Placement
Madison's social worker dropped her at the courthouse at 9 AM and said wait here.
It was 4 PM. Then it was Thursday. Then it was next Thursday.
She slept sitting up against the building. Security walked past at 11, 3, and 5. Didn't say anything. She was eight. Small.
Mrs. Patterson's house got foreclosed. The sheriff gave them twenty minutes. Madison knew what to take—garbage bag for clothes, backpack for everything else. Seven foster homes, you learned.
Day three a man sat on her bench. Black, old, paint on his hands.
"This taken?"
She moved her bag.
"Gene," he said.
"Madison."
They sat. She folded paper from the recycling bin. Made birds. One wing was always bigger.
Day five a woman showed up. Skinny. Picking at her arms.
"Can I sit?"
Madison moved over.
The woman was Sarah. Shaking. Madison had nail polish in her bag. Glow in the dark kind from behind the beauty shop dumpster. Painted one of Sarah's nails.
"Why?" Sarah asked.
Madison shrugged. Painted another one.
A cop started coming. Off duty. His daughter was in foster care in Pennsylvania. He brought sandwiches sometimes. Madison painted a dot on his boot with the nail polish.
"So I know it's you," she said.
More people came. Not together. Just the same bench. Housing court, then sitting. Bankruptcy, then sitting.
Madison painted their nails if they wanted. One dot each. The bottle lasted two weeks.
Someone called the news. They came with cameras.
"How long have you been here?" they asked Madison.
"What day is it?"
"Tuesday."
"Thirteen days."
"Where are your parents?"
She didn't answer. The camera was too close.
Gene built a wind break from cardboard. The city tore it down. He built another one.
Sarah got a job. Walmart, nights. Still sat with them during the day.
"I could get a room. You could—"
"You're not licensed," Madison said.
"Fuck that."
"Yeah."
December 15th the social worker called Gene's phone. Madison had given his number.
"Found placement. Group home. Akron."
Van came in an hour. Madison packed. She had an urn she'd found in the courthouse bathroom. Ashes or cigarette butts, couldn't tell. Kept it anyway.
"We'll visit," Gene said.
Madison knew they wouldn't. People never did.
The group home smelled like Pine-Sol. Thirty kids. Different staff every shift. Madison stopped folding paper. They said it was wasteful. Stopped talking. They said she was oppositional.
Six months, another placement. Then another. Then eighteen, aged out.
Got a job at Target. Register 6.
One time someone returned glow-in-the-dark nail polish. Damaged.
She threw it in the bin.
