In Which I Recount Part Two of My Harebrained Scheme To Run Away From Home. A Story In A Unpredictable Number of Parts.

Certainly, there was a part of me that was relieved at being pulled out of the river by the police, who interrupted my escape attempt. But there was a part of me, too, that was deeply disappointed that I had failed so utterly. The decision to leave home was entirely impulsive, brought about by my friend’s suggestion, but I was behind it all the way. Here was my chance to test my mettle. I was a big fan of mettles being tested, since I loved stories where people overcame great obstacles and emerged stronger, even if their transformation was completely internal.

“You kids are lucky we found you before sundown,” said one of the cops. I didn’t really know what this meant then. Now I suppose it meant that if they hadn’t found us, we’d be that much further away under the protection of the dark. As an adult I think I have read some statistics presented in a way to poke parents that say if a day goes by and your kid doesn’t turn up, that’s it, man, you better get a new hobby because you just lost your old one for good.

My friend and I were separated, and I had my inaugural trip in a squad car. My friend was taken off by the male cop, and I was taken by the lady cop. After asking for my address, she chose to chitchat with me on the way home, to delve into the tortured psyche of the rural ten-year-old girl.

“So what makes a girl like you want to run away from home?” she asked with a veneer of casualness.

Was this a trick? I didn’t know. I didn’t know adults well enough then to know that no matter what I said it would be dismissed. I still suspected that somewhere, like on the multiple choice assessment tests that were foisted on us at school every year, there was a right answer. I had a bad feeling, since to that point I had met very few adults who seemed to have any memory or idea of what being a child was like.

I felt the pressure of her silence. This was a tactic I learned later from my mentor in college and used in graduate school. Create the white space and the students, the research participants, even your professors will crack and fill up the space.

“I…things are bad at home,” I confessed.

“Bad? Bad?” she was incredulous. “Are you trying to tell me you’re abused or something?”

I shrugged non-committally and she scoffed.

“I know your area. I can’t believe a girl like you from your neighborhood is being abused.” She changed the subject then. “Do you live north or south of 251?”

“I don’t know,” I said. How was I supposed to know that? I wasn’t driving, and there was no bus. Directions meant nothing to me.

“You’re awfully sassy for an twelve-year-old.”

“I’m ten,” I retorted.

She was quiet after that. When she delivered me to my parents, it was almost dark and there was another cop there, probably telling my parents that they had picked my friend and me up.

I stood on the porch with the cop, and I think my mother thanked her, but I’m not sure. I can see how we looked on the outside. The house, newly built with sumptuous stonework, cedar siding, buried into a little pocket of woods in a sleepy area that was still surrounded by cornfields. Young, good-looking, concerned parents with the thankless duty of looking after their ingrate of a child. It was a Very Special Episode of something excruciatingly boring like 7th Heaven before that even existed.

“She says she ran away because she’s being abused,” the cop said, her voice dripping with “get a load of this.”

I don’t remember how my parents reacted to that one. All I remember is the sound of my stepfather quietly closing the front door of the house behind me. My parents told me to take a shower, because I was filthy and scratched up. Twigs came out of my hair and got stuck in the drain, and I discovered cuts I didn’t know about, since they were covered in grime all day. It did feel good to take a hot shower.

Then the interrogation and the accusations began. Why did you do this? Is it really so bad here? You’re just jealous of your sister, and that’s pathetic. You won’t be seeing that little friend ever again. My mother cried and my stepfather yelled. This confirmed what my stepfather had always believed about me–that I was intrinsically a bad person, rotten at the core, and spoiled by my grandmother. This is how I repaid him for the fact that he fed and clothed me. And on Father’s Day, too, my mother added. Was that a personal dig? Did I plan it that way to be extra-mean? I had forgotten what day it was, honestly.

I was sent to bed with the promise that my “new life” would begin tomorrow, whatever that meant. I felt dread but I was quickly overwhelmed by sleep. I am glad that I had no inkling about how bad things would get, so I could have that one night of solid, contented rest.