I try to remember where I came from. “There was a bear. It chased me.”
Her arms tighten around me. “Evan, we have to help her.”
The man frowns down at me. “Were you with any other people?”
I think as hard as I can, but my head starts to hurt, so I stop. “No.”
The woman looks at the man.
He sighs. “I’ll start packing our things.”
The city is loud and strange and I don’t like it.
“I don’t like it here, Momma,” I whisper, hating the cars outside and the smelly streets. “I want to go home.”
She crouches in front of me. “You are home, sweetie.”
The apartment feels small. I want grass and blue skies, not stinky stairs and someone banging something downstairs.
The world feels too small.
“I don’t like it.”
“You will, Rylie,” Momma says.
My name.
She told me in the car in case the fall in the forest made me forget.
Rylie Cooper.
It feels as strange as this apartment, but Momma is happy.
She bought me so many new things: pink dresses, yellow skirts, and even a doll with long, blond hair. I asked her what happened to everything I had before, and she said it was old, so she threw it away.
I don’t want to tell her I don’t like the doll with the yellow hair, so I smile instead.
“Okay, Momma. I’ll try to like it better.”
She smiles and kisses my forehead. Then she shows me to my room Daddy spent all day decorating just for me.
“Daddy will take care of you.” Momma coughs.
Her face is white, and she smells sick.
Her hand is thin when she squeezes mine.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” The man in black throws dirt into the hole in the ground, and Daddy is crying.
He’s holding my hand too tight, and I don’t like it.
I pull my hand free and look at all the people I don’t know.
Everyone is sniffing and wiping their faces.
“I want to go home, Daddy,” I tell him.
But he doesn’t hear me.
