Astrid Magnussen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
white_oleander) wrote2020-01-03 06:47 pm
white_oleander) wrote2020-01-03 06:47 pm
McLaren's Childrens Center; Los Angeles, California, Friday [01/03 FT].
MacLaren's Childrens Center was in a way a relief. The worst had happened. The waiting was over.
Astrid lay in her narrow bed, low to the ground. Except for the two changes of clothes in the pressboard drawers beneath the mattress, all her things were in storage. Her skin burned. She’d been de-loused and still stank of coal-tar soap. Everyone was asleep but the girls in the hall, girls who had to be watched, the suicide girls, the epileptics, the uncontrollables. It was finally quiet.
Now Astrid found it easy to imagine her mother in her bunk at Frontera. They weren’t so different after all. The same block walls, linoleum floors, the shadows of pines against the outside lights, and the sleeping shapes of he roommates under their thin thermal blankets. It was too hot in here, but she didn’t open the window. Claire was dead. Who cared if it was too hot.
Astrid ran a hand through her long hair, considering again if she should cut it off. A gang of girls jumped her twice now, and it hadn't even been a week, once in the Big Field, once coming back from the gym, because someone’s boyfriend thought she was looking good. She didn’t want to be pretty. She lay there, fingering the bruises blooming on her cheek, shading from purple to green, watching the shadows of the pines behind the curtain, dancing in the wind like Balinese shadow puppets behind a screen, moving to gamelan music.
She had gotten a call from Ron yesterday morning. He was taking Claire's ashes back to Connecticut, and offered to pay for Astrid's ticket if she wanted to come with him. She didn’t want to see Claire delivered back to her family, more people who didn’t know her. She couldn’t stand around like a stranger through the eulogy. Claire kissed me on the lips, she would have told them.
“You didn’t know her at all,” Astrid told Ron. She didn’t want to be cremated, she wanted to be buried with her pearls in her mouth, a jewel over each eye. Ron never knew what she wanted, he always thought he knew best. You were supposed to watch her. He knew she was suicidal when he took Astrid in. That’s why she was hired. She was the suicide watch. Not the replacement baby after all.
The pine shadows moved across her blanket, the wall behind her. People were just like that. They couldn’t even see each other, just the shadows moving, pushed by unseen winds. What difference did it make if Astrid was here or somewhere else? She couldn’t keep her alive.
A girl out in the hall groaned. One of Astrid's roommates turned over, mumbled into her blanket. All the bad dreams. This was exactly where she belonged. For once she didn’t feel out of place. Even with her mother, she was always holding her breath, waiting for something to happen, for her not to come home, for some disaster. Ron never should have trusted her with Claire. She should have gotten a little kid, someone to stay alive for. She should have realized Astrid was a bad luck person, she should never have thought she was someone to count on. Astrid was more like Ingrid than she'd ever believed. And even that thought didn’t frighten her anymore.
But Astrid had been wrong. The worst, it turned out, was still yet to come. Because, in the morning, a caseworker would come and lead her out of the room, under the jealous dagger stares of the other girl, and load her in to a van, always a van, to drive her out to the storage unit to get her things. They had a new placement for her already. Well, no. It was an old one.
"I can't go back there," she told them, staring in the rear view mirror as she pressed back against her seat.
"Oh," said the case worker, smiling back in that rectangular mirror, "don't worry about that, sweetheart, all the costs have been completely covered."
Ron. Obviously. Or his guilt.
But that wasn't what Astrid meant at all.
[[ THOUGHT I WAS DONE WITH IT, DID YOU? First part from Chapter 22 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch, and the last little bit's all me, natch. Standard terms and conditions apply! ]]
Astrid lay in her narrow bed, low to the ground. Except for the two changes of clothes in the pressboard drawers beneath the mattress, all her things were in storage. Her skin burned. She’d been de-loused and still stank of coal-tar soap. Everyone was asleep but the girls in the hall, girls who had to be watched, the suicide girls, the epileptics, the uncontrollables. It was finally quiet.
Now Astrid found it easy to imagine her mother in her bunk at Frontera. They weren’t so different after all. The same block walls, linoleum floors, the shadows of pines against the outside lights, and the sleeping shapes of he roommates under their thin thermal blankets. It was too hot in here, but she didn’t open the window. Claire was dead. Who cared if it was too hot.
Astrid ran a hand through her long hair, considering again if she should cut it off. A gang of girls jumped her twice now, and it hadn't even been a week, once in the Big Field, once coming back from the gym, because someone’s boyfriend thought she was looking good. She didn’t want to be pretty. She lay there, fingering the bruises blooming on her cheek, shading from purple to green, watching the shadows of the pines behind the curtain, dancing in the wind like Balinese shadow puppets behind a screen, moving to gamelan music.
She had gotten a call from Ron yesterday morning. He was taking Claire's ashes back to Connecticut, and offered to pay for Astrid's ticket if she wanted to come with him. She didn’t want to see Claire delivered back to her family, more people who didn’t know her. She couldn’t stand around like a stranger through the eulogy. Claire kissed me on the lips, she would have told them.
“You didn’t know her at all,” Astrid told Ron. She didn’t want to be cremated, she wanted to be buried with her pearls in her mouth, a jewel over each eye. Ron never knew what she wanted, he always thought he knew best. You were supposed to watch her. He knew she was suicidal when he took Astrid in. That’s why she was hired. She was the suicide watch. Not the replacement baby after all.
The pine shadows moved across her blanket, the wall behind her. People were just like that. They couldn’t even see each other, just the shadows moving, pushed by unseen winds. What difference did it make if Astrid was here or somewhere else? She couldn’t keep her alive.
A girl out in the hall groaned. One of Astrid's roommates turned over, mumbled into her blanket. All the bad dreams. This was exactly where she belonged. For once she didn’t feel out of place. Even with her mother, she was always holding her breath, waiting for something to happen, for her not to come home, for some disaster. Ron never should have trusted her with Claire. She should have gotten a little kid, someone to stay alive for. She should have realized Astrid was a bad luck person, she should never have thought she was someone to count on. Astrid was more like Ingrid than she'd ever believed. And even that thought didn’t frighten her anymore.
But Astrid had been wrong. The worst, it turned out, was still yet to come. Because, in the morning, a caseworker would come and lead her out of the room, under the jealous dagger stares of the other girl, and load her in to a van, always a van, to drive her out to the storage unit to get her things. They had a new placement for her already. Well, no. It was an old one.
"I can't go back there," she told them, staring in the rear view mirror as she pressed back against her seat.
"Oh," said the case worker, smiling back in that rectangular mirror, "don't worry about that, sweetheart, all the costs have been completely covered."
Ron. Obviously. Or his guilt.
But that wasn't what Astrid meant at all.
[[ THOUGHT I WAS DONE WITH IT, DID YOU? First part from Chapter 22 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch, and the last little bit's all me, natch. Standard terms and conditions apply! ]]