A PROMISE MADE

     I'll come back for you. I promise. She reached out and handed me the barrette that had fallen to the floor.

    I looked into her blue eyes, seeing the tears she tried to blink away. Blue eyes, I realized decades later, that were only one of the genetic gifts she gave me. 

    I watched her stand, then walk halfway across an enormous room. She hesitated, then turned quickly to her right, hurried down a long green hallway, down a short flight of stairs, and out a heavy wooden door that closed behind her with a dull muffled thud. 

    Some part of me held on to that promise. 

    I'll come back for you. 

   A man came along pushing a string mop, making wet grey swirls across the black and white marble floor. Then another man in a dark brown suit, the kind a man wears to church on Sunday, who kept looking over his shoulder as he clicked his camera. 

   A woman walked into the vestibule and looked at me, surprised. Maybe shocked would be a better word. Then another, then a group of them, clucking like a flock of hens. 

   They wanted to know who I was. 

   Where did I live? 

   How old was I?  Where was my mommy? 

   "What's your mommy's name?"

   "Mommy."What else did she expect me to say? A policeman walked into the vestibule looked at the women and shook his head. He squatted down in front of me.

   "Are you hungry?" He pointed to his mouth.

I nodded yes. No one had thought to ask that.

    "Do you have to go to the bathroom?" He pointed to the ladies' room sign.

Another nod. One of the women volunteered to take me. When I got back to "my" bench someone had produced some cookies and a small glass bottle of milk. No glass, no straw. 

    The women evaporated; one minute they were there, the next only the policeman and I remained.

    A huge hand took my own and we walked down the green hallway to that heavy wooden door. I had to reach way up to hold his hand, but I was determined not to let go.

    The door closed with the same muffled thud and I knew I'd never walk through it again. A moment of panic came up with the cookies and milk.
How would my mother find me if I wasn't there anymore?
***

POSTER CHILD

The first in a series of vignettes. 

    In the late 1940s, one of the Chicago newspapers held a weekly photo contest. Winning submissions would be published. Cash prizes would be awarded. Amateurs from the Midwest fanned out, cameras in hand, searching for the perfect picture -the money shot. One week the winning submission netted the photographer a page eight below the fold re-print, generous praise, full credit, and, of course, a tidy sum. The picture was a three-quarters profile black and white shot of a little girl sitting at the edge of a long bench. She wore a pair of corduroy overalls, a knit shirt, and high-topped "baby shoes." A mop of long hair tumbled down her back; all attempts to keep it out of her face had been limited to the unsuccessful barrette in her hand. Behind the bench, a green wall, its only ornament a framed document, the bottom edge of which just showed in the photo. It was the state's license for The Chicago Protestant Orphan Asylum.
   The photographer stumbled across his subject by accident; quickly set up his equipment, snapped away, and was out the door before anyone told him to leave. He entered the picture in the contest and sold the rights to a charity named The Red Feather Organization. The picture had been titled "Unwanted;" the brief caption stated only that the child had been abandoned in the lobby. The photo was repeated on posters and flyers that were sent out in the hopes that the image would touch people's hearts and open their wallets.
   Years later the orphanage used the picture in their website's history timeline. The child was never identified.
   Subsequent publicity material touted their success in placing the child with a kind and loving family. It was, they said, a happy ending to a sad story about a little girl no one wanted.
I remember the smell of the bench.