Free Something Like Hope by Shawn Goodman Page B

what we’re getting at here. It no longer works. Being angry and scared, trying to squash all the other emotions, it just doesn’t work for you anymore. You agree?”
    I look down at my chewed-up fingernails. I agree. It makes sense. It explains a lot, but still … what am I supposed to do? Stop being Shavonne? How? This is the only way I know how to be. I feel so confused. I tell Mr. D that I’ve got a new emotion: confusion. Anger, fear, and confusion. Is this progress?
    Back in my room, I stay up late waiting for the voice to say bad things about me. It will call me a liar and a stupid bitch. It will say, “You’re so weak, Vonne. You shouldn’t have done that, Vonne. You broke the rule, Vonne. No one can know about me.”
    But the voice doesn’t come.

31
            C inda’s gone off the deep end with the geese, naming them John and Julia. John is named after John Travolta because
Grease
is Cinda’s favorite movie. She sings that one song, “We go together …,” about twenty times a day until China threatens to punch her. She’s so damn white, she messes up the shoobie-doobie part. She can’t get it right even when we coach her. Julia is named after Julia Roberts because
Pretty Woman
is Cinda’s other favorite movie.
    The names are harmless, I know. What’s crazy is that she’s got stats on the death rate of goslings. Cinda tells me that only a small percentage of the hatchlings will reach adulthood. Starvation, disease, hunters, collisions with planes. These are the risk factors. And then there are the predators: coyotes, foxes, dog packs, birds like hawks, eagles, falcons, and vultures.
    When I return to my room she’s crazy with fear andmanic energy. Her face is pressed against the windowpane even though it’s dark out. She can’t see a damn thing, but she scans the pond anyway, or the area where the pond should be.
    “Shavonne, we’ve got to do something! John and Julia are in danger! The woods behind the parking lot are filled with predators. It’s not safe. I won’t let anything happen to them. Do you hear me, Shavonne?”
    I hear her, all right. I hear her telling me she’s going insane. She stays awake all night, looking out the window into the darkness. I tell one of the guards to get the nurses. They know about Cinda and will get permission from the doctor to give her a shot of Haldol in her ass. That usually fixes this shit. It will knock her right out and maybe she’ll forget all about the damn geese and predators.
    But the guard tells me to shut up and mind my own business. “Who died and made you the doctor?” She sneers at me and goes back to her copy of
People
magazine.
    Most days I’d use the rude comment as an excuse to fight. But this time, I let it go. In a way, I admire Cinda’s half-crazed vigil. For whatever reason, she cares about the geese and has made a commitment to protect them. Even if no one cares about her (which is the truth), she still cares about someone else, if you can call a goose a someone.
    I had someone to care about. Jasmine. And I messed it up. Maybe the truth is that what I really want is someone to care about me. Is that too much to ask for?

32
            C inda spotted a red fox this morning. It loped out of the woods at the edge of the parking lot. She said it trotted by the pond and then vanished back into the underbrush. She waited for Cyrus to come on shift and then pumped him for information about foxes. Cyrus told her what he knew, which was considerable. He said the fox was probably either starving or sick. Otherwise, it would never have come so close to humans. Cyrus said there were too many deterrents for a healthy fox to come near: garbage, exhaust fumes, the smell of food from the kitchen. These were all things linked to humans, and foxes fear humans.
    Cyrus said that the fox would have a difficult time getting past the male goose. The goose would hover off the ground, flap his wings madly, hiss, and jab at the fox with