they’re in they might take us away with her.”

Anja was convinced there would be little effort made to find the girl’s family, instead she would be placed in the state run orphanage where she would surely be left and forgotten. To further her point, Anja went on to graphically detail the miserable life of an orphan, the cruelty, the filth, the hunger, the lack of privacy and the complete absence of motherly love. Anja was quite confident in what she was saying and I soon realized it was going to be entirely up to us to get the girl back to wherever she’d come from.

Up until then I hadn’t felt too stressed about the unusual situation in which we’d landed ourselves. As a matter of fact, I’d found it all quite entertaining, but once Anja started talking about cruel, filthy orphanages I began to feel incredibly worried about what we would actually do with the girl if no one came for her. Anja instantly picked up on my anxiety and I could tell by the bothered look on her face that she wasn’t amused. In her opinion, fear and worry were useless emotions, emotions she could barely understand and seemed to have difficulty even tolerating. “Oh stop it!” she would say dismissively, as if one could wave a wand and make any feelings of worry just magically go away.