I first saw you when while I was comforting my brother, who, for the third time, had broken him arm climbing trees, no matter how many times dad had told him the branches were too weak to hold up his nine year old body.
For the first time since spring had arrived there were no showers, just bouts of wind that sent shivers up your spine as you walked through the hospital car park. You were like one of those unforgettable shivers as the nurses dragged you through the dimly lit corridors, as you kicked and screamed and proclaimed that you wanted to go home and you’d tell your parents on them for giving you bruises in return.
But where were your parents? Where was your home? If only then I’d known you were lying, maybe I would’ve stepped in earlier and told the doctors that you weren’t the one they should be worrying about. But I couldn’t have known then. No one could’ve suspected anything.
Then the sedative kicked in and you fell limp in their arms, though your anger still lingered in the air long after your mind had dozed off. I watched them carry you off into a separate seclusion room, and one of the nurses ran off to fetch the head doctor, who just happened to be our father. I watched as they whispered about you behind closed doors and I couldn’t help wondering whether you really did understand everything that was going on around you. You were only six, we were told, after all, and when a six year old is told they’re going away for a while one would usually assume it was for a holiday. But not you.
“You’ll be safe there while we work out some more about your family and where you came from and seeing as they only thing you’ve said since you entered this ward has been that you want to go home, wherever home is, the police are completely stuck for leads.”
My father always tried his best to explain things but more often than not it just confused us more. He said from the moment he first saw you he knew you were different. You had an air about you, a way of doing things and holding back memories you’d rather forget, that scared him. He saw you as a mystery. My father had worked with many kids before, psychiatry he called it, but we knew to him the kids were more than just patients. He treated them like he did us, and thinking back I believe of all the kids he treated, you were the one he came to love most.
Because he thought you were so weak and scared, which admittedly you were, he was surprised when you answered back in a sincere, almost understanding voice,
“I do know where I’m going. It’s the loony bin, for people who’ve gone all crazy.”
My father paused, unable to think of a good response. I stood by the window this whole time and he looked at me for a split second, asking for help that I couldn’t give. He was the one that was supposed to fix this crazy child, not me. I didn’t want a thing to do with you. Not then at least.
“Tell me your name,” he whispered. “Please. Then we can take you back home.”
I can pinpoint the split second that you had to hold back the tears, wondering yourself where home would ever be. Listening in at the window I felt the need to run in and scoop you into my arms, although I knew that was against the rules. You stared at the floor for quite a few minutes, counting the black shoe marks the inpatients in the children’s ward had made throughout the time they’d stayed there, until you braved it and looking up at my father said only three words.
“Wyatt. I’m Wyatt.”