Read Online Something Like Hope by Shawn Goodman - Free Book Online

beat you and molested you. That’s what you get for sharing your business with teachers and social workers
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    This is what’s playing out in my mind as I cross the items off the list, one by one. So many black lines across the paper. My chest heaves with sobs. Delpopolo gives me a box of tissues and waits. Then he asks more questions.
    “How can parents take care of and protect their daughters when they’re using crack?” he asks.
    “They can’t,” I answer between sobs.
    “What happens to eleven- and twelve-year-old girls when their mothers are on crack and can’t protect them?”
    “They get raped.”
    In this way, he explains why what happened to me happened. He says, “Your problems—bad dreams, anger, spacing out—they don’t mean that there’s anything wrong withyou as a person. They’re just what happens when someone lives through terrible things. They’re normal reactions to a really abnormal and awful childhood.” He keeps explaining and asking questions until it starts to make sense. Even hearing voices can be okay, as long as I know it’s just a part of me that is trying to protect me. It’s not necessarily crazy, he says. I’ve never had this kind of conversation before. I’ve thought things that were all wrong, and the other therapists just made it worse. They were more interested in the ugly details of who did what than in me as a person.
    I’m not saying that Delpopolo is helping me. Because I’m no less miserable than I was before I started seeing him. If anything, I’m worse, because I’ve been thinking of things I never let myself think about before. But I will say that some of it makes sense. In my head it’s starting to make sense. But in my heart … it’s still confusing, and it still hurts too much.

26
            C inda is now an expert on geese. She’s got a library book on North American waterfowl. Our library is mostly filled with out-of-print books that people have thrown away. There’s nothing fun to read, like horror stories or sexy romances, but if you want a book on the life of Ronald Reagan or North American waterfowl, you’re in business.
    Cinda watches the geese through our bedroom window. If you press your face against the glass (which leaves oily nose- and fingerprints), you can see the nest. It’s at the edge of the pond, a hundred feet away, close enough to count the eggs. Cinda says it’s called a clutch of eggs, in this case eight. She says if you’re patient enough, you can see the mother get off the nest every now and then to drink water and crap. Cinda uses these moments to count the eggs, just to make sure they’re all there.
    She reports to me every evening about her latest discoveries.
    “Shavonne, the male caught five fish today. He ate two and gave three to the female!” “Shavonne, from my math the eggs should hatch in less than two weeks!”
    In a way it’s cool because it gives us something new to talk about. The geese don’t have anything to do with this shitty place. They live here too, but they can fly away. Once the goslings hatch and grow, Cinda tells me, that’s just what they’ll do: fly away.

27
            A new girl was admitted to the Center today. She’s fourteen years old, from the city. Her name is Mary and she’s mentally retarded. She has that fetal alcohol look, with the wide-spaced eyes and flattened nose. Her mouth hangs open and she talks with a lisp, though she doesn’t talk much that I can see. Mary tells us she doesn’t know why she’s here and didn’t do anything wrong. She says, “I want my stuffed bear, Jojo, but they won’t let me have him.”
    Lots of girls in here are slow. They cover it by fighting or talking up the gang shit. But it’s pretty obvious when someone is retarded. They can’t read or tell time. The judges lock these girls up just as quickly as they do ones like Tyreena and me. Usually their crimes are prostitution or running drugs for some guy. I feel sorry for them