I made an excuse to get out of the staff meeting so I could leave school early. Besides, I’d squirmed my way through the first thirty minutes, chewing my nails, tapping my fingers on the table, and scrolling through my phone. It didn’t matter now I was quitting, I didn’t give a damn what anyone said. I had to sort my head out and get control of myself before I went home to Guy. Had to come to terms with what I’d done to my sister. Betrayed her. Squealed on her. Let those junkies abuse her like that. And all because I was pissed off. Mad at her for letting Loni hit me. For choosing Loni over me. I was an evil bitch. Loni was right.
I grabbed my bag from the classroom and was about to leave when Sabrina strode into the room. She stood there, hands on her hips, blocking my exit. I needed to get out so bad I could’ve mowed her down right there and then, but I didn’t. I swallowed my rage and stood there, silently seething.
“What’s going on with you?” she said, moving herself into my path so I’d look at her. I couldn’t.
“It’s best if you just let me get by,” I said, holding back the prickly, jumpy feeling that set my insides rolling.
“I hear you’re leaving. How come you didn’t mention it?”
I didn’t need a heavy discussion. My body was about to burst open if I didn’t get out of there. “Only told Robin today.”
“I thought we were friends. You could’ve shared it with me, Anna.”
Before I could stop myself, the hateful words spewed from my lips. “Then I guess we’re not really friends.”
I might as well have punched her in the face. She stumbled backwards, her fake-tanned cheeks sinking inwards. “You can be a nasty heartless bitch, Anna,” she said, then slammed out of the room.
But I couldn’t think about Sabrina right then. I had to stay focused on Birdie. What had happened to her at the Flatts’ place. What I’d done to cause it all.
Once I got in my car I ran a couple of red lights and almost sideswiped a truck, so I was in a real state when I got to Linda Martin’s office. Eyelids swollen from crying, head buzzing in confusion, breath coming in raspy gulps. I sat opposite her trying not to look at the stupid posters plastered on the wall behind her. The only thing I could focus on was her T-shirt. Another Gap clearance special. Navy with white polka dots that danced in front of my eyes.
“So tell me something I don’t know already, Anna. I’m fully aware that too many kids in foster care are highly over-medicated. Don’t you think we’ve tried to do something about it?”
I blinked and looked up at her.
“Huh? What’s that?”
“The drugs. The over-medication. You told me you witnessed Lester and Patti Flatt giving Birdie a cocktail of prescription drugs.”
I snapped back into the present and remembered why I was there. I’d had a breakthrough. Something that brought me closer to Birdie. “Yes – I finally remembered the place with the flowered wallpaper. Lester Flatt, the mall cop and Patti, his wife. They dosed her up for a week or more so she could barely stand upright, let alone get out of bed.”
Linda rolled a pencil back and forth across her desk, scrutinizing its motion. “First, I already told you last time you talked about the Flatts. According to our records, Birdie wasn’t at that particular placement. Second. Wherever you witnessed this – and it must’ve been somewhere else – it’s nothing new, Anna. Statistics tell us at least one in four kids in foster care is taking psychotropic medication. Half of kids in residential care or group homes are prescribed these drugs. Sometimes multiple drugs with serious side effects. All of us front-liners have tried at some time in our career to get the matter taken to the highest level, but no matter what we do, there’s always some total shit of a doctor happy to prescribe even red label drugs with only a five-minute consultation. Sometimes to kids as young as six. It’s easier on the foster parents than trying behavioral therapy, and from the doctors’ perspective, it gets those troublesome patients out of their hair more quickly. That’s the sad truth.”
“But I’m only concerned with Birdie. It might help us find out what happened to her.”
Linda checked over her notes. “Anna. For the last time, there’s no record of Birdie even being there with you. She ran away from the group home before you were placed at the Flatts’ house. We do know for sure that you were placed there and they gave you drugs. Many drugs that messed up your memory of that particular time.”
“But I remember every detail. I had a black eye. Birdie’s friend hit me and I told on Birdie. That’s why they drugged her.”
Linda looked at me as if I was talking gibberish. “Anna, it’s natural you feel some sense of guilt about Birdie. She was your twin sister after all.”
I tried to hold back the urge to smack her smug face and kept my voice low and steady. “But I distinctly remember smoking weed. Patti gave it to me.”
Linda folded her arms and bowed her head. Some major revelation was coming. I could hear her brain ticking, as she considered the most merciful way to frame her response. She looked up again and waited for a moment, absently rubbing the tip of her chin. Measuring my expression.
“Sadly, it was way worse than that, Anna. You were a severely traumatized kid. Removed from your family, bounced around from one home to the other. You lost Birdie, the only person close to you. That means you already had a high risk of developing mental and emotional disorders. You were given much more dangerous drugs that put you over the top.”
I had to stop her. Tell her she was wrong. It was Birdie, not me who was drugged into oblivion. “You’re all mixed up. Those notes are lies.”
“Anna, you were injured physically, mentally and emotionally when you left there. And then – there’s something much more important I need to remind you about…”
I stiffened up. Clasped my hands over my ears and shook my head. “Not now – please, not now.”
“Okay,” she crooned in a soft voice that sounded like air hissing through a crack in a window. A voice meant to pacify me, but instead drove me into a silent frenzy.
“I’ve always told you, you’re welcome to go through the notes. But perhaps it’s time for you to sit down again with a therapist. A trained psychologist or psychiatrist will help you deal with the tough details about your sister. To help you finally come to terms with the truth.”
I placed both palms on her desk and tried to steady my voice. “I don’t need a damn shrink. I just need to get the facts straight.” My mind was racing, grasping onto ideas before they disappeared. “Oh, and there’s something else. A guy who works for you. Peter Karrass. He’s been hanging around the riverbank with some of my underage hooker students. He picked one up in his car. Then I saw him at Toonz. He went into the back office with the owner. Where the porn material is kept.”
Linda was sitting bolt upright by this time, eyes flashing. She flicked the pencil between her middle and forefinger.
“Why are you hanging around that place, Anna?”
“What do you mean?”
A sappy look wiped across her face like grease on a windowpane. “When you were at the Levines the therapist told you to stay away from places that have negative associations for you. You become disturbed, agitated, confused. You need to put all that stuff behind you. It’s over. Try to heal. Be happy. You’re married to a good man.”
She might as well have been telling a crippled woman to pull herself out of the wheelchair and walk or a blind man to open his eyes and just see. I felt a sudden urge to tip her desk over. Instead I balled my hands into tight fists.
“I can’t. I have to get it straight. What happened to Birdie. What’s still happening to all these kids. One of my students disappeared for days, then was picked up by a known trafficker. I think this man, Peter Karrass, is somehow mixed up in it all.”
She ran her fingers through her cropped hair. “Anna – oh, Anna. You forgot.”
My breaths were coming short and fast. I told myself slow down, focus on the T-shirt – the photograph of Linda standing in front of the Arc de Triomphe. The cube magnet with the safety pins sticking to its face.
“Forgot? What?”
She slid a sheet of paper towards me. “This is a memo written recommending your removal from the Flatts’ home. Take a look at it.”
The words buzzed in front of my eyes like tiny insects, blurring then coming into focus on the social worker’s signature at the bottom of the page.
“Peter Karrass,” I whispered.
She pulled the paper back, pressed her lips together and nodded. “Exactly. He made this recommendation and you were the only one removed from the home. Almost fifteen years ago. I have the full report somewhere here. You can read it if you like.”
I stood up and yanked my handbag from the back of the chair. “Someone tampered with those records, Linda.”
She shook her head. “Why would anyone do that, Anna?”
“God knows, but why don’t you ever believe me, Linda? And for once in your pathetic career, maybe you should goddamn well look into it.”
When I pushed the door open I heard Linda say, “I can’t change the facts, Anna. There’s no mention of Birdie in the report. She wasn’t there and what’s more you already know that…”
I didn’t hear the rest. I couldn’t listen to lies.
I rested my arms on the edge of the Stone Arch Bridge and looked down into the Mississippi River. Dark waters swirled and twisted on their way from Saint Anthony Falls. Behind me, massed against the watery blue sky stood the tall towers of downtown. Multifaceted blocks of concrete and glass crowded together like massive beehives, housing all the tiny lives that fueled the grinding machinery of the city.
I always felt a crushing sense of insignificance when I played with that thought. That even those who are cherished by large, loving families, struggle daily with the idea of their own inconsequentiality. But when life becomes too burdensome and hopeless, they can retreat into the warm cocoon of family love until they get themselves back into fighting shape. Ready to face the stress and turmoil of the real world.
I had nothing left when Birdie pulled away from me. Nobody who cared. Only the overworked social workers whose solution was to shuffle the deck and concentrate on the neediest kids. As far as they were concerned, I already had a home with Patti and Lester Flatt. Even though I struggled for survival every day I was there. But every instinct – every feeling – told me that Birdie had been there. I wasn’t imagining it. I had seen her standing in front of Patti and Lester, her leg twitching, her fingers twisting strands of hair. I’d felt the hard swelling across my eye as I watched the horrible scene unfold.
A cyclist skimmed by behind me and I was suddenly certain I’d been at this bridge with Birdie. Some time during our stay at the Flatts. I had to trust myself.
Linda’s report was false – nothing but lies.
So I searched the water to find Birdie’s face. To bring her back to me.