is only waiting for the owner to return and retrieve it. It’s only a matter of time….
“Unwanted” is a statement of fact. It is something to come to terms with and move past. Wherever my parents are, whatever they’re doing, they are never coming back for me. And that’s by choice.
How many times did Ruby and I talk about exactly this? When this is over, I told her, no one is going to be waiting. No one will want us. She’d nodded in that quiet, sad way of hers. It was the same for both of us. We were the only girls in our cabin who would admit it.
I swallow the bile in my throat as I finally pry the piece of plywood away from the doorframe. I’ve been carrying around this screwdriver for the past few weeks; I don’t know how to use a gun, and I’m not sure where I’d find a knife, but this is more than enough to hurt anyone who tries to hurt me.
This is the first time I’ve had to use it, and it’s not even in self-defense, but a break-in. I’m already a thief; why not add “trespassing” to my score?
I found this emergency exit after a full day of slowly circling the towering hotel. Someone, or something, has smashed in the central glass pane, and if I’m right…I am right. There’s a turning lock on the other side. I grip it with stiff, half-frozen hands, turn my wrist until I hear the metal click as it unlocks, and slowly ease the door open.
My shoes are coated with so much mud and snow I have to take some time to wipe them off against a nearby patch of carpet, to keep them from squeaking and alerting everyone to my presence.
This is an in-and-out type of thing. I need to see if she’s still here, or confirm that someone’s already come to get her, and then I’ll be able to go. But if they catch me, identify me…well, they’ll have another “unclaimed” to add to their list.
I sidle up along the far wall, keeping to the edge of the open space. There are a few soldiers in uniform milling around, but most of them are sipping cups of coffee to stay awake. Some are finally breaking down the tables lining the opposite end of the room, along with the signs above them, where the families were supposed to line up to claim the kids by last name: A-D, E-H, I-L…Highlighted rosters, the names crossed off, are being dumped into the overflowing trash cans.
The concierge desk is empty, dark. I wait there in a crouch, hanging back. My hair is stuffed into a knit cap, my oversized parka zipped up all the way, half-masking my face. I picked them up out of a charity bin somewhere in Kentucky, thinking These jeans, this sweater, these sneakers, this coat—they’ll give me the confidence I can’t fake. All they’ve done in the end is make me feel like I’m ten all over again, wearing a costume pieced together from Mrs. Orfeo’s closet.
Someone’s already come for her, I think, hoping I’ll believe it this time. You can go in a second….
The hotel’s lobby has been left in shambles by the media. Empty, half-crushed soda cans are scattered alongside empty food wrappers. There’s a protest sign, highlighter-yellow, that somehow found its way inside. A soldier bends down to pick it up, angling it so the other man can see. WOULD YOU FREE CRIMINALS FROM PRISON? They laugh.
I almost can’t believe how filthy the world is—in every sense of that word. Thurmond might have been falling down around us, the grounds covered in enough mud to make walking a challenge, but we kept the buildings spotless. Not a crumb left behind in the Mess Hall. Everything stowed neatly in the Factory. The Wash Rooms scrubbed on hands and knees.
But trash is the media’s footprint, its calling card, and that’s exactly what they’ve been producing each night on the TV and each morning in the papers. I’ve had to wait all day for them to leave. The news—the channels that have been turned back on—love this. They serve everyone the sweet stuff, try to make them feel better about what they did to us by shoving image after image of family, tears, hugs, in front of them.
What are they trying to prove? That it’s all good now? All better? All anyone has to do is look out the window and see the