Lost

This story contains sexual abuse that is implied but not described.

The worst thing about being lost is worrying about the people who are worrying about you being lost. If I'm lost, I still have me. My small circle of family (my mother and her brother) don't know where I am when I am lost, but I am pretty sure I know where they are. They'll find me or I'll find them.. They are missing something that I'm not missing. They are missing me. And that's why I worry. Each one will react differently to the news, and that makes my palms sweat. I have a history of getting lost. All throughout my life I tended to wander off. One time I was following my mother carefully who was wearing a tan colored raincoat with a tan colored belt. (It wasn’t raining, but mother just loved that coat.) I was holding on to it as we moved around the farmer's market. At some point I looked off and stared at a stand with brown bananas that I later discovered weren't bananas at all. They were plantains. But at 7 I didn't know a plantain from a banana so I tugged at my mother's belt. A voice not my mother’s responded. I had been following some stranger who didn't realize I was holding on to her belt. I was a slight girl. I didn't take up a lot of space. It's possible she didn't even feel me there. She nearly stepped on me. (I have been stepped on before but never by accident.) A lot of children would have cried, but this wasn't my first experience with being lost so I knew exactly what to do. I looked up at the woman and just squinted. She was shocked at first, but then she replied, "did you lose your mother, little girl?" I wanted to reply, no. I'm not lost. My mother lost me. But I wasn't really into talking much at that age, so I just shook my head and let the woman take me to a police officer. I found out later that my mother found a police officer on the other side of the farmers market. Why the police officers didn't just radio to each other, I don't know but it took a good hour for us to reconnect. I think my mother understood me. Whenever I was lost and then found, she was never mad at me. She just asked me where I went and what I did and what I saw. In fact it became an opportunity to have a pretty interesting conversation. Over the years, I got to see a lot of things that my mother would have missed. I also saw things I would never tell her I saw. I started to believe that maybe my mother enjoyed the fact that I got lost. It was like she had an extension. She had another pair of eyes to see the universe. She got to be in two places at once. She didn’t seem to see the danger of my getting lost. She never saw the danger. Whenever I took a bath I would make the water murky with soap and I would slip under the surface so that my mother couldn’t see me at all. I challenged myself to stay under the water longer and longer. One time she reached into the tub to unplug the drain as if I weren’t in it. She was shocked to find me there turning blue. I wondered if she had forgotten I was in the bath. I hoped for that. One time I got lost in a way that scared her and made her angry. It was the night I first ran away. I didn't think I was lost, but this time I was. I had somewhere to go: anywhere but there. And that's exactly where I went. It took me somewhere rotten. There's never been a time when I was lost that I thought I was in danger, but this time the danger was inside of me. I was running from the danger, but it just wouldn’t get smaller. It wouldn’t go away. Not everybody in my home was as kind as my mother. My uncle. He got mad whenever I wandered off. Hatefully mad. Like he lost his wallet or his belt. I saw him and knew him. He knew I knew him. He wanted to know where I was at all times. He would whisper to me, “you’ll never find your way without me.” I only ever really felt lost when I was alone with him. He was not a healthy man, and he was never good to me. I hated him. Was I scared? In the beginning, I suppose so. But oftentimes I simply felt the way you might feel if you were in an elevator in a high-rise that was falling. Helpless. What could I do? They say you should jump up and down, but that can't be the answer. Jumping up and down can't be the solution. I think the only thing you can do is pray. And then wait for death. So when I saw my uncle, I definitely prayed for him to die. The night that I ran away for the first time was a terrible night for me. Only the two of us knew what really happened. It was just another night. Until I confronted him. Until I said “no.” It was also the night that I learned exactly how far I could run in my bare feet. It took a few seconds to realize I was utterly and completely lost. There was an Amber alert. Eventually a woman walking her dog saw me hiding behind a tree in a park. It was very late. The woman told the police that her dog would not stop whining, so she had to take him out. I guess I'm glad that she did. By the time I got home, there was a lot of confusion. This was the first time (but not the last time) my mother was ever angry at me for getting lost. And she yelled at me in a way that was unfamiliar and painful, but I was glad to have her standing there yelling at me. I was terrified and wanted to sleep in her bed which was something she would never do. But tonight she said yes. She told me that my uncle drove all over town looking for me. He was worried I would get lost. But tonight he will go to bed disappointed. Let the elevator crash with him in it. I curled into my mother and enjoyed the satin sheets. I would run away again and again. And one night it would be for good. When there was no raincoat to hang on to and no mother to wear it.