Gone Home

I called Lillian a little girl even though at five nine, she was half a foot taller than I was and already twenty-two years old. Though faced with more darkness in her life than I could begin to comprehend, she was, and remains, the most interesting combination of brains, guts, experience, naïve hope, and a giggling little girl sweetness that I have ever come across in ten years of social work. And, when I considered the fact that she was a really very stunning young lady I was surprised she didn’t have to beat boys away from her. In fact, without much effort she had the kind of looks that all the white girls I knew wanted- tall, curvy and thin and all blond hair and big blue eyes that could, I understood, make a man lose his mind if she looked at him in a certain way. Of course, she wasn’t looking at me like that right now, but then she never did look at women, particularly a woman like me, in that fashion. Normally, Lili just looked at me in the mixed manner of every one of my other clients in the place; like she didn’t really want to be forced to sit in my office talking about the problems she had, (even though she knew I would help them help herself in the end), but also glad she had a guide and a mentor to get her home.
But I could tell right away, when she walked in without so much as a glance that today was different from the others before it. There was telltale slouch of dread or smile and her sweet cobalt blue eyes, normally somewhat dancing and vibrant, now looked tired and dead although her mouth was fighting a grin. I knew Lili well enough to know that she was a horrible, horrible actress who couldn’t hide the fact that she had something important to say no matter how hard she tried. Meanwhile, I smiled devilishly to myself- whatever she had to say, if it was as important and good as my bones felt it would be, would come out in due time.

“How’s that apartment search going?” I began as brightly as I could on a Monday morning while I got out her file.
“Fine,” she replied trying to keep her voice even and curling her legs up underneath in a pose I knew wouldn’t last. Through our weekly meetings here at the shelter I had noticed that when she was really happy she sat about as still as a three year old. “I’ve got my name on the lists of three different places, so one of them will have to work out in the next few weeks.”
I could feel a smile rise and split my face as my falsely sunny attitude faded, only to be replaced by the real thing. “Great for you! Where will you be?”
“There’s one on North Fifth Street, another on Lexington and another on Moore. They’ll be expensive, but I’ll have a roommate.”
I scribbled a note as I spoke to her. “Is Miss Tanisha still going with you?”
“Yeah, along with her sister’s kids and her sister once she gets out of the hospital,” she declared, grinning happily at the thought of moving out (not at the hospitalized girl), not able to keep her more naturally bubbly self under wraps for the moment. “We all moved in here in the same week, stripped in the same hellhole ‘gentleman’s’ club, and ate the same bad food, so we got attached to one another. We wanted to ‘keep on the journey together’, at least for a bit.”
The smile was still on my face at the thought of three of my clients sticking together through the times ahead of them. “Do you think you can still handle those kids of Miss Jackie’s? They’re cute and all, but they think they’ll be grown by then,” I replied slyly.

She laughed a bit at the thought of that and put her hands on her head, flattening her thick blond locks. “Yeah- they’ll be ‘growed’ to six and four by then so it should be interesting,” she said before she fell patiently silent again. I could still see that she was successfully playing a game with me, because she kept moving and didn’t look me fully in the eyes.
“How’s your grandpa doing in the nursing home?” I asked innocently.

Lili scrunched up her nose at the mere mention of him in the place that he was at for the time. “All right, I guess. He’s unhappily resigned to it for now. They might release him to my care in a few weeks if he improves.”

“You’ll have a full house then-two kids, you, Miss Tanisha, Miss Jackie, and now your grandpa.”

“We’ll work something out.” She paused a moment, and then added with a sly grin, “The kids are small enough to sleep in the dresser drawers, and Grandpa likes a cold bed so he can sleep in the basement of the apartment building.”
“I don’t think he’ll like that.” I replied dryly, shaking my head in mock disagreement.
“Well,” she semi-jokingly volleyed back to me, “If he doesn’t like it he can go back to the home.”

“How are your classes going?” I asked in an attempt to return us to the business at hand.

“Thank God I have only four more weeks to go because I can’t wait to get out. I figure once my internship at the magazine is done, I’ll only have finals, then a week to graduation and then I start on Monday.”

“What!!” I mentally screeched but managed to keep my voice semi-professional, while happiness flooded my veins.

“Yes,” she cooed to me, obviously proud of herself. She smiled her big white- toothed dimpled smile and for a moment the bags under her eyes vanished, and her face became the kind, gentle, that I remembered so well. “As of Monday May sixteenth, you are looking at the new story editor of Chic Girl Magazine.”

“Oh my God congratulations!” Easily eschewing professional dignity for the moment, I leaned out of my chair to give my darling, baby girl client the hug she deserved so very, very much. “That is so great for you. You’ll be making more than I will.”
“And deserving it less,” she replied, “I can’t wait to start. I’ve wanted that job since I started in the mailroom when I was what? Sixteen? And now that Jessie’s going on up to Chic Monthly, she’s been training me to take her job. It was going to be temporary until the magazine honchos found someone else, but as of yesterday it’s official.”

“And you waited to tell me.”

“You had clients. And I wanted to fully bask in the glory of your attention.”

I sat back and thought for a second. “It’s like a fairy tale, almost.”

“Yeah, it is,” she agreed, wistfully. I could see her thoughts take her somewhere I couldn’t go or even imagine. I was right when I said it was almost like a fairy tale. There was no prince or king or queen, just a orphan girl who was so poor she couldn’t even afford a dorm room at her public school, making it all on her own simply by refusing to give up.
“Oh,” she said, pulling a small envelope out of her pocket. “An invitation to my graduation. You, Miss Washington, Miss Cruz and everyone else on staff are invited on behalf of Tanisha and me. We expect a big party too, just like you guys had at Easter and didn’t invite us residents to, with games and everything.”
“All right,” I laughed, “I’ll see what I can do on our budget.”
“We’re going to get handmade cards, aren’t we?”
“With our budget, it won’t even be stamped. Hand delivered to your room.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” she said, standing up to her full height. “Is there anything else?” I shook my head no “That’s all we have to do now. Goodbye and good luck.”
“Good bye Ms Syms.”
We hugged goodbye, both humming the same tune. A few days later, I looked out the window to see her and her friend packing up all of their bags-all four of the ones they had been allowed to bring with them-while the two kids danced around. Choking back no tears, I turned to the woman who sat in front of me.
“Hi,” I said, extending my hand to her, “I’m Ms Syms, and I’ll be your case manager.”
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