The Juice Carton Girls
By Jim Chapman
“Nine One One,” Grace answered and tried to focus on the person who would be speaking
on the other end of the line. Since Hurricane Katrina had begun moving onshore, the calls to the
St. Bernard Parish emergency center, in the middle of Katrina’s path through coastal Louisiana,
had come nonstop. For the last five hours, as soon as she hit the disconnect button, her headset
rang again. Grace glanced at the wall clock; her replacement was already an hour overdue and
she knew, with a sickening feeling, that she would have no relief any time soon.
“Hep me!” a woman’s voice pleaded from the headset.
Grace could tell that the caller was on the verge of panic. “What is your address?”
“I’m in da attic!” the voice said.
“What’s your address?” Grace repeated as her training took over. “We have to know that
first in case I lose you.”
“You gots tu send a boat an’ git us!”
“Please ma’am. What’s your address?”
“We’s at 211 Washington Drive. I gots thirteen chirren with me in dis attic! Das five more
folks up tu their necks in water in thu kitchen. You gots ta come an’ git us!”
Grace clinched the edge of her desk. I’ve taken calls all shift long, but nothing like this, she
thought. What can I do? “Do you have anything up there to break through the roof with?” she
asked.
“No, we ain’t got nothing, an’ thu folks in thu kitchen is standin’ on cheers now. Oh God!
Please send a boat!”
The winds have passed 90 miles per hour. We’ve got boats but we can’t send anything out right
now. Grace struggled to control her voice. “We’ll get to you as soon as…” Grace heard the
woman’s voice fade and static rise on the line; then it went dead. The cell tower must have finally
blown over. Grace swallowed hard and clinched her fists, trying to force her body to stop
trembling. She looked down and made her finger press the disconnect button—severing the
woman’s last chance for help.
Her headset immediately rang again.
Grace stood beside John, clinching her teeth and straining every muscle to help hold a
mattress against the door as they tried to keep out the screaming winds and torrential rain. Cold
water lapped at her waist and inched higher. “Hep me!” a voice screeched into her headset. “Oh
God! Please hep me!”
“Noo!” Grace screamed, jerked the headset off and threw it against the far wall. It
thunked into the sheetrock and splashed down into the rising water. Grace watched in horror as it
bobbed toward her, with the voice still calling from it. “Get away from me!” Grace screamed as
she flatted herself against the wall.
New sensations assaulted her. How can the storm shake the house so? The dream faded
and Grace became aware that someone was shaking her instead. Why are my hands so numb? Why
does my neck hurt? Grace forced her eyelids open and saw the answers. I’m sleeping at my
dispatching desk. Grace pulled the now-dead headset off. “Oooh,” she groaned. “I’m so stiff,” she
winced as she pushed herself upright. She had been up for well over twenty-four hours earlier, first
frantically preparing her house for the coming storm and then working a double shift on the
phones. She blinked at the figure standing over her. “Yes.”
“Sounds like you were having a bad dream and needed to wake up,” the deputy said as he
leaned down. “The wind’s stopped and the sun’s come up.” He handed her a cup of steaming
coffee. “Thank goodness for generators,” he said. Grace nodded and began to sip the brew. “We
need volunteers to go out with the boats. Since the power’s still off and the phone lines into here
are all down, maybe you want to go.”
Grace scrambled to her feet and grabbed the deputy’s arm as ‘the voice’ replayed in her
head. “I’ll go and work as long as you need me, but I have to pick the first destination.”
“Fine,” the deputy said and handed her a life jacket. “Where to?”
“211 Washington Drive.”
Grace leaned forward on the bow and stared ahead as the boat crept past bare house rafters
just showing above the water’s surface and veered around storm-snapped telephone poles sticking
up out of the oily slick. Without warning the hull shuddered and the scream of scraping metal
filled the air; Grace gasped and gripped the sides of the boat. “Those are probably cars down
there,” the deputy said. “We’re over a street right now.” He reached back and killed the
outboard. “Let’s listen; maybe we can hear somebody that needs help. Hellooo,” he called. Grace
held her breath in the unearthly stillness that followed. Nothing moved and no living thing made a
sound; even the water that usually slapped against the side of the boat fell silent. She scanned the
desolation and finally turned to meet the deputy’s eyes. At last, he shrugged. “Let’s go,” he said
and pulled the starter cord. For once Grace was thankful for the growl of the motor.
In the distance, a white object bobbed in the dark sheen of oil. Grace stared, unable to look
away as they drew closer. The object had curly black hair; one hand lay open at the surface. A
band of oil crept up out of the dark water and into the white T-shirt. Grace clamped both hands
over her mouth, determined not to desecrate the stillness with her screams. “I’ll call this in later,”
the deputy said as he eyed his helper. “Right now we’re here to rescue the living.” He opened the
throttle and they sped away.
Finally the boat slowed at a single street sign sticking a few inches above the surge-driven
water; it read Washington Drive. Grace’s breathing came in strained gasps as she stared around
her; water stretched for blocks with no houses in sight! “They’re gone!” she whispered as the tears
came. “They’re all gone.” Grace began to shake and curled into a ball in the bottom of the boat,
oblivious to the cold water that sloshed against her.
When the boat returned, empty of survivors, and Grace was helped back into the chaos of
the office, another deputy held up a cell phone for her. “It’s your husband.”
Grace shrank back from the phone with the same horror she had felt when she stared at the
body. “Nooo!” she cried and shook her head as she ran from the room. She knew she would never
again be able to even listen to a phone, much less speak into one or dial it.
As Grace tossed and turned in her sleep, she stared in horror as her headset floated in front
of her face. Hep me! the voice from it pleaded into the darkness surrounding them. I gots thirteen
chirren with me in dis attic! You gots ta come an’ git us!
I can’t help you! Grace screamed at the headset. There’s nothing I can do! Can’t you see
that!
Hep me! the headset screeched again. Oh God! Please hep me!
Grace curled into a ball and wanted to disappear. I’m sorry, she pleaded. But I can’t….
Hep me! the voice cried over and over as Grace clamped both hands over her ears tying in
vain to shut out the desperate calls.
“Ahhh!” Grace gasped and jerked awake from her nightmare to grip her husband. They
were trying to sleep on a camping air mattress on a screened-in side porch. Charlotte, Grace’s
aunt, had offered them shelter further inland, after almost their entire parish had been destroyed;
the house was packed with people sleeping on every available flat spot.
“It’s all right, honey,” her husband said. “You’re just in a strange place. Go back to
sleep.”
“Hold me, John,” Grace said. “And don’t ever let go!”
“I’m here, darling,” John whispered, trying not to wake an elderly woman who was sleeping
on a row of couch cushions a few feet away. “I’ll always be here for you. Now go back to sleep.”
Grace clung to John and closed her eyes again.
Half an hour later, she screamed and pushed upright again. John held her while she
trembled. “It’s her again! She won’t go away!” Grace clinched her hands while tears ran down
her face. “I had a chance to help her during the storm but I…I….”
John ran his hand slowly up and down her back. “There wasn’t anything you could have
done then. We’ve talked about that over and over.”
“I know that but she won’t listen—and she won’t stop!” Grace wiped her eyes and sighed.
“And I sure can’t do anything for her now.”
The next morning, John asked Charlotte if she knew where he could get some sleeping pills.
“I’ve got most of a bottle left over,” the aunt said. “After what I overheard last night, Gracie
really needs them.” That day, John brought Grace out to help carry off tree limbs as he chainsawed them up. As they worked, they watched the neighbors struggle with children from coastal
areas who were upset at losing everything and terrified when a thunderstorm came through that
afternoon. “For once I’m glad we can’t have children,” John told her. “That keeps life so much
simpler.”
“I agree,” Grace said. “This storm has really torn up their worlds.”
That night, Grace took a sleeping pill, smiled at John and curled up against him. As she
began to snore, John relaxed. Suddenly Grace moaned and gasped. John shook her but she didn’t
wake up. He watched in horror as she whimpered and sobbed. John slapped her gently on the
face and wiped her head with a damp cloth. Finally after several minutes, Grace opened her eyes.
At first she stared blankly about; then she focused on John and grabbed him. “Oh God!” Grace
screamed. “She was there calling to me from that headset again; it was horrible! I can’t ever take
those pills again and I can’t bear to sleep anymore—ever.”
The following days, Grace did everything she could to avoid sleep. She drank endless cups
of coffee until she shook, blasted rock music on the radio and finally staggered in circles around
the porch. John felt he had to help with the neighborhood cleanup and worried that he couldn’t
watch her every minute. “Go on,” Charlotte said. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”
“We have to do something right now,” the aunt said when John came in for lunch on the
third day of cleanup to find her sitting on the floor cradling Grace. His wife lay, collapsed in a
partially awake state, crying and screaming about the ‘voice’. “Watch her while I make some
calls,” Charlotte said.
Charlotte returned later with her purse and car keys. “My cousin in Baton Rouge tells me
that she knows of an open emergency clinic near her. I reckon I have enough gas to get us there.”
She helped John lift Grace off the floor. “We’ll worry about finding enough to get back on later.”
After an exhausting five-hour drive over forty-five miles of jammed roads, John and
Charlotte half-carried, half-dragged Grace into the crowded emergency clinic. Charlotte sat on
the floor, with Grace slumped against her while John waited in line.
“Your wife seems to have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and needs to see a mental-health
counselor,” the nurse said as she read over the forms John had finished filling out. “We’ve seen
lots of cases of this. They can probably see her tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow!” John gasped. “We can’t get back home until midnight and then we’d have to
turn right around and start back to be here when they open.”
“I’m sorry but that’s the best we can do.” The nurse leaned forward in her stained white
coat and took John’s hand. “You can get supper and breakfast at the Baptist mission tent down
the street. It’s not gourmet but it’s hot and filling. Lots of us eat there during our breaks.”
“And tonight?” John asked.
The nurse sighed and rose to admit the next patient. “If you want to be there when the
clinic opens and be sure they can see her, you’ll just have to sleep in your car in the Baptist
parking lot. At least you’ll be safe there; they have armed security.”
Charlotte chuckled as she helped carry Grace back out. “What’s so funny?” John asked.
Charlotte blushed as she opened the car door. “The last time I slept in a car was on spring
break in Pass Christian, back in the 60’s. By the time he and I finally finished…uh… I didn’t need
a sleeping pill.”
“Please come in,” the counselor said to Grace. “My name is Ruth. Your husband has told
me about your symptoms. Can you tell me exactly what happened?” Ruth listened, nodding in
sympathy, as Grace stumbled through her story, clutching her husband’s hand and pausing every
few sentences to sob.
When Grace finished, Ruth turned to John. “Were you ever in the service? Did you see
combat?”
“No, I didn’t, but my brother served in Somolia.”
“And my uncle was in Korea,” Charlotte added.
“Were they affected by what happened there?” Ruth asked.
“Oh yes!” John said. “He saw several buddies killed on patrols. For a long time he couldn’t
sleep either and ever since then he’s never been comfortable in crowds.”
Ruth leaned close and put her hand on John’s knee. “Grace’s trauma is the same as your
brother’s. The woman she talked with died too.”
“What can we do to help her? We have to do something.” John looked at Grace, who was
leaning over with her head in her lap. “I’m afraid, at some point,” he whispered to Ruth, “she
won’t be able to stand this any longer and she’ll…”
Ruth lifted Grace’s head and spoke gently but firmly to her. “What you have to do is help
someone else. That will help your mind heal. There’s bound to be a shelter in your area that
provides supplies to refugees. Why don’t you try working there for a while?”
“We’re so glad to have some extra help,” the shelter manager said as she led Grace past
stacks of MRE’s, bottled water and plastic bags containing five-gallon buckets filled with cleaning
supplies. “What we need most is help in our day care center. Both parents of many families are
working to make money for storm-related expenses or trying to repair their houses. They send
their children here to try to put some order and security back in their little lives.”
Grace stood in the doorway, staring at thirty-some children swarming over the play area.
Several women took turns directing games in the sticky heat and sagging in the shade of a blue
tarp to watch over the youngsters. Grace opened her mouth to ask if they didn’t have something
she could clean instead, even toilets, but heard Ruth’s voice again. “I don’t have any experience
with children,” she stammered, “but I’ll try to help.”
“Excellent,” the manager said. “It’s snack time. You can start by handing out juice
cartons.”
Grace stood by a cooler, pulled out one juice carton after the other and handed them to
excited children. She listened to their giggles, watched their excited faces and found herself smiling
for the first time in weeks.
“Thank you,” several little girls said as they took their drinks. Another smaller child curled
her lower lip in frustration as she struggled with the carton. Finally she held it up to Grace. “Can
you open this for me? Please! I can’t do it.”
“Sure, honey.” Grace took the carton from the small freckled hand, pulled out the straw,
poked it through the paper-covered opening and handed it back.
The little girl stuck the straw in her mouth, squeezed her freckled cheeks in as she sucked
up a big mouthful and swallowed. Then she looked up at Grace and a huge grin lit her face.
“Thank you,” she said. “You’re nice – just like my mommie.”
“Thank you, sweetie,” Grace said and found herself grinning at the little girl as she dashed
off to join her friends, her red curls bouncing behind her. As Grace watched she realized with a
jolt that she hadn’t thought about ‘the voice’ since she had started there that morning.
“How was your day at the center?” John asked over the military field dinners they had
warmed. They had deliberately waited until the second shift of relatives had finished, so they could
have some semblance of privacy in Charlotte’s kitchen, now cluttered with stacks of dirty dishes
and discarded MRE wrappers. But even as they spoke, children straggled in to look for more
desserts and sodas, and the thump, thump, thump of dropped cooler lids disjointed their
conversation.
“I’m not sure. They had me working with children. I didn’t want to, but they didn’t have
anything else for me to do.”
“Well, maybe they’ll have something else for you to do tomorrow.”
“Possibly. But I felt so good helping them.”
“Come on,” John said as he stood up. It’s bedtime. You look like you’re tired.”
“You just can’t imagine,” Grace said as she followed him to their tiny bedroom.” I herded
those kids all day and I’m exhausted.” She grinned at John. “If we could bottle their energy and
sell it, we’d be so rich we could buy the whole state—if we wanted it.”
“Well, maybe you can sleep tonight.” He pulled Grace to him and drew the sheet over
them. “I’ll be right here if you need me.”
Grace snuggled against John and eased her eyes closed, dreading the night ahead.
Hep me! the voice pleaded from the headset.
Grace jerked awake and grabbed John. “Oh God! She’s back.”
John smoothed Grace’s hair and remained silent for a moment. “Maybe you need to think
about today. Remember what Ruth said.”
Grace closed her eyes and forced herself to concentrate on the day. It ran through her mind
like a home video, but then the action stopped and the frame froze. Grace saw the red-haired girl
with her freckles, grinning up at her, with the juice carton in her small hand. “Thank you,” the
little girl said after she swallowed a mouthful of juice; the vision of the headset with its desperate
voice faded into the background, displaced by the red-head’s grin and high-pitched words. For the
first time in weeks, Grace smiled in bed.
All through the night, Grace heard the voice in the headset start. But each time, after she
woke with a jerk, she was able to close her eyes again and see that single freeze-frame of the little
red-head grinning up at her, clutching her juice carton. And each time she was able to drift off
once more.
Beep, beep, beep.
“What’s that noise?” Grace thought as she sat up.
“It’s the alarm on my watch,” John told her. “It’s time to get up.”
“I can’t remember the last time that I slept long enough to have it wake me.” Grace sat up
and groaned. “I’m so tired,” she told John. But then she smiled. “I really slept some last night.
Maybe there’s hope.”
That next evening, Grace crawled into bed, again exhausted from the children. But now I
can sleep! She cuddled against John and closed her eyes.
Hep me! the voice cried from the headset.
Grace jerked and sat up wide awake. “She’s still here,” she told John as he held her against
him. “But I can do what I did last night.” Grace closed her eyes again, began the movie of
yesterday—and trembled at what she saw. The high-pitched chatter of the little redhead and her
sunny smile had faded a little. Through the redhead, she could see the outline of the headset and
just make out ‘the voice’.
Hep me! it said, growing a little louder now. Grace clinched her eyes shut and willed the
redhead’s tape to replay, but the vision of the child and the sound of her chatter had faded even
more. The image of the headset and the sound of ‘the voice’ grew stronger and could not be
blocked.
All through the night, whenever the headset appeared and ‘the voice’ begged for help,
Grace tried to picture the child but the redhead’s image became ever fainter. The black headset
loomed larger and more distinct while ‘the voice’ grew louder and more desperate. By early
morning, when Grace tried to replay the little girl’s voice and smiling image, not even her outline
or the faintest whisper of her cheerful chatter remained. Now the headset filled her vision and the
woman’s frantic pleas rang undiminished in Grace’s ears.
Grace clung to John. “The little girl’s gone! I can’t see or hear her anymore. What am I
going to do?”
“You have to go back to the daycare center,” John said. “Maybe you have to concentrate
and load a new set of child’s memories every day.”
The next morning, Grace paced beside her cooler and frowned at the women directing
games. Don’t they realize I—have to—talk to those children and store up their voices and faces for
tonight. At last the lead woman clapped her hands and a wave of laughing children rushed to
Grace. “Hi sweetie,” she said and leaned close to each one, soaking up the sounds of their excited
chatter. “How are you doing today?” she asked and followed with more questions to draw their
eager responses. “Is your little brother here too? Did your grandmother give you that pretty
blouse?” She wiped juice spills off their shirts, kissed their scratches when they fell down and held
them close when they missed their mothers.
When another game started, Grace sank down onto her now empty cooler. You know, she
thought. I don’t think just listening to them blocks ‘the voice’ completely. I think helping them other
ways is part of it too.
That night, Grace slid into bed feeling even more confident than her neighbors would if The
Corps had built a hundred-foot-high levee around their parish. Hep me! the voice cried. Grace
cringed for only a moment before recalling a flood of high-pitched excited voices, hugs and helping
actions that drowned out all traces of the woman’s plea for the whole night. She remembered
wiping noses and hugging little sobbing bodies and forgot all about ‘the voice’. Every morning she
had to watch the speed limit as she rushed to meet her little charges at the center.
One morning Grace watched an expectant mother waddle in with her two-year-old and had
to look away as tears filled her eyes. John and I have tried for the whole five years we’ve been
married but I’ve never once missed my period. And now, with all the damage to the medical facilities,
the doctors who might deal with that have either left the area or are too busy with more serious
medical problems. Grace looked at the children on the playground and drew in a deep breath.
Now I’ll never have a child of my own to love and to save me from ‘the voice’. She smiled and held
her head up. But at least I still have the children at the day care center. What would I do without
their smiling faces and their wiggly little bodies to hug?
“I need for all of you to meet me in the office after the children leave today,” Grace’s day
care manager told her staff.
“Maybe we’re going to expand,” Grace thought and grinned. “Then there’ll be even more
children for me to look at.”
“We’re closing the daycare center at the end of next week,” the manager told the stunned
group of helpers. The funding for the hurricane recovery has run out and many of our parents are
moving back to their old neighborhoods south of Lake Pontchartrain.”
What am I going to do? Grace thought. The next day she visited the few other day care
centers she could find and even asked at the single elementary school that was planning to reopen
in a few weeks. At each place all the staff had already been selected and the waiting lists was filled
with highly qualified individuals—all desperate for work. No one needed, or wanted, an untrained
helper.
All of the last day, Grace hugged each small child and stared into each little face. I have to
remember these! I have to! But as she watched the children scatter to their parent’s cars and the
parking lot empty for good in the onrushing darkness, she trembled at what she knew would
happen again.
“I’ve got to stay awake. I’ve got to!” Grace struggled to keep her eyes open on the third
night since the center’s closing. She sat as close to the television as she could and had the volume
turned so high she could feel her gown vibrate as the late-night movie heroine screamed and ran
from the pirates. Her stomach burned from the six cups of strong coffee she had drunk in the last
few hours and another steamed on the table beside her. Yet every few minutes her eyelids would
sag shut, only to jerk open as ‘the voice’ pleaded from the darkness.
Just as the local fast food manager flipped his menu from breakfast to lunch, Grace shuffled
in from Charlotte’s, three blocks away. “One extra large coffee,” she told the teenaged clerk. I
hate this stuff, she though as she stirred in 10 packages of sugar to try and boost her sagging body,
but I can’t bear to go to sleep.
The city park! Grace thought and leaped up from her table, spilling the coffee. It’s a
Saturday! There’ll be children there! Her hands shook as she grabbed up her purse and headed
down the sidewalk toward the sounds of children. I’m saved!
Grace hurried over to a bench where two young women rested watching a set of swings
filled with shrieking children. “Won’t you join us?” one asked. Grace sank down beside them and
stared at each happy child’s face, trying to burn its image into her memory. Do these mothers
know what a marvelous gift they have? she thought as she watched the children leap off the swing
and cuddle in their mother’s laps while others took their places. I’m dying to hold them, to stroke
their hair and adjust their little shirts and blouses, pulled out of place by their antics. I have to, to
rebuild my night-time shield—but I can’t; they aren’t my responsibility. Grace sighed. At the shelter,
the children and I could help each other, but here, it isn’t the same.
“Well, it’s time for lunch,” one mother said and the whole group hurried to her van. In a
moment, Grace sat alone, staring at the still swaying swings, and knowing deep inside that her
memories of the faces, without any accompanying hugs or kisses, would be about as effective as the
old levee that had run along the edge of the Lower Ninth Ward; it looked good but hadn’t survived
Katrina’s assault. Grace shivered. She knew ‘the voice’ would be back tonight—all night—and
every night to come.
Grace leaned her head against the bench and sobbed. “I can’t bear to sleep and I can’t stay
awake. I can’t escape ‘the voice’! I can’t stand this any longer!” Suddenly the image of the
unused sleeping pills at Charlotte’s flashed into her mind and Grace froze for a long moment. She
clinched her fists. “I can escape!” She flagged a passing city bus heading south—toward the
closest liquor store. As the sound of the bus engine rose and fell, Grace alternated between
shuddering and feeling the thrill of everlasting escape as she remembered a novel she had read in
which a character committed suicide. Grace had thought little of the character’s actions at the
time but now she replayed them again and again. You take two pills and drink some. You wait
about ten minutes. Then you take two more and….
She leaned her forehead against the window and stared out in a daze as the city crept by.
Several blocks later, the bus passed a sign stuck in a church lawn. “Humm.” She tightened her
grip on her purse and followed the sign until it disappeared behind the bus. “Maybe? Yes!” She
pulled herself up and jerked the stop cord.
This can save me! she thought as she stood in the middle of the sidewalk looking at the
framed message. But can I do it? Will John help me? Grace stared for a long time, ignoring the
people who inched around her on both sides. Yes! And I can repay the woman in the attic – sort of.
For the first time in a long while, she smiled.
Immediately a frown replaced it. John’s been coaching Tee ball for the last three years and
loves it. Would he be willing to give that up along with all those Monday nights spent watching the
Saints and every other football team on the North American continent? Grace glanced down at the
sign again. If John won’t help me, then I’ll just have to do this without him. Filled with new energy
Grace ran across the street and stood, rocking with impatience, watching for a return bus.
Minutes later, Grace was running like a Saints quarterback, weaving around taped up
refrigerators, piles of cut-up tree limbs and stinking mounds of household debris. Every house or
two, she stopped to peer up onto roofs, looking for John. Finally she waved her arms frantically.
John shut off his chainsaw and climbed down; concern filled his face. “What’s the matter,
he asked. “You look like you have been crying.”
“I have, but everything is going to be all right now.” She grabbed John’s arm. “Come on.
We need to go to a meeting.”
Grace gripped the back of the seat in front of her and leaned forward as she listened to the
speaker’s presentation, oblivious to her protesting stomach that she had been too nervous to feed.
“Can we? Please?” she asked John as they inched their way home through a confusing
alternation of red-blinking traffic lights, flashing yellow lights on stop signs in the middle of the
street and the occasional functioning stop light.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “We’re still staying with your aunt. We haven’t fixed our
house yet.”
“But we just got a FEMA trailer. We have a place of our own now, even if it is in
Charlotte’s back yard.”
“Let’s think about it some more later.”
Grace took John’s hand. “I can’t wait any longer.” She leaned across the seat and looked
into his eyes. “Do you know where I was going before I saw that meeting sign?” she whispered.
John shifted his eyes back and forth between her and the road. “To the grocery store for
more coffee? To the rental store for another loud movie?”
“No.”
John took his foot off the gas and the car began to slow. “Then where were you going?”
Grace leaned close and squeezed his hand. “To the liquor store.”
“The liquor store?” His eyes widened with fright. “The liquor store!” John swerved to the
curb and stabbed the brake. As the car’s rocking slowed, his voice fell to a whisper. “To go with
the sleeping pills.” John gripped her hand so tightly that she winced. “You were going to…. Oh
Grace!”
Grace nodded and looked away. “Forgive me, John. But I just can’t go on any longer.
She’s been pleading with me every night since the center closed. I can’t stand it any more.”
John hugged her to him across the console. “And I can’t live without you!”
Grace ran her fingers over his hand. “I was trying to decide what to say on the note.”
John glanced over his shoulder and, with a screech of tires, cut across traffic heading back
the way they had come. “Maybe it’s not too late,” he said, gripping the wheel and accelerating.
That center they told us about should still be open.” He flipped open his cell phone and held it out
to her. “Do you want to call them and see? I’ve got their number here on the handout?”
Grace stared at the phone as if it were the dead body bobbing in the flood waters; she
hadn’t once spoken into a phone since that terrible day. “I can’t. I can’t even touch it. I just
know she’d be on the other end, pleading with me.”
“I’m sorry. I forgot,” John said. Grace read the number and he dialed as they crept along
in traffic. After he finished the call, he turned to Grace while they waited at an intersection. “I
really don’t know about taking in a child but if you think this is the only way to shut your
nighttime voice up, I’ll try. I’ll do anything to keep you from… and here with me.”
The center’s manager, a middle-aged woman with bags under her eyes, looked across her
cluttered desk at the two. “My name is Saya. Good afternoon.” She leaned toward Grace and
scanned her for a long moment. “You say that you and your husband want to take in a foster
child. I presume that you have some child care experience ma’am. Are you a mother?”
“No, but.”
“Did you have younger brothers and sisters to care for?”
“Well, no. I was an only child.”
Saya frowned and began to play with a pencil. “Did you baby-sit when you were a
teenager?”
Grace shifted her handbag from one knee to the other and suddenly realized that she must
have done that fifty-nine times already. “No,” she whispered.
Saya turned to glare at John. “I presume since your wife has no experience with children,
that you must come from a large family.”
John shifted his feet and glanced at Grace. “No, ma’am. My childhood was like hers.”
The woman leaned forward and slapped the pencil down on the table. “Then what
experience do you have? Or are you just looking for a fast buck?” Her eyes narrowed. “Or are
you one of those...those—that just want a child for…? Saya shuddered. “We’ve got our share of
both to weed out!”
Grace set her bag on the floor and leaned forward. “Ma’am. The whole coast of Louisiana
and Mississippi has been wrecked and peoples’ lives are in ruins.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“I’m not a doctor or a nurse or even a social worker but this is one way that even I can
make a difference!”
“I can’t give out a child to any ‘do-gooder’ who wants one, regardless of how high-minded
they are. Particularly when they have—no—experience.”
“But we do have experience.”
“Like what? Tell me. I have children’s lives to protect.”
Grace told her about the day care center and her eyes grew moist as she described her little
group around the cooler. The manager leaned forward and listened without saying a word. Then
Grace nodded toward her husband. “And he has a Tee-ball team. We had them and their parents
over two or three times for cookouts and everyone had lots of fun.”
Saya took out a sheet of paper and began to make notes. “I hope you can document all this;
we can’t be too careful you know.”
“Of course,” Grace said and recited the cell phone number for her day care manager. John
provided the name of his previous boss and names of his fellow coaches in the league and several
parents.
John and Grace clinched hands and looked from each other to Saya and back during Saya’s
lengthy phone calls. Finally Saya hung up and, for the first time, looked across at Grace and
smiled. “Your former day care manager just finished giving you a glowing recommendation.”
Saya turned to John and clicked her pen twice. “I checked your references and you seem like a
suitable candidate too.” She pursed her lips, reached across and took Grace’s hand. “You have no
idea how hard it is to find foster parents these days, with so many people leaving the area or too
busy trying to rebuild their property.”
Grace swallowed. “And one more thing that’s important.”
“Yes?”
“I have a…a friend who had several children.” Grace gripped her handbag. “They all
drowned in the storm. I…I was the last one to talk to her.”
“How terrible!” Saya said.
“And I know…well…I hope doing this will please her. Part of my reason for doing this is
to…uh…honor her memory.” Grace looked down at her bag. “But the main reason of course is
that I want to do my part to help someone who needs it.”
Grace took a deep breath and leaned toward Saya. “When can we start?” Grace glanced at
John. “Is now too soon?” she asked him.
“No, dear,” John said. “I’m afraid waiting until tomorrow would be too late.”
“Well,” Saya said as she finished her sheet of notes. “We usually do a more thorough
investigation before we release children but they’ve already been here much too long so, we’ll just
have a trial meal for now. If you look like you can handle them, you can take them home and I’ll
check in on you tomorrow.
“Them?” Grace asked.
“I have a difficult set to place. No one wants two little Mexican girls, especially when the
older sister is so protective.”
“Two?” Grace asked and then grinned. “Two!”
“Is Mexican all right?” Saya asked.
“They’re fine with us,” John said.
“They’re Katrina orphans and will need lots of loving,” Saya continued. “When the storm
hit, their parents tied them in the highest part of a tree that would support their weight and then
climbed up beneath them. Fortunately the girls were above the storm surge…but their parents
weren’t so lucky. We found their bodies but we haven’t been able to track down any relatives. I’m
afraid, if you take them, that you’ll have them for a long time.”
Grace looked across at John. “Can we?” He nodded.
“They don’t speak much English but I think you all can get by. And they’re terrified any
time there’s wind or rain or storms.”
“Lots of our children at the day care center were that way. I learned what to do to help
them and I’m sure I can calm these too. When can we see them?”
“We have them back here in our ward right now. Follow me.” Saya rose and lead them
through a door.
“Rosita,” Saya said as she stopped before two children huddled together on a cot while a
television droned on a shelf.
“Hola,” the older child said. Rosita frowned as she looked up and pulled her little sister
closer. The younger child glanced up with wide eyes, pressed her small body against her sister and
clutched a well-worn doll to her.
“Grace, John,” Saya said as she pointed to each adult. The woman leaned close to Rosita
and spoke softly in Spanish.
Rosita glared at Grace and John and tightened her grip on her sister. “Not leaving Isabel!”
Grace leaned forward. “We take Isabel too.”
“Pra…mise?” Rosita asked Grace.
“Promise,” John said.
Rosita turned to Grace. “If we bad, you hit me. No hit Isabel.”
Saya asked them something in Spanish and the two nodded, smiling at Grace and John.
“Looks like they’re ready for supper.”
Isabel looked up at the three of them. “Hungry,” she said with a heavy accent. She looked
at Grace and grinned. “Mac…Donald… fries.”
The woman turned to Grace and John. “They have been through so much trauma that we
really don’t want to separate them.” She pointed to the older girl. “Best we can determine, Rosita
is about six and Isabel is probably four.”
Neither child had red hair and freckles but Grace didn’t care. She knew that she had found
her saviors, and the frightened pair before her now had one too.
Rosita gobbled down her cheeseburger but, although she looked hard at her fries, she
handed them to Isabel. Isabel inhaled her fries, her cheeseburger and Rosita’s fries too. Then she
turned to Grace. “More fries!” Isabel shouted.
Saya stirred her cup of coffee and looked from Grace to John and back with the gaze of a
parent watching her child get on the school bus for the first time.
Grace remembered some of her chubby little charges at the center. Sometimes food had
been their only comfort for way too long. Grace looked at Isabel’s tears, pictured what she had just
gulped down and knew more fries wasn’t a good idea. Knew that John would be mopping out the
car before they got home. Knew that Isabel needed something else more than she did fries.
Rosita glared at Grace from across the table, prepared to leap to her little sister’s defense.
“You don’t really need any more fries, dear,” she whispered to the shrieking child and, with
an eye on Rosita, eased Isabel into her lap. Rosita stiffened and leaned forward. Grace held the
child against her, stroked Isabel’s shiny hair and rocked her slowly from side to side while
humming a lullaby she remembered from childhood. “I’m trying,” she whispered, hoping ‘the
voice’ would hear. Isabel’s cries faded to sobs and her jerking motions eased. Isabel pushed her
thumb into her catsup-stained mouth and began to suck.
Rosita watched for a long moment, slid out of her chair and climbed onto the bench beside
Grace. She cuddled against Grace and reached across to rest her hand on Isabel’s leg. In
moments the eyelids of both girls began to droop.
Saya nodded and stood up. “I’ll get their things from my car,” she said. “John, you can
help me swap over the car seats.”
Grace took Isabel to the car; John followed with Rosita in his arms. The older girl roused
and looked first at Isabel and then at John. She looped a small arm around John’s neck, laid her
head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. When John paused to adjust Rosita’s position and
grinned over at Grace, Grace knew this was going to work. As she struggled with the unfamiliar
straps of Isabel’s car seat, she felt like a mother for the first time.
At their FEMA trailer, Grace soaped two reawakened and wiggly bodies in the shower and
helped them into their over-sized sleeping shirts. While she brushed out their long hair, John tried
to read them a bedtime story from a book Saya lent them. Neither understood much the other said
but John pointed to the colorful characters in the picture book and said each one’s name. Rosita
and Isabel giggled and said ‘Pooh’ and Tigger’ over and over. Then John pointed to the characters
again and opened his hand, asking for a Spanish term. He struggled to repeat what Rosita and
Isabel said and set off a new round of giggling. After the sisters finally fell asleep again, huddled
together with Isabel’s doll between them, Grace and John gazed with growing affection at the new
additions that at last made them a family.
“Oh my goodness!” Grace cried and sat upright in bed.
“What’s the matter?” John asked.
“I’ve got to tell everyone the great news!” Grace said. “Give me your cell phone.”
“You’re sure you want to use it?”
“I’ve got to try. What if one of them gets hurt? I’d have to call for help.” Grace reached
out to take the phone and then drew back her hand. She put out her hand again; it opened and
partly closed over the phone, not quite touching it and then drew back again. Grace clinched her
teeth. “This is stupid! How am I ever going to tell all my friends about Rosita and Isabel.” She
snatched the cell phone from John, flipped it open and stared at the number pad.
“Do you know the number you want to call?”
Grace nodded. “If I put this on speaker phone, will you listen with me? That would make it
easier to do. And if she comes on the line, you can hang it up for me.”
“Of course.”
Grace’s finger trembled as she began dialing the number. “Drat! I hit a wrong key.”
John reached over, hit the back button and leaned away. “You’re doing fine. Keep going.”
At last Grace hit the send button and the phone began to ring. Grace held her breath and
stared at it. “What is she answers?”
“She won’t.” John chuckled.
Grace’s face darkened. “What’s so funny? Are you laughing at me?”
John smiled. “She’s probably too busy up There watching those 13 children.”
“Hello,” the phone said. Grace stared at the phone. Her mouth opened and closed.
“Hello,” the phone said again. “Who’s calling please?” Grace drew in a deep breath. “Answer
right now or I’m going to hang up,” the voice threatened.
Grace leaned down over the phone. “Josie,” she whispered.
“Who’s this?” the phone asked.
“It’s me, Grace.”
“Grace? I thought you couldn’t … anymore.”
“Be patient,” John interrupted. “This is her first try.”
“Grace. How good to hear your voice! I’ve been missing you. Now why are you calling me
at this time of night?”
Grace clutched her hands together and grinned. “I…we have great news!”
John picked up the phone. “Josie, why don’t you call us back right now. I’m going to hang
up.”
“Hang up now?” the phone said.
“Now?!” Grace asked. “But we just started talking.”
“Yes.” Grace needs you to call her back. Please.” John said.
“All right. Bye,” the phone said and went dead while Grace stared at it. When it rang
again, she jumped.
“Go ahead,” John said. “You know it’s Josie.” The phone rang again.
“But what if it’s her?” The ringing continued.
“Grace. You have to be able to answer the phone too.”
“You’re right. I have to.” She looked at the phone as it rang again and then picked it up
and flipped it open.”
“Hello,” the phone said. “Hello. Hello.”
Grace bent down and listened. “It doesn’t sound like her.”
“Hello. Hello,” the phone continued. “Answer me Grace. I know you’re there. Now
what’s this good news?”
“Good news?” Grace whispered. Then she grinned and grabbed up the phone. “Josie!
I…we have two little girls to take care of now. I’m a mother at last!”
“How wonderful! Tell me all about it.”
“Rosita and Isabel….” In an instant, the two were talking nonstop at the same time.
John smiled at his wife, waving her arms in excitement as she chattered nonstop into the
device that only two months ago had almost destroyed her life. By the tenth call, he shrugged,
snuggled against her and fell asleep to the excited sound of her voice going on and on about Rosita
and Isabel.
“Hep me!” the desperate voice called from the headset.
Grace jerked awake later that night and sat upright with a gasp. “It it her again?” John
asked.
Grace nodded and then looked across the small room at the children’s bed. Grace replayed
the children’s excited voices as they ran around the McDonald’s playground and felt their small
bodies pressing against her as John read to them about Winnie the Pooh. Then she winked at
John, took one last look at her very own Juice Carton Girls, and closed her eyes. A surge of visions
of two excited girls and the sounds of their shrill little voices swept through her mind like a hard
spring rain and carried ‘the voice’ and its headset, like unsightly street debris, into a storm drain
in the recesses of her brain, leaving behind only the clean shiny pavement of fresh beginnings.
“Hep me!” the voice called from the headset several months later. “I gots….”
Grace sat up in bed in the late night darkness, and smiled at the thought of her precious
little girls who now called her Mama. “Ma’am, I am saving two children in your memory,” she
whispered. “I’m sorry you lost all of yours, but I am trying to do what I can to help.” Grace felt a
strange sense of peace as she put her head down on her pillow and closed her eyes again.
For the rest of her life, Grace would remember the dream she had next.
“Hello,” the woman said.
“Thank ya fa heping,” the attic voice said.
“Goodbye, Grace,” it continued.
“ Ya sleep good;” the words grew softer.
“ I’m leavin’ ya now,” and the voice faded away—forever.
Writer’s Note:
The chilling opening incident actually happened; I heard about it on national public radio one
morning as I drove to a work assignment in NW Louisiana. When the program ended, I knew I
HAD to write a story about this.