Ali Jenkins
The door of the grocery store swings shut behind me, the tiny bells jangling loudly. The chilly, autumn air swirls across the land, scooping up burgundy and ginger-colored leaves with its rampant gusts. I yank my knitted scarf tighter around my neck as I prepare for the long trek home, where my parents and siblings await me. As I step to the curb, something catches my eye. I move forward, ready to ignore the paper taped to the inside of the grocery store’s window, but something pulls me back. I find myself walking toward the window, drawn to this paper like a moth is drawn toward a flame. The paper is old, its edges yellowed and torn. The girl in the picture is much younger than I. Her pale, thin lips are parted in a wide, toothy grin. One of her baby teeth is missing, and her pink tongue pokes through the new hole. The girl’s wild, auburn hair is pulled away from her face, but several untamed curls have sprung loose. I lock eyes with the girl, and I am lost in her gaze. Her eyes are a dark, cerulean blue, and their depths seem endless. She gazes through the faded years that separate us. A shiver runs down my spine, and it is no longer from the cold.
The young girl skips down the sidewalk, her mind buzzing after her first day of second grade. The blue sky is clear, and the cool, September sun shines down on her as she scampers along. She kicks her pink rain boots at the leaf piles that line the sidewalk, sending showers of burgundy leaves to the ground. Several leaves fall on the girl’s head and become tangled in her auburn hair. She snatches up a gnarled stick from the ground and carries it with her as she dances down the sidewalk. She hums the song she learned in school, tapping the stick on the ground. As she walks, a feral, black cat crawls from the bushes and staggers across the road before her. The young girl sings out a warning to the creature before resuming her melody. As she nears the stop sign at the end of her street, she notices a white car trailing behind her. The car’s motor whirs and sputters, as if choking on the black smoke belching from its exhaust pipe. The girl hums louder, fazed only by the sound’s interference with her song. She is several steps from the stop sign when something crashes into her from behind. Pain shoots through her head, and she collapses to the ground. Her vision fades away.Consciousness gradually finds the girl. Absently, she wonders if it is Saturday and if her mother will make pancakes for her and her sister. The cold, hard surface beneath her, however, shatters her dreams, yanking her back to reality. She pushes herself up, the back of her head throbbing, agonizingly. The girl’s foggy memories return to her in a rush. She remembers the blow to her head and the rough ride in the trunk of a car. Through a tiny window pours cool, blue moonlight that illuminates the room with its eerie glow. She gazes at the metal bed holding a thin mattress, the lone window, and the door, bolted shut from the outside. The young girl’s chest constricts; her eyes brim over, and she sobs silently. Utterly alone, the girl rocks back and forth on the ground as silent tears slide down her face.
At first, the girl pretends that she is in a nightmare, that she will one day awake, assuaged and safe. These new people, though not unkind to her, are so different from her own, loving parents, whose memory she holds dear in her heart. Over time, the girl’s fear of these people is transformed into acceptance.
As time passes, the girl’s new family members slowly integrate her into their lives. At first, she is allowed to leave her prison for hours at a time. Later, she is granted access to the entire house. Eventually, even the neighborhood opens up to her. She cannot explain why she does not escape at the countless chances that arise. It is as if this house is now her gravity, the place to which she always returns, regardless of how desperately she struggles to break free. Although she yearns for her true parents, their faces eventually recede to the depths of her memories and are replaced with the faces of her new parents. And so, slowly, painfully, the years slide by.
As I stand outside the grocery store, my mind reels. My hair stands up on end, and shivers wrack my frame. I am lost; my world is tipped upside down. The eyes that look at me tell a story. My gravity shifts, and I struggle to remain on my feet as I stare through the years into my own eyes.
