By Andrea Lingle

Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them, "You are not my people," it shall be said to them, "Children of the living God." Hosea 1:10

Empty. The chamber in front of me is as empty as anything ever has been. Aside from the sunlight coming through the window, there is nothing—not even a dust mote. The chamber is square, painted a warm white with a single window in the wall opposite the door. The window is glassed with a single pane, scrupulously clean. The afternoon sun angles through the window creating a welcome mat of light before my feet.

This will be my home.

I arrived at the Home for Unplaced Girls exactly twenty-seven minutes ago. 

The road that spools out behind me is pitted with rejections. The fourth grade teacher who stayed after school every day to help me shape letters onto paper with my shaky hands, maimed by being smashed with cans of meat by Grandma who punctuated the blows with promises that this would keep me from “reading that trash.” No matter how carefully I held the special gummy grip she gave me, the pencil jittered across the paper. After three months of staying behind, my spelling tests were illegible. One day I was tracing the word picnic and the world went white. I broke the pencil, shoved my desk chair against the wall, told her to “help someone worth it,” this gentle soul so committed to the written alphabet, and threw the pencil pieces through the open window. 

There had been the man who washed dishes next to me at the pizza restaurant. He didn’t care too much about getting the back of the forks clean, but he loved to talk about music. I would let him ramble about seeing Dylan in ‘86 at “the Garden,” and when we walked away at night, he never complained too much when I wouldn’t let him walk me home. Grandma had died six years earlier. Her house now belonged to Ricky, her son, but, as long as he didn’t hear me come in at night, there wasn’t anything to worry about. Ricky hadn’t done much for  me besides get me started in this world. I only made the mistake of calling him dad once. Meat cans weren’t his style, but I got the message.

My toes are just even with the sunlight. The lady at the desk said they would bring up furniture when I decide what I want in my room. Right now I just want to wait here, at the edge of the sunlight, looking at the miracle of a room for me. A place for me.

The doorframe is painted a cheerful white. Just about shoulder height a single pink bit. Just a touch of rose emerging onto the face of the frame. I move slightly, just enough so I can peer around the edge of the doorway. There, on the hidden edge is a word: Mary, written in fuchsia. The upstroke of the second arch of the M is what caught my eye, but Mary isn’t alone. Barbara, scribbled in teal crayon. Margarite in pencil. Sarah in firm, black marker. Tina in wandering blue. Sheila in ball point. Sheila had gone over the letters of her name several times to make them stay. Or had she returned? I don’t know. The names surround the doorway on both sides. There is room for another.

I would ask for a bed. Something simple. Perhaps with a quilt—one of those blankets made with pieces of things. Like me.

Maybe one day I will add my name to the doorway as I leave. I will write mine in sunshine yellow. The letters will shake, but I want the next girl to know that I found my place.