ABANDONMENT

"You don't remember me." the soft, youthful voice says.

I look up, "Hi. Of course I do. I didn't recognize you at first with your hair up."

"You don't remember my name... Charmiana."

"I know. I remember."

Disbelieving eyes.

"I even wrote it down, before I came in, hoping I would see you today."

Charmiana has won my heart.

The curly lashed eight year old dreamboat I help with homework at the Homeless Shelter where she lives.

A tender, budding twig, sprouting just past four feet, with what appears to be a soft brillo pad blooming out the top of her delicately featured head.

Her pink jean jacket with girly designs on it, is tinged with soot, maybe from many wearings, maybe not all by her.

I'm learning more about myself than she might be learning from me.

She's restless, smart, but I sense the upheaval in her life. How long has she been here?  Can I teach her enough before she leaves?  Can she teach me enough?

I try to keep her focused on the task at hand, but when she has decided she's through, my feeble attempts to reel her back to work, are in vain and she clams up.

 Her attention has focused on the other kids with their study or play tools. Something's missing.  She wants what's not there.

"What is it?" I'm confused.

Gloomy, barely audible, "Tablet." as she eyes a young child at the next table, happily playing a video game on a tablet.

"What? Do you want a tablet?"

Shaking her head up and down.

"It's for the younger kids that don't have homework." I explain.

No response.

I'm learning just how ill-equipped I am at consoling this wandering heart. "If you do your work, you'll grow up to be independent and have what you want."  Oh, that's reassuring!  Did I just say that?  What does that mean to an eight year old whose been uprooted. How many times, I do not know.  Immediate gratification is what's being begged for, pouted for, longed for.  Helpless, I try again, digging into this delicate soul. I tease her gently and am rewarded with a heart grabbing, trying to hide, grudging smile, revealing a crooked tooth. A soundless giggle.  I think I hear her think, "Leave me be, I want to be miserable," And the door is slammed shut again.

Can I just take her home with me?"  Yeah, that'll do it, uproot her even more, this time from what's left of her family; mother and siblings.

Pursed lips, furrowed brows, tight jaw, refusing to speak, holding herself in tight, eyeing that tablet.

"Com'on, let's finish your homework."

Fruitless.

Now, buckets of salty drops come gushing out of her eyes, running down her cheeks, flooding my insides.

Deep recognition surges through me from long ago, another time, a lonely eight year old, like a vague dream revisited.

"I'm sad, can I have a hug?" I ask, as I hold her spindly limbs. "Thank you. I feel much better now."

As tears subside, I let her have space to herself as I tend to another child on my right.

Left on her own, she picks up the homework and starts working on it.  Silent.  As I turn to watch and give praise on the correct answers (she does know the work), once again the brooding takes over and the focus resumes on the smaller children. They have what she wants, the "tablet." Oh, if that were the only thing.

It's playtime and I manage to find a tablet for her.  "Look what I got. What do I get for this?"  I jest.

Softly, "Thank you."

"Do you want to play alone?"  She shakes her head, "No." "Do you want me to stay here?" Head shakes, "Yes." I melt.

As we play, the smile re-appears, revealing that one crooked tooth.  We're both smiling and laughing.

When I return in a week, I look forward to seeing her and yet part of me hopes she's not there, that her mother has found a way out, and into a new home. One of her own.