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The sun was warm, and when she began to settle, I wandered under the bleachers to the shade.
“Oh,” I started, clutching Ella tightly to my chest at the sight of a young woman in the shadows.
Both hands were behind her back. She took a few cautious steps backward, stumbling on a rock. Her arms flew out for balance, and a purse fell to the ground.
“That doesn’t belong to you,” I said firmly.
The girl’s eyes rounded. It was then I noticed how much bigger they were than her face. Her cheeks were hollow, her clothes too large.
“I-I just wanted something to eat,” she whispered. “Please don’t call the cops on me. I can’t go back to jail.”
My gaze drifted, landing on a knapsack and a tattered blanket near the lowest part of the bleachers.
“Are you living here?” I kept my voice neutral so as not to scare the girl. She clamped her mouth shut, glancing longingly down at the purse she’d swiped. “I know somewhere you can go. The food is good. The beds are comfy. A hot shower and some new clothes go a long way to making you feel somewhat human.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the girl said quietly.
I offered her a small smile. “No one is going to judge you there. I’m going that way myself.”
“You’re not in one of those cult things, are you?”
“No.”
Ella let out a long wail. I bounced her and kissed her cheek, though nothing seemed to do the trick. The girl went to her bag and dug around in it for a minute. Warily, she approached, offering Ella a plastic key ring with big plastic keys dangling from it.
Ella grasped it in her tiny fingers, and her cries halted as she examined the new object.
“It won’t work forever, but for a little while, it will help,” she said.
“I can’t take this from you.” I gently pried the toy from Ella’s fingers. She cried out. As soon as I gave it back, she was quiet.
“I don’t have a use for it.” The girl looked away. Pain radiated off her, a permanent kind that nothing could change.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice hoarse. This girl had nothing, yet she gave my daughter one of her few possessions. The human spirit amazed me.
“Please don’t tell anyone about the purse. I won’t take anything,” she promised.
“Will you come with me?”
“The place you’re talking about sounds too good to be true. They won’t take someone like me.” The resoluteness in her tone made my heart constrict.
“All women are welcome.”
She shook her head, easing away from me once more.
“Do you have paper and pen?” I asked, sensing she was about to bolt.
She rummaged in her bag once more, pulling out a scrap piece of paper and a pencil with the eraser gnawed down. There were teeth marks in the pencil too, but I ignored them, scrawling on the paper.
I handed it to her. “This is the address if you change your mind. Ask for Mrs. Quinn. You can tell her you know Trish and Ella.” I held my daughter up a little. She babble-giggled as she played with the keys.
The girl looked uncertain but tucked the address in her back pocket.
“It’s the safest place you could go,” I said.
She grabbed her pack off the ground, slung it on her shoulder, folding the blanket as she walked toward the edge of the bleachers. She checked to make sure the coast was clear before darting out into the sunlight, vanishing as if she were never there.
I picked up the abandoned purse and carried it back to my seat. “Does this belong to anyone? I found it under the bleachers.”
