Tin Lily Read Free Page A

anything.
    “The friends are incorrect? About your father’s alcoholism?”
    Shake.
    “Was he drunk last night?”
    Nod.
    Officer Archie thinks on this awhile, then leans back and says, “Do you have any other family in Utah?”
    Shake.
    “Any other family at all?”
    Nod.
    “Someone who would come if we called?”
    Nod.
    “I’ll need his or her name, kiddo.” Officer Archie flips his notebook to another fresh page, clips his pen to it, hands it over.
    I write down “Margie Hadden,” but I don’t know her phone number. I write down “Seattle,” but I don’t know her address. I write down “aunt,” but I barely know her at all.
    “We’ll find her,” Officer Archie says. “It might take a little time if she’s unlisted.”
    Nod.
    “We have a foster home lined up in the meantime. A social worker’ll be by a little later, let you meet Mack and Darcy. Sound good?”
    I don’t feel anything inside, so I don’t nod or shake or speak.
    I count.
    10,953.
     

 
Four
     
    “Lily, this is Mack and Darcy Langhorn.” Officer Archie stretches an arm toward two people standing behind him. With the flat light of his eyes, with the straight set of his mouth, with the deep crease of his brow, Mack reminds me of Hank after his light went out. After he went to work for Grandpa Henry. After he decided drinking was better than painting and sculpting. Darcy doesn’t remind me of anyone.
    “Hello, Lily,” Darcy Langhorn says. “It’s sure nice to meet ya and we’re sure sorry ‘bout what happened to your mama.”
    Nod.
    “Don’t she talk?”
    A hospital social worker—magazine-reading lady—stands at my side and touches her cold fingertips to my arm. “She’s still in shock.”
    “She gonna snap out of it?” Mack-Hank asks.
    “It’s been a day,” Officer Archie says. His voice holds a warning.
    But Officer Archie’s wrong. It’s been twenty-three hours and nineteen minutes. Forty-one minutes shy of a day. I don’t say this.
    “Lily, Mack and Darcy are foster parents who own a sheep and cattle ranch down by Kanab. They’re ready to take you in until we can find your aunt.”
    You don’t keep sheep and cattle for pets. You keep sheep and cattle for killing. Mack-Hank and Darcy’s place, it’s a million times worse than the zoo.
    When I look at the Langhorns and the way their eyes watch me without understanding, I think there’s more in me than silence. “Please find my aunt.”
    The social worker flinches and Officer Archie nods.
    “Why’s she sound like that?” Mack-Hank asks.
    “Shock,” Officer Archie says.
     

 
Five
     
    I’m to go with Mack and Darcy—temporarily, Officer Archie says. Just until he can find Aunt Margie. I want to stay in the dog food house where we were happy for a little while, where Mom’s pictures are still on the walls, where Tiananmen Square still needs reading. But I can’t stay. I have no choice.
    It’s my last few minutes at the hospital and I’m counting the words in a magazine article when Aunt Margie walks into my room. She’s wearing a pink T-shirt that says “Metallurgists Rock!” I think this is maybe meant to be funny—a pun or something. Margie’s small, smaller than me, pretty too, even with red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes. Her dark hair is short now—pixie cut. She looks nothing like Hank even though she’s his sister. Margie Hadden. She has a different last name because she got married and then divorced and then didn’t change it back.
    “Lilybeans?” She gets to me, wraps her arms around me, pulls me against her. Her skin is warm from the early summer sun. “Oh god,” she says. “Oh god, how could this happen?”
    I’m dead weight, but she holds me anyway. Margie’s stronger than she looks. I can’t breathe too well, but it’s okay. I don’t mind Margie squeezing me so hard I can’t talk. Her being here means I don’t have to go with Mack-Hank and Darcy after all. I stare over her shoulder and see Officer Archie standing in