“It’s a big jail,” Zac observed, taking his thumb out of his mouth for a moment. He promptly slid it back in, the familiar feeling of wrinkly skin comforting against the roof of his mouth. It was just about all that was familiar. This was a strange car, a strange man and a strange place. And his brothers were gone, but Zac knew they’d be coming back soon. They’d never really leave, right?
Actually, Zac wasn’t too sure about that. People left all the time. Mommy, especially. And that sister on the Cosby show was almost never home. And Dan and Nora were gone now, too.
Zac hadn’t really thought they would go away, but they did. So maybe Ike and Taylor could go away, too.
Where would they go? Zac had pondered this for awhile, while he and Mr. Jordan were driving. Probably Taylor went to be with Ike, he decided. And Ike was probably gone away forever. So now, Zac would never see them again.
He didn’t know how he felt about that. He would miss them, but he never thought they’d stick around, because nobody ever did. So he guessed he might be ready for it.
But Ike had promised. And Tay had promised. And Zac had promised, too. In bed one night. Mommy was gone. Taylor started crying.
“Shut up,” Ike had said. “It’s not like she’s going to hear you and come back.”
“It isn’t Mommy!” Taylor wailed. “I just don’t want you guys to go away.” (Which was typical Taylor for you, working himself into a frenzy over something that hadn’t happened yet.)
Zac still remembered the sound of Isaac’s voice that night. It was too quiet, scared even. “What makes you think we’re going to go away?”
“Because Mommy does!” Taylor squirmed underneath the blanket and pounded the mattress with one fist. “Because Mommy went away, and Daddy went away, and I don’t even remember him, and it’s not fair and everybody’s gone!”
“I’m not gone,” Zac had pointed out. “I’m right here. In this bed.”
“Me, too,” Isaac agreed. “And I won’t go away.”
Taylor’s eyes had widened. “You’re never going to get out of bed?”
“No!” Isaac shook his head. “I’ll never leave, like Mom does.”
“Mommy leaves,” Zac murmured then, aloud. Sometimes he had to say it to himself, in order to remember why she wasn’t always around. “She goes away.”
“Do you promise?” Taylor asked Isaac.
“I promise,” Isaac told him.
Taylor turned to Zac. “Do you promise?”
“I promise too,” Zac assured him. “Me, too. I’m promising!”
“How about you?” Isaac asked Taylor.
“What?” Taylor asked, oblivious.
“What if you leave?” Isaac asked. “You didn’t promise.”
Taylor rolled his eyes. “Ike, you guys already know,” he said. “I wouldn’t go anywhere.”
I broke my promise, Zac thought. They’re gone because I didn’t do what I said I would do, and they left. And it’s my fault.
Just like Ike, he thought. Ike was gone because Zac hadn’t stopped the knife. He hadn’t had any weapons with him to hit Mommy and stop her. And Taylor was mad, and he was leaving now. And nobody liked Zac anymore, so they were all gone now.
That’s why they’re gone, Zac thought. Me. He folded his hands between his knees and studied the gritty carpet that covered the floor of the car. It was what I did.
And that was when they came to the place that was big. It had big windows, with bars across them. It had a big door. There was a fence with barbed wire around the top of it. Jail, Zac thought. He was so bad that he was going to jail. They would lock him up and throw away the key.
“I’ll be good,” Zac said to Mr. Jordan.
“That’s good to hear,” Mr. Jordan told him.
“No... I’ll be really good,” Zac promised. “Really, really, really good.”
“You’ll be out of here in a day or two,” Mr. Jordan promised. “Not so long, kiddo.”
Zac stuck his thumb back into his mouth. You had to be the most awfullest four year old in the world, if they were putting you in jail. He must be the most awfullest four year old in the world. No wonder everybody kept leaving him.
The building they had pulled up in front of actually was a jail; a juvenile delinquent detention center that was used by social services as a temporary children's’ shelter when a foster home couldn’t be located right away. Trevorford wasn’t anybody’s idea of the appropriate place to put a four year old without anybody to stay with, but it was the only currently viable option. Nobody explained to Zac that he wasn’t going to jail, because nobody thought that he’d think that was where he was going.
Trevorford, however, looked even more like a jail on the inside than it did on thee outside. The building had never been intended for any other use besides a juvenile correction facility, and it was considered too expensive to renovate the part of the building used for foster children. The cement floor and latex painted walls were as empty and cheerless as those in any other section of Trevorford. Instead of rooms, occupants slept in cells.
In fact, this part of the building was often used to house juvenile offenders when there wasn’t enough room in the cellblocks. As he followed Mr. Jordan to the front desk, Zac could see a tall, husky boy in flip flops and a blaze orange jumpsuit being led down the hall by a uniformed officer. The boy’s feet were shackled together with a chain, his wrists pinned together behind his back.
Zac shivered. Nobody liked him anymore. Nobody wanted him around. That was why he was in jail.
The lady at the front desk raised her eyes from the Harlequin Romance she held in front of her and peered at Zac over wire rimmed glasses. She scowled at Mr. Jordan. “You brought me a baby.”
This is it, Zac thought. They don’t even want me in jail now. They’ll probably kill me in the electric chair.
“I had no other choice. . .” Mr. Jordan pleaded.
The lady stood up. “He should not be here,” she said. “This is a juvenile correction facility. This is a place for kids who commit crimes, Mr. Jordan. It is not a place for babies.”
Mr. Jordan squirmed uncomfortably as the lady made her way around the desk and took Zac’s hand in hers. “I’m Charlene,” she said to Zac, and cast a reproachful look at Mr. Jordan. “Don’t worry. You’re going to stay right here with me.”
Gradually it was dawning on Zac that nobody was planning to kill him. Instead, Charlene lifted a small box of raisins out of a bag on the top of her desk and opened it for him before she turned to begin filling out paperwork. Zac put a raisin in his mouth and tried not to look at Mr. Jordan. He was scared of Mr. Jordan. Mr. Jordan took everybody away.