Life Will Have Its Way Read Free Page B

there? Alone? All by herself?” she asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “Did you call the police?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Does anyone know she’s here?”
    “No. I don’t think so.”
    Anja turned and hurried toward the windows, she drew together the curtains in the living room then rushed to the kitchen to try to see what she could do to cover the window over the sink.
    “No one must know she is here,” she looked at me intently.
    “Okay, okay.”
    “Now tell me again where you said she came from?”
    “I didn’t say where she came from… I don’t know where she came from.”
    “What do you mean you don’t know where she came from?” Anja asked. 
    “She was just sitting there in the garden when I walked up, it’s not like I saw someone drop her off or anything.”
    Anja produced an exaggerated moan as she scratched the back of her head. “We’re going to need a lot more than that.”
    “Well, she did tell me that she came here with her grandmother,” I added quickly.
    “Then where is she? Where is this grandmother?”
    “I don’t know. She said her grandma always leaves her and then comes back for her later.”
    “Well then… obviously something has happened to the grandmother.”
    “Maybe I should check the hospital and see if there’s anyone there with her grandmother’s name.”
    Anja grabbed me by the shoulders, “No!” she said sternly. “You must not contact the hospital!”  
    I was taken aback, I pulled away, “Then what am I supposed to do with…” I stopped short and looked toward the girl.
    “Have you asked her where she lives?”
    “She wouldn’t even tell me her name. The only useful thing I could get out of her was that she didn’t live anywhere close by.”
    “Did she take a bus? The subway? Was she brought here in a car?” Anja asked impatiently.
    “No. She said she walked.”
    Anja threw her hands in the air, “Well then, it must not be that far away.”
    I didn’t know what to say.
    “Are you absolutely sure no one saw you bring her in?”
    “I don’t think anyone saw us. It was getting late by then, there was no one outside and there was no one in the hallway or anything, so yeah, I’m pretty sure… I guess.”
    “You guess? You guess? Well. I hope you’re right.” Anja said brusquely. “Do you have any idea what will happen if anyone finds out she’s here?” She didn’t wait for my response and seemed more than willing to answer her own question. “The police will come and take her away, and depending on the mood they’re in they might take us away with her.”
    Anja was convinced there would be little effort made to find the girl’s family, instead she would be placed in the state run orphanage where she would surely be left and forgotten. To further her point, Anja went on to graphically detail the miserable life of an orphan, the cruelty, the filth, the hunger, the lack of privacy and the complete absence of motherly love. Anja was quite confident in what she was saying and I soon realized it was going to be entirely up to us to get the girl back to wherever she’d come from.
    Up until then I hadn’t felt too stressed about the unusual situation in which we’d landed ourselves. As a matter of fact, I’d found it all quite entertaining, but once Anja started talking about cruel, filthy orphanages I began to feel incredibly worried about what we would actually do with the girl if no one came for her. Anja instantly picked up on my anxiety and I could tell by the bothered look on her face that she wasn’t amused. In her opinion, fear and worry were useless emotions, emotions she could barely understand and seemed to have difficulty even tolerating. “Oh stop it!” she would say dismissively, as if one could wave a wand and make any feelings of worry just magically go away.

Chapter 3
    Since I needed to leave early for work, Anja decided she would take the girl home with her. I would have preferred that they’d just spent the night in my