Mary Kelly wasn’t in school today. I can’t help but think her absence might have something to do with what happened on Saturday. Sunday, when I answered the phone, I was disappointed that it was Dr. Johnson who called to check on Frank, not Mrs. Johnson. Maybe she thinks we’re too kaduka for her smart haole family. Maybe she’s right.

Do Not Enter

After school Monday, Auntie Bernadette drives us to the hospital. She says she’ll visit Frank on the patients’ wing while Olivia and I visit the counselor. But the nurse at the desk says Frank can’t have a visitor yet.

“Not even his favorite auntie?” Auntie Bernadette asks.

“Sorry,” the nurse says, but she doesn’t even look up from her computer.

“When may I see him?”

“The doctor will let you know.”

I study the huge gray double doors that say VISITORS MUST CHECK IN AT THE DESK BEFORE ENTERING.

Five minutes later a Filipino lady dressed in floral scrubs walks through another door. “Olivia Moreno.”

Auntie and I both stand to go with her. The lady smiles. “Sorry, you’ll need to wait here. Don’t worry, she’ll be okay.”

I grit my teeth. What right do these strangers have to build boundaries around my sister and brother?

Olivia takes the woman’s hand and goes with her without as much as a glimpse back. It bothers me that my sister lets people in her life as easily as a key slips through a keyhole.

Walk This Way

Olivia returns thirty minutes later, smiling, with a pack of chewing gum. “I drew pictures,” she says, smacking her gum.

“Isabel,” the lady says. “Please follow me.”

With each step down the long white hall the words sound off in my head. I knew. I knew. I knew.

Introductions

The counselor is not the Filipino lady. The counselor is a fat Chamorro man. At his desk, he’s eating the last bite of a hamburger. Wiping off his mouth with a napkin, he motions me in, stands, and holds out his hand. “I’m Eduardo Gurrero. Just call me, Ed, though.”

I take his hand, then quickly release it.

“Sorry about the mess,” he says, wadding up his McDonald’s sack and throwing it into the garbage. “That was a late lunch. I have to squeeze my meals in between sessions.”

His office is a mess. There are supersized McDonald’s cups around the room, five that I’ve counted so far. Books are crammed on shelves and stacked in towers on his floor. Animal puppets lie in a pile on his chair. An old poster I’ve seen in movies is tacked to the wall. It’s the one with the pretty lady wearing the red bathing suit, but someone has made a muumuu for her, covering almost everything from the neck down.

“Isabel, I guess you were in school today?”

I’m wearing my uniform, but I politely say, “Yes.”

“Where do you attend school?”

“St. Cletus.” I glance down to make sure I’m wearing the white blouse embroidered with my school’s name.