Green lights make her cry

She is eating dirt, and all she wants to do is die. Five minutes ago, in the bar, drinking rum maybe she didn't want to die. Tomorrow, head throbbing, lips bloody, safe in her bed, maybe she won't want to die.

She hears the baby crying, but the baby is at home. She is not.

She pounds her head, digs into dirt, eats dirt, grinds it with her teeth, breathes it into her lungs, and she wants to die.

                                                                    *****

"Wake up." A hand pinches her shoulder, shakes her.

Her tongue is swollen. She tastes dirt, but she lays perfectly still, on her back, breathing.

The voice is as gravelly as the dirt ground between her teeth. "Wake up."

She flutters her eyelids. She knows the voice knows she has been awake all along. She opens her eyes.

A shadow leans over her.

The effort to focus drives slivers of pain into her eyes. She opens her mouth, turns her head to the wall. The paint is green, and brighter than the neon signs that drew her to last night's bar.

"Open your mouth." The shadow pinches her chin.

She opens her mouth and breathes water. She gags.

"Let me help you." Two long shadows like charcoal on paper set the water down, lift her, pat her back, wipe her face, and lay her against the pillow.

Another pinch, a yank, more water sloshing into her mouth. The cloth pressed against her cheek burns where the dirt and gravel etched marks into her face. Instead of wrinkles she has scratches and dark circles beneath her eyes to make her old. When she is clean, the shadow rolls her onto her stomach, lifts her gown, swipes her buttock, stabs a needle into her flesh. She winces, catches half a breath. The smell of rubbing alcohol burns her nose. She sighs and sleeps.

                                                       *****

"Wake up." A hand pinches her shoulder, shakes her. "You have visitors."

She groans. "Make them go away."

The shadow leans over her. "I can't," it whispers in her ear. "They're here. In the room. Waiting. Sit up for them."

She obeys.

Father, son, doctor are seated in chairs. Chairs with little desks like arms for them to lean on. The doctor has a notebook laid neatly on his desk. He twirls a pen in his fingers like a drum major in a parade, but none of them are smiling.

The father clears his throat. "We are sending you home," he says.

Maybe he has said more, something before this? But her ears are wobbly from the dirt and the drugs they have been feeding her three or four times a day.

"Good," she says. "I want to go home."

"Home to your parents," the father says. "Home, home. You need your mother."

Her eyes swing up and to the right, to a corner of the room where the green paint is peeling off the wall. She tries to remember her mother. She tries to remember her name. But all she remembers is eating dirt and wanting to die. It is not quite remembering, but she knows that she should stay quiet. Words make questions, and she has no answers. She folds her hands into her lap.

The son stares at the father.

The father turns to the doctor. "Does she understand what I'm saying?"

The doctor shakes his head, scribbles on his paper. Father, son, and doctor scoot their little desks into a circle and whisper. In the end they promise to come back later.

What if she doesn't want them to come back?

                                                                     *****

At home she finds a job, goes to counseling as agreed, calls her baby. The crying reminds her of dirt and wanting to die. "Don't cry," she says softly, as softly as a dove.

"Come home," the baby voice begs.

"What is home?" she wonders, but doesn't say. "I will come home," she says, blushing because she hates to lie, but doesn't want to say that daddy won't let her. And why should he?

She hangs up on tears--her ears full of sobs, her cheek wet from crying. She climbs in her car and backs down the drive. She stops at a red light. Waits. Presses on the gas. She tries not to look at green lights. Green lights make her cry and crave rum, but she can't remember why.