Part 4 (1/2)
Everything went blank.
”Charlene?” I heard someone say. ”Charlene, please. Come back to us.”
As I opened my eyes I could see people standing around me as I lay there on the floor. The smells from the kitchen were making me sick.
”G.o.d, are you okay?” Jan asked in a worried tone while a few of the other girls on staff just stared.
”Ummayeah, I think so. What happened?” I asked as my father helped pick me up.
My father, I reminded myself again. Dear G.o.d, how could this be?
”You fainted,” he said. ”I'm sorry to have startled you so badly.”
”Do you want me to call an ambulance?” Jan asked.
”No!” I shouted. I didn't want them taking my blood. It wasn't until after I got out of the hospital that my body started to take on a different form, but since then the only doctor's visits had been to the psychiatrist. ”I mean, no, I'm okay now.”
”Are you sure?” Jan asked.
”Yeah, I'm sure. I just need a minute.”
”That's a good idea, why don't you sit down?” my father said.
”I'll leave you two alone then. Let me know if you need anything,” Jan said as she started to walk away. Everyone else seemed to follow suit. The show was over.
After everyone left and returned back to work, things settled down.
I sat there in the booth, my father across from me. He slid his hands over to reach for mine, yet I instantly reacted, drawing them back into my lap.
”What are you doing here?” I asked.
”I know it's been a long time.” He paused. ”However, I've been searching for you for years.”
”How did you find me?”
I still couldn't believe I was looking at my father for the first time in over twenty years. I thought something would happen, like he would blow up or something, but Delmara did only say I was never to see my mother and son again. She didn't say anything about my father.
”Well, at first I made some phone calls, traveled the country a few times on some leads, but nothing panned out, then through the wonderful world of the web, I found you.”
”Yeahabut how? I mean, there are billions of people out there. How did you find me through all that?”
”I stumbled across one of your poems in a magazine. Here, I tore it out and kept it all these months.”
He reached in his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Inside the money flap was my poem folded up. He took it out and handed it to me to read: Visiting Hours at the Psych Ward I wonder if she realizes where she is
while the syringe smacks a blackberry bruise
on her skin. Looking at the red second hand
as if casting a spell on time, her eyes become
the clock; the ones you'd see in a cla.s.sroom.
She fidgets a little under her restraints, crinkling
the sanitary sheets of paper into b.a.l.l.s of snow.