Falling (21 page)

“Fine,” I replied, unable to think up a plausible excuse to be out in such a bad storm.

“And you, ma’am?” the officer asked my grandma.

“Piss off,” she hissed, pulling on my arm.

“Grandma!” I chastised.

The officers put their cars in park and both of them opened their car doors at the same time to get out. Grandma jerked my arm again. “We have to get away from them,” she hissed in my ear.

“Grandma, stop,” I protested. The officers were out of the car and watching us. Both had their hands on the butts of their guns.

They watched us argue for a second then motioned us over to the sidewalk. “Ladies, if we could just have a word over here.”

Grandma growled and shoved me away from her and the cops. I landed on the ground and watched in horror as she snatched up a fallen branch and swung it at the officer’s face. “No,” I shrieked as she tried to swing the branch around again. The hail impeded me as I struggled to my feet.

“Stay back,” an officer shouted at me. His gun was drawn and at his side.

I edged towards her anyway. “She’s sick and very confused, she can’t help it. Grandma,” I called to her. “You have to put that branch down. These are real cops.”

She swung around again, catching one of the cops across the face. I lunged towards her and knocked the branch from her hands as one of the officers grabbed me around the waist and pulled me out of the way.

“Ma’am,” he said, struggling with me. “I need you to back away.”

Grandma began wailing as she watched me struggle with what I could only assume looked like a monster to her. “You’re scaring her,” I accused as I tried to shove him off me.

“Drop to the ground,” the officer not holding me commanded.

“She might not get what you’re saying, she’s got Alzheimer’s—” I tried to explain. The officer holding me slammed my body to the ground and pinned me there with a knee in my back. I was soaked in ice water immediately and the tiny balls of ice jabbed painfully into every inch of my skin.

A shrieking banshee in red silk pajamas crashed into the cop sitting on my back. “Grandma, no!” I yelled as I watched the other cop rush her. “Don’t hurt her! She’s old and sick; she doesn’t know what’s going on!” The cop who had been holding me down snapped handcuffs onto my already sore wrists and jerked me up backwards. I gritted my teeth, determined not to make the situation worse.

Grandma was on the ground still fighting as the other cop put handcuffs on her. “Sir,” I said as evenly as I could. “Please be gentle, she is sick and old.”

He jerked her off the ground like I had been and shoved her in the back of his cruiser. The cop holding me followed suit. I twisted around in the seat, trying to see Grandma in the other car. The cops talked for a minute then the one climbed in the driver’s seat.

“Sir, please just listen for second, this is terrible mistake.”

He didn’t say anything; he just put the car in drive.

“My grandma is sick,” I continued, praying he was listening, “and she’s been doing worse the last few days. I was going to call the doctor in the morning. I don’t know why she was out in the storm, but I promise the only reason she acted like that is because she was extra confused and thought I was being hurt. Hello?”

He still didn’t say anything.

“Could you please just take her to the hospital instead of jail?” I cried from the backseat. When he still didn’t say anything I changed tactics. “That cop threw her to the ground pretty hard, and with all my neighbors watching. If she has a broken bone and you take her to jail instead of a hospital—”

“Calm down,” he snapped from the front seat. “He is taking her to the hospital. Crazy old woman,” he muttered under his breath.

I sighed with relief. “Great, I promise we will get it all straightened out once we get there.”

“You aren’t going to the hospital,” he said, and with that began rattling off my rights.

“What?” I protested. “I was just trying to help my Grandma!”

“Seriously, kid,” he said from the front seat. “Do yourself a favor and shut up.”

“No, what are you arresting me for? I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“You resisted arrested,” he said in a monotone.

“No I didn’t,” I argued, panic settling in my chest. “Look, I didn’t resist, I just sat there even though you threw me down in the rain. Last time I checked, that wouldn’t be considered resisting.”

“I’m considering it resisting, so just shut up,” he said.

I did.

The tiny little jail was only a few blocks from my house, just like everything in town. The cop handed me over to a lady cop who asked me first to empty my pockets.

“No pockets, I have on pajamas,” I told her, stating the obvious. “I get a phone call, right? I can call a lawyer? Because this is an unlawful arrest. I know that guy says I resisted arrest but I didn’t and I’m sure if the other officer that was there is honest he will back me up.”

She looked at me blankly and proceeded with her checklist of things. She patted me down, asked for all my information, and took pictures and then fingerprints. Finally, she locked me in one of the two holding tanks.

“Wait a minute!” I called after her. “What happens next?”

“Next we call your dad and you hope he comes and bails you out,” was her response.

I sat down on one of the concrete benches in despair. He wasn’t home to answer the phone and was almost impossible to get a hold of on the road. I had given them his dispatcher’s number but wasn’t sure they took calls in the middle of the night.

The only other occupant in the cell with me was middle-aged drunk lady, dead asleep with vomit down the front of her shirt. Even if I had been alone, and in warm dry clothes for that matter, I wouldn’t have been going to sleep. As far as I knew the bracelets were my only entry into Jordan’s world. And at the moment, I didn’t want to find out otherwise.

The last look on his face told me I had broken his heart and a tiny part of me wondered if this was his revenge. Elaborate and cruel though it seemed, I couldn’t put it past him. It hurt me to think his love was that shallow. But he probably thought the same of me.

I WATCHED THE SUN COME up with gritty eyes through a dirty, wire crossed window. Many, many hours past sunrise an officer finally came for me. Surprised and relieved, I eagerly followed her out only to be disappointed by being led into what looked like an interrogation room. At the plain, cheap table sat an older woman in a poor fitting suit. She didn’t look up as I came in, just kept shuffling through all the papers spilling out of her plastic briefcase. I sat down as instructed and waited for her to look up. I realized she was the social worker from the hospital.

Finally she asked, “Bixby Gray?” She still didn’t look up.

“Yes,” I said nervously.

She rattled off my address, phone number, social security number and birthday. “Correct?”

“Yes,” I said again. “Did you get a hold of my dad?”

“I did not. As I’m sure you are aware, he isn’t home.”

Not sure how to answer that, I just nodded.

“Speaking with his dispatcher, I learned he is quite often not at home.”

A little ball of dread formed itself low in my stomach. “He’s a truck driver,” I told her, hoping that would somehow be okay.

“There is another minor in the home?” she asked. “Lincoln Gray?”

I nodded.

“And where is he?”

“I’m … I’m not sure.”

“Please do not waste my time with lies,” she snapped.

“I’m not lying,” I protested. “He’s been having a really bad time, after the accident and all. I don’t know where he’s at.

Finally the woman looked up at me and the little smirk on her face was ugly. “I understand you want to protect your brother, but he will be found.”

“Protect him from what?” I asked, confused. “Linc didn’t do anything wrong. And I really didn’t either.”

“Not according the police report. And even if your brother didn’t do anything wrong, he is still an unsupervised minor, and we can’t have that.”

“We’re not unsupervised,” I said weakly.

“And what adult is caring for you while your father is on the road”—she scanned a paper in front of her—”twenty-five to twenty-seven days of the month? Your addled grandmother?”

“Have you heard anything about my grandma?” I asked.

“I have,” she replied, snapping her glasses off her face. “She’s incredibly sick. She has a urinary tract infection so severe it has impacted her kidneys.”

“A bladder infection?”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “In the elderly, especially in the demented elderly, they can cause outlandish behaviors, which you would have known to look for if you were a responsible adult.”

That stung. “I’m doing the best I can.”

Her face softened a little. “I’m sure you are. And I’m not saying you’re not responsible, just that you’re not an adult, which is why I’m here to help make sure you get the supervision and guidance you need.”

I smiled a little at that. “I don’t think you’ll be able to convince my dad to get a different job and be home all the time.”

“Your dad? Oh no, he can’t be trusted to comply. His dispatcher already confirmed this has been going on for years. Years! No, I have a wonderful foster home lined up for you; they have another girl your age.”

I looked at her blankly for a minute then laughed. “I’m sorry, you’re joking right? I don’t need a foster home, I have a family.”

“You have an irresponsible father and a grandmother you can’t properly take care of. It will be much better for you in a stable environment. And chances are, if your father’s willing to change, you would be returned.”

“After how long?” I could not believe what I was hearing.

“A few months at the most,” she said in what she must have thought was a reassuring manner.

I almost threw up all over the table. “That’s just not possible. What about my Grandma? Who would take care of her?”

Sophie scanned her paper work again. “She should be released from the hospital in the next day or two, and then will be transferred over to Meadow Haven. I understand they have a locked dementia ward.”

“A nursing home?” I practically shrieked. “No, no, no, she would hate it there!”

“Don’t be silly,” she said condescendingly. “She probably won’t even notice.”

I gritted my teeth. “What about Linc? He won’t want to go to a foster home.”

“Oh, he won’t be. At this point he’s considered a runaway and will be sent to the juvenile home as soon he is found.”

“That isn’t fair!” I protested. “He probably stayed the night at some friend’s house. You can’t just send him to juvie!”

“I can, and I will.”

I shook my head, at the end of my willingness to cooperate and believe that the situation would turn out all right in the end. “I am not going to some foster home. I will just wait here until my dad gets home and comes to bail me out.”

Sophie laughed. “That’s not an option, honey.”

“I’m not going to a foster home.”

“You are,” she said firmly.

“I’m not. I will run away from whatever home you bring me too.”

Sophie sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. After a minute she began sliding all her papers back into her briefcase. “Fine,” she said.

“Fine?” I repeated, relief flooding me.

“No foster home for you. You can just go straight to juvie too,” she said, and with that walked out the door.

I sat alone in the conference room, cold and numb, for over an hour. The only thought that passed through my mind in that time was that Jordan must somehow be to blame. When an officer finally came to escort me out, I almost couldn’t stand up. My life had gone from perfect to hell in less than a few days. But I refused to let myself cry on the long drive north to the juvenile hall. I had never been to one, or even known anyone who had been to one, but I was guessing weakness shouldn’t be the first thing I show the other kids.

I was terrified.

It was a large brick building, stretching out for what looked like a mile on either side of the fortress like a front door. The officer who drove me up walked me into the front office where he “exchanged custody” with a worker. Just hearing them talk about me like that made me sick.

An unhappy woman took me and my case file to a barren office and asked me a list of horrifying questions. Was I on drugs? Was I in danger of going into withdrawals? Was I AIDS or HIV positive, that I was aware of? Had I ever sold my body? Was I pregnant, or did I suspect I was pregnant? When was the date of my last period? I blustered through the questions as best I could without dying of embarrassment. I could tell she didn’t believe any of my answers and I worried about what type of kids I was being locked up with.

She concluded with checking me for lice and track marks and watched me change into an issued uniform of giant underwear, a sports bra, ceil blue scrubs and rubber flip-flops. I got a hairbrush, toothbrush and little packets of soap and toothpaste and a typed out sheet of rules. Finally I was led to my room. Fear and disbelief colored every moment.