In a way I was sorry I had gotten well. My healing, my return to a normal life, meant I was ready to be discharged. I had come to live for Flora's visits and talks. Now the prospect that I would never see her again was a blow that almost drove me back to catatonia. I had gone from clinging to one skirt to clinging to another. Whom would I cling to now? Who would be there for me? The outside world was truly outer space to me. I would surely dangle or float aimlessly.
Flora knew my fears. "It's time you got on with your life, Celeste," she told me one morning in her office. "You have nothing to be afraid of anymore. You're a very, very bright little girl, and I'm sure you're going to be successful at whatever you want to do later."
"Am I going back to the farm?" I asked her.
"No, not yet. Not for a long time," she said.
She rose from her chair and looked out the window in silence for so long, I thought she was deciding whether or not to take me home with her. In my secret heart of hearts, where I dared treasure hopes and dreams, that was my most precious. If she had done so, how different my life would have been, I often now thought.
She turned and smiled at me, but
I saw the disappointing answer in her eyes, in the film of sadness that had been drawn over them. This was the beginning of a good-bye that would last forever. Someday her face would drift back into my sea of memories, gradually sinking deeper and deeper until it would never again surface.
"First, you are going to a place where you will live with other little girls much like yourself," she explained. "It's a home managed by a nice couple, the Mastersons. You will finally go to a real school, too, and on a school bus.
"But you're too precious a child to be left there long, I'm sure," she continued, walking to me to brush strands of my hair off my forehead. "Some nice couple will quickly take you into their hearts and their home."
I was holding my breath. I really wanted to scream or close my eyes and never open them.
"I'll always inquire after you to be sure you're doing all right, Celeste," she said.
I looked up at her so sharply, she froze.
"No, you won't," I said.
"I will. I promise." She smiled at me, but she smiled at some of the other children the same way, and some of them were gone and forgotten.
I looked away, and I remember the color gray, the color of steel suddenly raining down around me. Although I was too young then to put my feelings into proper words, I vowed never again to get too close to anyone, except my spirits, my precious, loving spirits.
The people who came to the clinic to take me to that first orphanage, a man and a woman with black hair streaked with gray, reminded me of those who had come to the farm that dreadful day. These people looked bored and annoyed that they had been given the task. Even before she introduced herself, the woman petulantly asked, "Did you go to the bathroom? We have a long drive ahead of us, and we don't have time to look for places to stop."
I nodded, and the man took my small suitcase. Flora wasn't there. I thought she wasn't even going to utter her good-bye and repeat her promises to me before I left, but when we reached the doorway of the clinic, I heard her shout, "Just a minute!" and then I heard the tap, tap, tap of her high-heeled shoes over the tiled floor. Dressed in her doctor's robe, which she rarely wore when she was with me, she hurried down a corridor toward us, the robe snapping under her swinging arms. One of her assistants, a young woman with curly blond hair and large blue eyes that made her look habitually surprised, was practically running to keep up.
"Do you have everything?" she asked the social worker, who had quickly introduced herself as Mrs. Stormfield. "The prescriptions are very important."
"Yes, yes. It's all here," the social worker said, showing her the briefcase she carried.
"Okay. Good luck to you, Celeste. I will inquire after you. I will," she stressed.
I looked down.
She squatted to look into my eyes and gently lift my chin so I would have to look into her face.
"You have to be strong," she said, almost in a whisper. "You have to get through it. You won't be alone, I'm sure."
That brought a smile to my face, but it wasn't a smile that made her comfortable. I could see that. My smile was too cold. It made my face years older.
"I know," I said. "I'll never be alone."
Suddenly she looked very worried. She looked as if she was considering keeping me.
Mrs. Stormfield cleared her throat and tapped her foot in impatience.
Flora looked up at her.
"We have a long ride," Mrs. Stormfield said. "It's best we get started immediately."
Flora blinked, thought, and then shook her head.