What She Found in the Woods

‘Thanks, Gina,’ I say. She won’t let me do anything crazy, and she’s tough enough to flatten me if I try to do anything crazy to her. I should probably warn her, though. ‘Just keep an eye on me and don’t let me go anywhere without you, OK?’

She gives me a strange look. ‘OK,’ she says.

‘Great,’ Rob says, although he’s clearly anxious about leaving me with someone who doesn’t know. He turns to me. ‘I’ll see you later.’ He gives me a quick kiss on the cheek to mask him whispering, ‘Be careful,’ in my ear before he leaves.

Gina grabs on to my arm and steers me through the kitchen, walking fast. ‘How much Valium you on?’ she asks in an undertone.

‘It’s not just Valium,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘I need these drugs, Gina. They keep me from seeing things that aren’t there.’ I swallow. My hands are shaking. ‘They keep me from doing things without knowing I’m doing them. I have a condition . . .’

I take a deep breath to tell her – I mean, why not at this point? Gina won’t judge me for being schizophrenic. But Maria calls out behind us.

‘Wait, Gina. I needed to talk to you. Can you come back for a second?’

‘I’ll meet you at your prep station later,’ Gina whispers to me before turning and going back to Maria’s office.

I go to my station, find my onion goggles, and get to it. I gratefully drop into the never-ending demands of the shelter’s overwhelmed and understaffed kitchen. It’s crazier than usual today. I keep expecting Gina to show at some point, but she doesn’t.

I finish scrubbing my last pot and then wipe down my station slowly. Then I go and look for her. The kitchen is empty. That’s not normal. I have to call out through the pick-up window – the place where the kitchen and the front of the house meet.

‘Hey!’ I yell until the only girl out there looks at me. ‘Where is everyone?’

‘I don’t know,’ she says, looking lost. ‘I finished my side-work,’ she tells me, like I’ve got the authority to tell her to go home.

I recognize this girl, but I don’t know how at first. Then I realize she was that pretty young thing I saw sitting on the steps with Taylor at that first barbecue Rob took me to. She looks skinnier than I remember. Her face is more angular, and the baby softness that was still clinging to her just a few weeks ago is gone now.

‘Is Gina anywhere out front?’ I ask her. ‘The cook,’ I clarify.

The girl looks perplexed for a second, and then she puts it all together.

‘She left before lunch started,’ she tells me.

‘Did she say why?’ I ask.

‘She just sort of took off her apron and left,’ the girl says timidly.

I realize I’m interrogating her and stop. ‘Did something happen?’ I ask, like I’m looking for gossip, but really I’m starting to feel the first rolls of fear in my belly. Gina would never just walk out. And she’d never leave me. Not after I asked her to watch me.

‘I don’t know,’ the girl replies, conspiratorially. She’s much more comfortable gossiping than being interrogated. ‘She left right after Maria. Like she was following her or something.’

‘Maria left? Before lunch?’ I repeat disbelievingly. ‘Yeah,’ the girl says. ‘I thought it was strange.’

‘It is.’ I glance behind me, but everyone’s gone. It’s late, but not that late. What the hell?

‘Hey, can you, like, sign me out?’ she asks.

‘Yeah, sure,’ I say. ‘Come on back.’

The girl meets me at Maria’s office, and I dig into my pocket to get the keys. I pull out the keys, and something else falls out with them.

It’s the dirty, wrinkled piece of paper that I placed under a rock once. On one side is my handwriting. I’m shaking as I turn it over, expecting it to be blank. But it isn’t. In smudged, left-slanting handwriting are the words,

And the day after that, and after that, and after that . . .

‘Are you OK?’ the girl asks. I feel her put a hand on my upper arm.

‘Yeah,’ I say breathily. ‘I think so.’

‘Is that from your boyfriend?’ she asks, stealing a glance at the paper.