Preview of "Adopted and Restored"

Almost all of my memories of Charles are in the dark: standing backstage during our Theater Tech class, leaving Marksmanship class after sunset, meeting me at the train station, walking back to the dorm from the campus movie, walking around town discussing what we would do if I were pregnant.

That night, after Paul broke up with me, Charles met me on the train platform coming back to school after Spring Break. How did he know? I never asked, but was there something insidious telling him that now was the opportune moment? That I was at my most vulnerable? It was so dark, as I stepped down from the train, that I could hardly see him. He was just a shape in the blackness surrounded by other shapes drifting around the open train platform, waiting or descending from the humming monster that went from Chicago to the country hinterlands and back again. I had stepped down from the train depressed by the walk to come down the shadowed street, dragging my heavy suitcase, having nothing to look forward to and nothing to look back for. I would never go back home to Chicago again – my father had gotten transferred to Florida. Chicago, my dear city, my home, my lake, the air I breathed, the secret ways through the buildings and under the streets, were cut off for me. Everything was behind me and ahead of me my walk to the college was only darkness, literally and figuratively. And who should be waiting on the train platform in the dark, but Charles. How did he know? How could he know to be there? He was just there, because the train vibrated so loudly I could barely hear him.

“Charles! Are you meeting someone?”

“Yes. You.”

Humpty Dumpty

The good girlfriend

Gets taken to the doctor

By a girlfriend who knows better.

“You are pregnant.

How do you feel about that?”

“I don't know.”

Friend who knows better takes her to the mall.

“Look at the pictures in this book.

Real babies.

Aren't they great?”

A hole I have fallen into

With nothing to keep me company.

No more the good girl.

And what do I do with that?

Who will put me back together again?