Collisions 3: going home

I was walking across the office and I glanced at the clipboard where the staff keep track of the meals and snacks given out. I ran my eye down the numbers, 2, 2, 2, 1, silently adding and thinking about inventory. My attention got jolted back to the list when I got to 4,4 and I looked over at the names to see who was eating such an unusual amount. When I saw the names, my heart sank because it was a dead giveaway that the two girls who were supposed to be safely if unhappily placed, were not safe at all. When they sat down, the story came tumbling out. They had both headed over to AFC, and were settled at the drop-in for the night, when the staff mentioned that they had to call ACS, who would come in the morning. Freaked out, they left and spent the night on the subway. The next day, D., 15, called her mother and spent an hour begging her to let them come. She gave them one night, put them out in the morning, and now here they were, starving and uncertain. Even as I sat there, exploring - and dismissing - options with them, a movie was playing in my mind. As I tried to focus at my desk, I was watching my 15 yr old self getting off the train at smith and 9th, making my way down those endless stairs with waves of fear washing up from my stomach and breaking in my throat. Out of options, so hungry I could barely think, I was going home. I walked the two blocks to the polished wooden door. Banished, I had no keys, so I rang the bell. My mother came to the door, opened it, saw me, and closed it again. Defeated and too tired to keep running, I sat down on the gritty sidewalk and watched the random trash tumble down the block in gusts of wind. Across the street was the vacant lot where i spent a childhood summer taming a feral kitten until I could bring him in. Mischa, a russian blue, my comforter, my cat among all the cats in that house, was on the other side of the door, a universe away. And then the door opened. I was invited in, given a bowl of pasta, surrounded by purrs. For just one night. In the morning,the world would shatter again. The police would be called to take me back. Shouts outside the window, squee-gee guys arguing on the street below sent the movie spinning back into the darkness of the past and I landed back in my office so hard I was surprised nobody heard the thud. I opened the drawer, wrote down their names, handed them each a metrocard and called in the next client.