I was at the home of a classmate. Both of her parents looked sick and frail, with dark bags under their eyes and limbs that looked like they were going to break. I understood why they seemed so scary as we sat down to eat. The beans were cold and plain, and the white bread was so wet that it seemed like it had been sitting in water.
Her name was Maela. We had only talked a few times at school, but she was kind in a quiet way. I didn’t have many close friends, and the way she invited me over made me think she was being friendly. I can understand now that she probably just needed someone to know what was going on in her life.
Her house was surprisingly tidy. Not in a polished, sophisticated sense; more like no one used anything. There was everything, yet it was all dead. Her little brother, who was maybe six, sat quietly on the floor of the living room and pushed about a toy truck with a broken wheel. No noise, no cartoons. That wheel scratching sound.
From across the table, her mom smiled at me. Her dad didn’t even look up. He kept moving his hand like a robot to scoop beans into his dish, as if it were a job. I tasted them and tried not to show it, but the beans were cold right out of the can. I mean cold from the refrigerator. The bread was so soggy that it came apart in my hand.
I felt sick to my stomach. It wasn’t because I was disgusted; there was a deeper reason. It could be a feeling of humiliation. Or disgrace. I didn’t say anything. Maela was eating like it was normal.
After dinner, we sat in her room. She didn’t say anything; all she did was show me some drawings in an old sketchbook. Her figures have real shading, emotion, and even movement. I told her that. She didn’t care. “I wanted to go to art school at one point.” I don’t know what else to say.
I asked to go to the toilet. The light flickered when I turned it on. I saw rows of pill bottles on the shelf when I was washing my hands. At least ten. Some were for anxiety, some were for depression, and one was methadone, which I knew from my grandmother’s closet.
I called my mum from the bathroom and whispered so Maela wouldn’t hear me. “Can you come get me? Now. “Please.”
My mum got there in fifteen minutes. Before we left, I told her I wasn’t feeling well and thanked Maela and her parents. My mum didn’t say anything at first in the car. Then, softly, “Are you all right?”
“I believe her parents are drug addicts.”
She nodded slowly, as if she already knew what was going on. “And I think Maela is the one who keeps that house together.”
I didn’t know what to do with it.
The next week at school, Maela didn’t talk to me. Or maybe I kept my distance from her. I felt bad for leaving so soon. But also a little scared. It wasn’t her that scared them; it was the uncertainty.
A few weeks went by. Then, one day, a teacher asked me to come to her office for lunch. I thought for sure I was going to get in trouble. Instead, she closed the door and said, “Are you friends with Maela?”
“I guess?”
“She put your name down as a reference for a scholarship that helps kids.” There was no one else for her.
That hurt me in a way. I had no idea there were grants for it. But it looks like the funds were meant for kids who were going through “unusual home situations,” and they needed a friend to testify for their honesty. Without thinking, I answered sure. I wrote the most honest thing I’ve ever written.
Maela got it.
She started going to an after-school art program that picked her up and dropped her off. The clothes she was wearing looked a little newer. She started to smile more, too. She didn’t grin all the time, but when she did, it was clear.
Then, one afternoon, she walked up to me with a folded piece of paper. “Can you keep a secret?” she said.
“Yes,” I said, even though my stomach hurt.
There was a photograph inside. A photograph of a man who looked a lot like her dad but was in better form. A smile on a full face. He had a woman who wasn’t her mum on his lap and a baby on his lap.
“That’s old news,” she said. “He has a different family.” In Ohio.
I didn’t know what to say. She added that every couple of weeks he went on “work trips.” He forgot to log out of an email account on their shared computer once. She found messages, pictures, and bills from the airline. It had been going on for at least four years.
She knew her mother. But she didn’t want to go. “She says she can’t do it by herself,” Maela remarked. “But she’s already doing it on her own.”
A few months later, her mother died from taking too many drugs. It wasn’t deadly; she lived. Maela was the one who found her, phoned 911, and rode with her in the ambulance. For more than a week, she didn’t attend to school. I sent her an SMS every day, but she never replied.
Then one day she came up wearing a faded hoodie, her hair in a messy braid, and dark circles under her eyes. But she was right next to me. Then she added in a gentle voice, “I’m going to leave.” But I don’t know when.
I didn’t force her to do anything.
She saved every dime she made to buy art supplies. I put her sketchbooks in my locker so her parents couldn’t sell them for quick cash. My mom started preparing me an extra lunch every day, and I acted like it wasn’t a big issue.
Things were different by April. Her dad stopped coming home. No justification was given. Not here. HerCH donations/my Notice of Emergency Grant from Child Services funded for her mum to go to Premise Marshall.
Maela was placed with a family that would take her in. It wasn’t a foster home; it was just a place to stay until the authorities could figure things out. The family was nice but rigid. She had a curfew, her own room, and most importantly, peace.
She entered a statewide youth art contest that summer and placed in second place. The prize was a little amount of money and the chance to work with a muralist in the city. She cried when they presented her the trophy.
In the autumn, she signed up for early college programs. She got into one. It isn’t an Ivy League school, and it’s not that huge. But it is a safe and well-built art school with dorms and three meals a day. Her dorm had heat. The fridge still had food in it.
I helped her get used to her new home.