The next hearing was still more than a week away when Ms. Walker asked to speak with me again.
I had already told my story once.
I wondered if I had done it wrong.
Elena assured me that people sometimes needed to clarify dates without asking a child to retell everything.
At the appointment, Ms. Walker showed me a calendar.
She wanted to know whether I remembered the first time my mother answered the phone.
I pointed to the sixth day.
She compared it to the notes from the earlier interview.
“Did she tell you anybody would come bring food?”
“No.”
“Did she ask you to call an adult nearby?”
“No.”
“Did she say she was coming home?”
“No.”
Ms. Walker thanked me.
She did not ask me to guess what Mom meant by being resourceful.
There were other questions about my father's contact information.
I told her the name printed in the birthday card and the last address on its envelope.
I knew little else.
The agency said it would investigate whether he could be contacted and whether his circumstances affected the placement plan.
I was nervous.
I had not lived with him since I was four.
My memories were mostly fragments.
A green car.
A dog named Rusty.
A song about the moon.
I could not decide whether I wanted to see him.
Ms. Greene told me that wishing to stay with Elena was something I could say openly.
She also explained that the court would need reliable information about every available legal caregiver.
That sounded reasonable.
It still made me feel as if my bedroom might be packed away again before I could settle into it.
Elena asked me to help choose curtains for the guest room.
At first I refused.
“What if I don't stay?”
“Then the curtains can stay,” she said. “But you should be comfortable while you're here.”
We chose pale yellow ones with little stitched dots.
Luis put up the rod on Saturday.
I stood below him holding the screws.
He asked me to pass them one at a time.
It was the first task in days that felt normal.
I could do it without describing my hunger or my mother's voice.
When we finished, afternoon light made the room golden.
I sat on the bed and looked at the shadows.
The space felt less borrowed.
That night, Elena found me writing a list in the old notebook copy.
I had been adding things I remembered after the interview.
The kind of dress Mom wore.
The way Derek closed the trunk.
The exact time she answered on Day 6.
Elena asked whether I needed a break.
“What if I forget something?”
“You can tell the investigator later.”
“What if she thinks I'm lying?”
“Remembering more later doesn't automatically make the first account untrue.”
“But Mom says I change my stories.”
Elena sat beside me.
“People can make mistakes about details. The important thing is to be truthful about what you remember and what you don't.”
I put the pencil down.
I had spent so much time trying to be precise that I had forgotten the difference between accuracy and perfection.
The following Monday, Ms. Patel brought news about Derek.
He had postponed the wedding.
He did not want to make plans while a child welfare investigation was underway.
I wondered whether Mom blamed me.
Elena said she did not know what Mom believed.
That answer came so often that I began to trust it.
Not knowing was allowed.
A few days later Derek wrote me a letter.
He sent it through Ms. Patel so no one would pressure me to respond.
He said he had believed my mother's story about the lake.
He described the moment he learned it was false.
He did not defend himself with how busy he had been or how much he trusted Valerie.
He said he should have asked me where I was going and who would be looking after me.
He knew I might not want to hear from him.
He would respect that.
At the bottom he wrote that the gifts he had bought me on the trip were not a substitute for doing the right thing.
I read the letter twice.
Then I folded it and put it in my desk.
I did not answer.
I still liked Derek in some ways.
He had once driven across town after my bike chain broke.
He had remembered that I hated mushrooms.
He had helped me study multiplication when Mom was busy.
Those memories were real.
So was the fact that he had walked past me with a suitcase while I held twenty dollars.
Dr. Kim said I did not have to make all those feelings agree.
That was comforting.
On the twenty-first day, my father returned a call to the agency.
His name was Aaron.
He lived in Ohio and had recently remarried.
The agency needed to confirm his parental rights, history, current circumstances, and whether contact or placement might be appropriate.
I could tell the adults were careful about how they discussed him.
They would not promise he was a safe option simply because he was my father.
They would not dismiss him without checking either.
I asked whether he had known I was alone.
They told me they had no evidence that he did.
I stared at the birthday card in my drawer.
There was so much I did not know about the people who had made decisions for me.
Ms. Greene met with me again before the scheduled court review.
She spread a sheet of paper across the table and drew three columns.
The first was what had already been decided.
The second was what the adults were still investigating.
The third was what I could ask for help with immediately.
Under the first, she wrote that my current placement was protected by a temporary order.
Under the second, she listed contact plans and assessments.
Under the third, she wrote counseling, school support, and questions about safety.
I liked the columns because they showed me where uncertainty belonged.
I had spent days treating every unknown as an emergency.
Now some unknowns had names and people responsible for them.
I asked what would happen if Mom refused to attend the next hearing.
Ms. Greene explained that lawyers and the court would handle procedural questions and that notices and opportunities to participate mattered.
I asked whether the judge might read my notebook aloud.
She said the court would determine how evidence was introduced and that she would tell me if my participation was requested.
I felt relieved that somebody would explain it before it happened.
Later, Elena helped me buy a folder for the drawings I made in counseling.
I chose one with a picture of a fox.
We put my new notebook beside it on the shelf.
I kept the notebook from the empty house in a different folder because it was being used in the investigation.
I wanted to know that it could not disappear the way my mother sometimes made uncomfortable conversations disappear.
Ms. Walker explained the evidence-handling process again and noted which copies I was allowed to keep.
I didn't understand every term.
I understood that the pages had been photographed, described, and preserved.
The important thing was that no one expected me to protect the only copy by holding it all night.
For the first time, I let the agency keep the original without imagining it would be thrown away.
That evening I sat at the kitchen counter watching Luis repair a broken drawer handle.
He explained which screw had come loose.
I asked whether he could fix the handle on my old bedroom dresser too.
He said it could probably be repaired when we next had access to the house.
I asked whether a drawer could be fixed after years of sticking.
“Usually,” he said. “Sometimes you have to replace a piece.”
I wondered if people were like that.
I did not ask him.
He was talking about wood and screws.
It felt good to let a conversation stay that simple.
One afternoon Chloe and I sat outside drawing with chalk.
She drew a ridiculous purple dragon.
I drew a door with three locks.
Chloe asked why I kept putting locks on everything.
I rubbed the chalk with my palm.
“I don't know.”
She looked at the drawing.
“Maybe the dragon can guard it.”
She added her dragon beside my door.
It had tiny wings and a crooked smile.
We laughed until we had to sit down.
When Sarah came to collect Chloe, she gave me a brief hug and thanked Elena for letting us play.
After they left, I sat on the porch steps watching the empty street.
I remembered the day Sarah looked through our kitchen window.
I had been angry with her then.
She had broken the rule I thought mattered most.
She had noticed me.
I asked Elena if I could call and thank her.
Sarah answered with the sound of dishes clattering in the background.
I told her I was sorry I had hung up on her that first afternoon.
She said there was nothing to apologize for.
“You sounded frightened,” she said. “I was worried.”
“Were you sure something was wrong?”
“No. I knew enough to check.”
I held the receiver tightly.
“Thank you for checking twice.”
Sarah was quiet for a second.
“I'm glad I did.”
Chloe helped me draw another picture the next afternoon.
This time the house had no locks on the front door.
I put a porch swing beside it.
Chloe drew two bicycles in the yard.
We argued about whether the garage should be purple.
She said every building needed something interesting.
I said purple bricks were expensive.
Then we laughed at ourselves.
When Elena called us in, I left the drawing on the patio table.
The wind blew one corner up.
I ran back to bring it inside.
I used to panic whenever I lost track of a paper because the notebook held proof.
This drawing was different.
It was worth saving because it made me happy.
I put it in the fox folder.
After dinner I helped Luis water the basil and told him I wanted to grow tomatoes next summer.
He said we could try.
I did not ask him to promise the weather would cooperate.
Some things could remain uncertain without being frightening.
That night I wrote about the call in my green notebook.
I kept the appointment card for my next meeting with Ms. Greene beside the fox folder.
The date was written clearly.
Elena promised to drive.
I practiced what I wanted to ask without making myself repeat the whole story.
Some things had already been said enough times.
I wanted the adults to remember them even when I was thinking about something else.
When Chloe called, I put the papers away and picked up the phone.
She wanted to know whether we could try the library's drawing club.
I said I would ask Elena.
My life could include more than an investigation.
I no longer wrote every meal.
Sometimes I wrote about a dragon.
Sometimes I wrote about curtains.
Sometimes I wrote one sentence and left the page unfinished.
I was learning that a notebook could hold a life without having to prove I deserved to live it.
I was ready to try again tomorrow.
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: The Second Hearing Made Clear That a Mother Could Not Repair Neglect With a Single Explanation
The Afternoon Sarah Called for Help and Someone Finally Believed the Girl Behind the Locked Door
Part 6 of 12
