Hope Child
It wasn’t long after we lost the second baby that my husband of six years decided to sow his oats elsewhere. Soon after I discovered his affair with the child, yes, an eighteen-year-old is still a child in a 32-year-old’s eyes, our divorce was final — Good riddance to bad rubbish.
I packed my belongings, including the yellow giraffe meant to be our child’s first toy, and locked the door behind me. I tossed some rainy-day cash in the glove box of my overly packed 2006 minivan. I peeled the hope-filled baby onboard sticker off from the rear window.
I glanced at what was supposed to be our forever home with two happy children and a playful dog running a muck through the yard. Maybe a stray cat or two, but no, not for us. Not for me. Pulling out of the driveway, I looked into the rearview mirror and saw seven and a half years fade away.
I drove for about three hours then I pulled into a gas station. Tears streamed from my eyes when I suddenly realized that I didn’t have a plan for my life or even one for the next 24 hours. I gave the clerk forty-eight dollars for gas and a local newspaper. He smiled and wished me a good day.
“Yeah, thanks,” I answered while quickly searching the apartments for rent.
It was twenty-eight days until my studio apartment was ready for a new tenant. Four-hundred-dollar rent was a deal. The downside was the shady loud characters walking around drunk or high shouting profanities. Occasionally there are drug and prostitute busts, but I have a roof over my head, a shower, and a toilet.
During that short time of homelessness, I found a job at a children’s home. A place where abandoned children knelt by their beds, folded their hands, and squeezed their eyes tight, asking God for a family. Babies were always the first to be adopted, and as the children aged, they became less and less desirable for adoption. At eighteen, they had to move on. Some live on the corner by my apartment building.
As a housekeeper, I don’t interact with the children unless they play in the hallways. Due to unfortunate sexual child abuse history, the children are brought to a community area while the housekeepers clean their bedrooms. I am glad about that, as some teenage boys have fantasies about the women working here.
There is one room I rarely clean as the young girl is timid and doesn’t often go to the community area. She usually sits with her back toward the bedroom door and faces the window. Always with a drawing pad in her lap and a charcoal pencil gliding across the pages. For a six-year-old, she draws with the talent of a savant. Her sketches are lifelike, as though the black and white drawings are alive. Each day a detailed picture of a grateful face hangs on the wall where anyone looking in would see it. Every few days, a new image replaces the one before.
Today a new picture hangs on her wall. The woman in the drawing looks familiar — even though her hands cover her mouth. Her eyes are bright. Maybe I saw her on television or passed her in the grocery store. I don’t know where but she is someone I have seen before.
I quickly turn away from the door and bump into a young woman. Then I knew where I saw those eyes in that drawing. She is the new nurse, Maggie.
“Oh, hi. I am sorry.”
She smiled and brought her hands up to her face — the same way she was portrayed, “It’s OK,” she lowered her hands, “I told myself I would share my excitement with the first person I bumped into.”
I laughed, “Pardon the pun?”
She grasped my hands, “I beat cancer! I am a survivor! I never thought I would, and I did!” Her expression glowed, and the brightness of joy radiated from her eyes, just like her picture hanging in room thirty-two.
Her joy stayed with me for the rest of my shift. I decided to walk past the quiet artist’s room. On the wall was a new portrait — a man with glasses, a mustache, and wrinkles above his brows.
Heading to my car, I looked at each man walking past me. Too young. No mustache. Too old. Maybe he doesn’t work here.
I lay in my bed thinking about that detailed drawing of the joy-filled man. The deep aged dimple on his cheek was the first thing I noticed. His salt and pepper brows were raised in surprise. Who is he?
I go to the gas station every morning to get my stale cheese-danish and coffee. Damn! It’s burnt, but it is the fuel I need to get through my workday.
I was in line behind a man. Sipping my hot mud-like coffee and reading the ingredients of my danish, the man lets out a squeal; yes, he squealed like a schoolgirl. He quickly turned and bumped into me, hot coffee from head to toe. Ugh.
I looked up at his face, and there he was, the man the child had drawn. Pure joy filled his smile and deepened the wrinkles above his brow with surprise.
“Miss, I am so very sorry. Finally, winning a scratch-off worth more than one dollar has me lost in a world of astonishment.”
Feeling curious, I asked, “Did you win big? Yacht big?”
“I won a yacht and a new house for my girl on the side big,” he laughs, “I would need a side girl” he laughed so hard he snorted.
My curiosity was tugging at me. I wanted to see the girl’s face; I have seen many other faces on her wall, but never hers. I bet she has brown eyes to match her shiny light brown hair that falls to the middle of her back. I imagine her lips are tight with consideration. I need to see her face.
I asked Maggie if I could meet the little girl in room thirty-two. Maggie gently smiled, “I am sure she would love to meet you. Her name is Rose.”
Slowly opening the door, Maggie asked, “Hi honey, would you like to meet a friend of mine?”
Rose quietly answered, “Yes.”
I walked around her bed to face her. She looked up with her long brown hair falling over her face. I gently pulled her hair away from her eyes.
Softly she said, “Hi, Sara.”
I looked into her eyes. They were not brown as I had imagined; they were a stunning bright blue and looked straight ahead as if she were gazing through me and out the window.
She put her hands up, “Let me feel your face.”
She placed her warm charcoal-covered fingertips on my chin and worked her way around my face.
She smiled, “I have seen you in my darkness. You are beautiful and kind.”
“You are blind,” I whispered.
At the end of my shift, I asked Maggie about Rose’s history. Maggie took a deep breath, “She was born blind, and her single mother wasn’t ready to raise a child, especially a blind child.”
Why was she still here? Why didn’t she find a family yet? She is sweet and unique. Not special — she is magical. If people adopt a child, they don’t want a broken one. It’s unfortunate.
A year, six months, and twenty-eight days after our first meeting, I finally have my life together, a home in a safe area, a reliable car, and a little girl to call my daughter. Sara.
I walked into Sara’s room. Today marked her last moments at the Hope Home for Children. A picture of her and me sharing smiles of joy hung on her gallery wall, “Sara, do you want to bring that home?”
“No, mommy. I want the next unwanted child to know that someday someone will want them too.”
THE END
Mojha MacDowell
2022
