“For now, until we sort this out with your mother, we’ve found a relative with whom we can place you. A judge expedited the orders this morning. You were lucky. It can take up to a month in foster care before we would even get a hearing.”

“Not my grandparents?” I say from under the sheet. Even though I know the answer. Mom hasn’t spoken to them since I was born.

“Not your grandparents. It’s your mom’s sister, your aunt Ginger, and her husband.”

“But…” I lift my head up. Aunt Ginger. I barely remember her. She’s just a freckled face in a grassy field under a summer sky. I haven’t seen her in years. I don’t even know where she lives.

Maria answers my unspoken question. “They’re awaiting our arrival tomorrow night in Nashville.”

“Why?”

“Why what?” Maria asks.

“Why’d the judge ‘expedite’ the order?” Maybe foster care wouldn’t have been so bad. At least I could have been in the same state as Mom.

“Lou,” Maria says, and something about her gentler tone makes my stomach drop. “Your mother requested it.”

My mother. My mother is sending me away.

I cover my head and howl again, but only on the inside.

4 Leaving on a Jet Plane

It’s Friday. I stand in the hospital’s tiny bathroom. There’s a shower with a handicap bar, and the toilet has a red emergency cord dangling above it.

PULL IF YOU NEED ASSISTANCE.

I wonder what kind of assistance they mean. If I pull it, will someone get my mom? Get our truck? Get our life back? No one asked me what I wanted. I lock the door and consider never coming out.

It’s been a good while since I looked at myself properly. I turn toward the mirror and take a deep breath and meet my own eyes. I am a ghost. I am the thing you imagine at your window at night. There are dark circles under my eyes, almost like pits, and I can’t tell if that’s because of the wreck or not sleeping or maybe this is how I always look. The bump on the left side of my head is a nasty knot, purple in the middle and yellow at the edges like a rotten sunflower.

One corner of my lip has split. There’s a little dried blood there. And my hair needs washing. It usually does. It’s stringy. The last time I had a decent shampoo was last Monday before the show at Joe’s. Mom wanted me to look nice for “potential investors.” We used the campsite showers, which are really just a box of stalls near the port-o-johns. I scratch at my head. The shower behind me is small, but beautifully clean. There’s no mold in the corners or someone else’s hair clogging the drain. It calls to me.