Chapter 2 - The Bench Under the Clock
Dr. Patel took Damian's appointment and finished the examination. He ordered the appropriate evaluation for the shoulder complaint and documented what needed follow-up. I removed myself from clinical decisions involving Damian and told the practice administrator that I had a longstanding personal connection to the patient. I did not explain the details to people who didn't need them.
After my shift Damian waited in the public courtyard, where patients and staff sat beneath two maple trees. He had changed into a jacket that covered the scar. I brought my own coffee and took a seat across from him.
"Start at the bus station," I said.
He nodded.
We had lived in Oakridge House, a privately operated residential placement for teenagers in state care. I arrived at fifteen after my mother's death and a series of failed temporary homes. Damian had been there almost two years. He taught me how to repair the clasp on my backpack and how to calculate bus routes on a timetable nobody else bothered to explain.
Oakridge wasn't the nightmare people imagine when they hear the words group home. Some staff were kind. Others were exhausted and harsh. The director, Martin Voss, cared more about keeping beds filled and reports clean than listening when children said something had gone wrong. I had complained that staff withheld personal allowances and punished teenagers for asking to contact their caseworkers. Nothing improved.
The night we ran, I'd been told I would be transferred to another facility before dawn because my complaints were "disruptive." Damian believed we could reach a legal aid office in Columbus if we caught an early bus. He lifted me over a locked fence after the side gate wouldn't open. The wire cut his chest. We reached the station just before five.
"You told me to stay under the clock," I said.
"I was going to buy tickets."
"And you never came back."
Damian gripped his paper cup. "Two adults stopped me near the ticket window. One showed a county identification card and said they'd been notified about two missing minors. I told them you were waiting. They said someone else was taking you to a safe placement."
"No one came for me that morning."
"I tried to get back to the bench. They took me through the service exit to a car."
He described being transported to a different county, placed in a temporary facility, then moved again. He'd asked to call me and was told the contact would be harmful because we'd encouraged each other to abscond. He kept asking until someone handed him a paper supposedly written by me, saying I didn't want to speak to him.
"I believed it after a while," he said. "Not because it sounded like you, but because every letter I sent came back or went unanswered."
I stared at the coffee surface. I had waited until the station manager called a youth outreach worker. She arranged my return to protective care and eventually a different placement. The social worker told me Damian had left voluntarily with relatives and did not want contact. I spent years repeating that explanation because I couldn't bear to admit he might have abandoned me without a reason.
"I changed my last name when the Sloans adopted me," I said. "The records under my old name must have made it harder to find me."
"I found a photograph of your nursing-school graduation last winter. It named you Eva Sloan. I didn't know if you were the same person until I saw the small crescent mark on your eyebrow."
I touched it automatically. I'd gotten that scar falling against the metal bed frame at Oakridge.
"Why wait until now?"
"I was afraid I'd find out you really didn't want me around. Then I injured my shoulder, saw your clinic offered appointments, and convinced myself showing up was easier than writing a letter you might never open."
"It wasn't fair to make me discover you in an exam room."
"I know. I'm sorry."
For the first time his regret sounded like it belonged to an adult, not to the boy I'd been waiting for.
He reached inside his jacket and removed a small, folded piece of paper. It was a photocopy of a note, the ink faint and the signature crude.
Don't look for me, Damian. I want a different life. Eva.
I read it twice. The first sentence was one I would never have written. The second was a wish I'd been afraid even to think.
"That isn't my handwriting," I said.
May you like
Damian nodded. "I hoped you'd say that."
He turned the page over. On the back was a case number and the handwritten name of Miriam Hale.
