Ten for Ten

Heart in a Box

“There’s something I need to tell you Antonia.”

Even at the age of ten, she knew enough to feel fear.  In the movies, on tv, in books, every time somebody said ‘we need to talk’ or ‘there’s something I have to tell you’, bad things happened. 

“Danielle and I have talked, and we’ve decided to send you to a specialized school. You’ll be able to focus on your art there, and the teachers will help you with everything else,” her daddy said, looking really awkward and sad.  Specialized school must mean school for dummies, school for children who couldn’t focus or sit still or make numbers line up in their head.  School for freaks.  That’s what they called her, in this new school.  A freak.  She didn’t want to be.  Running like her life depended on it, she barreled out of the living room and onto the street.”

“Anonia, come back,” she heard her father shout.  But she wouldn’t.  Not for anything.  She was special, not stupid.  Why didn’t her own father see that?  And why did her stepmama agree?  Of all the people in the world, she would never have expected that betrayal. 

Antonia ran, tears making her vision funny, until she couldn’t breathe from the stitch in her side.  Why didn’t they just put her in a funny farm and be done with it, sick in special education classes with the drooling kids in wheelchairs?  Tired, she shuffled over to a big oak tree, the kind that would still be standing after a tornado, and sat down in its roots to think.

She knew her grades were bad.  It was the learning disabilities the counselor at her last school had said.  And at that one they got her a special tutor, to work with her one on one.  She’d caught up to the other kids.  Her friends had helped her too, drawing pictures to explain word problems on their homework and sometimes giving her answers.  The system had worked. 

But then they moved.  She kicked at a trot, still angry about that.  Two years they had spent in Providence.  Antonia had made friends, started soccer – even though she’d admit she wasn’t terribly good at it – and settled down.  Then they moved.  And no one asked her about the move, or told her why.  Just, ‘daddy got a new job and we need to leave.’  He’d promised her on her ninth birthday that they were done moving.  Maybe she was stupid, because she’d believed him.

Now they wanted to send her away.  It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t at all, and she wouldn’t go.  She’d hitch-hike her way back to Providence and stay with Mr. and Mrs. Torres.  Maria’s parents would take her in for sure, once she explained.  With her mind made up, Antonia started for home.  She needed to pack her suitcase and get the money her mother had left for her. 

It was almost dark when she got home.  She let herself in through the kitchen, not wanting to start another argument.  Not until she had packed up her stuff. 

But all the lights at home were off.  Surprised, she forgot how mad she was and called out, “Hello?  Anybody here?” only to get no answer.  Antonia was expecting a lecture about leaving the house and coming home so late, not this absolute silence.  Something was wrong, worse even than being sent away to school.

“Hello?  Daddy where are you?”  She flicked the lights in the living room and screamed. “Mama wake up!”  Antonia ran to her stepmother’s side, touching skin she knew would be cold.  The police, she had to call the police.

“911 please state your emergency.”

“My stepmother is on the floor and she’s not moving.  Please send an ambulance!”

After giving her address, Antonia put the phone on speaker and sat next to her stepmother, checking for breathing and pulse just like the operator told her to.  At some point the paramedics arrived, her father not far behind them.  She was blind to everything but her stepmother on the gurney, lines and tubes coming out of everywhere.  Please don’t let her die God, please don’t let her die.  She’d go away to school, she’d even stop drawing, if he didn’t let her die.

But he was in no mood to answer prayers that night.