There’s a crash. And a bang loud enough to silence the murmurs that fill this space. A wail erupts from the hallway. I jump back when the heavy wood doors swing open and a woman about my mom’s age shoves herself inside this auditorium that’s been filled end-to-end, cot-to-cot. She has haggard hair. She is frantic and frazzled in mismatched clothes. She looks like someone who has been walking and searching for days.
“Matthew! Are you here?”
Nurse Yvette shouts for help.
Valentina and Gregory whimper and pull the blankets up under their chins. I reach a hand out to each of them. Try to comfort.
A nurse attempts to calm the woman down with gentle hands and quiet shushes.
It doesn’t stop her.
The woman pushes past the nurse, her eyes darting to empty corners and closed doors. Spinning around in desperation.
“I was told there are unclaimed minors here. Is Matthew here? Where’s my son?” The woman fists her hands against her thighs, raises her face to the ceiling, and yells at the top of her lungs. “Matthew! Are you here? Matthew!”
An orderly moves in to try to calm the frantic woman. She shakes him with desperate strength.
“Stop it! I need to find my son!”
She is a mother who wants to tear down walls and scream in the middle of hospital corridors to find her kid. Even if it terrorizes every other kid who isn’t hers.
The woman runs around the room, tearing blankets off the cots to see if Matthew is underneath them. So many kids are crying, and nurses rush around trying to console them. Shushing and telling them, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” even though it’s not.
Finally, a security guard wrestles Matthew’s mom away, holding her tight with thick arms and a vice grip.
Someone else hurries to the woman. Raises her clipboard. “What’s his name?” Another social worker like Miriam.
Matthew’s mom’s eyes are wild and unfocused. The woman says something closer to Matthew’s mom’s ear. It makes her stop fighting. The security guard loosens his grip. Matthew’s mom puts her hands out to take the clipboard.
“What’s his name?” the woman asks again, handing over the clipboard.
Matthew’s mom hunches above it, blocking it with her whole body so nobody can take the clipboard from her. She pores over it methodically. Slow and deliberate until she gets to the end. And then she starts over again, ripping through the pages faster, running her fingertip back and forth.
Looking. Hoping. Wishing.
And when she’s done, she tosses the clipboard. It lands with a clang against the floor of the room. The papers go flying.
“Where are you?!” she shouts, and falls to her knees. “My baby!” She rolls into herself like a ball. Clutches clumps of her hair and pulls. Her jacket bunches up around her feet like a petticoat. And then she lets out the most primal howl. It’s a painful, wretched sound that I feel deep in my bones. It is the sound of a mother who has lost her child.
She rocks.
Back and forth she goes.
Pounding her hand against the floor. Boom, boom it echoes. A drumbeat. A plea. Repeating one word:
Matthew.
Matthew.
Matthew.
Her pain is too much to witness. It convinces me I have to go. I tuck Charlie’s journal against my chest, pull my crusty sweatshirt over my head on top of the other sweatshirt I’m already wearing, and make for the door.
Another orderly turns toward me. Makes eye contact. Scrunches his brow. “Where are you going?” he says.
Matthew’s mom howls again while kids stand frozen with fear.
There is only one thing I can do.
Run.