She hears all the words they say. They don’t even notice her standing there. “She’s not mine.” “So what, what you’re doing is still wrong.” “I don’t care, if you don’t like it, take her and leave. I don’t know where you’re going to get this if you do.” He shows the mother a small plastic bag with white powder in it. The girl doesn’t know what it is. “You have to stop hurting her or I swear I’ll leave.” Even while she says this, her eyes only focus on the small plastic bag. The girl knows that her mother will not leave.
She looks down at the cigarette mark on her hand, and pulls her sleeve down to hide it. It shames her, even though no one is there to look at it. Her shame is big, bigger than them not caring.
They see her as she pulls the sleeve down. He gets up to come get her. “Run, go play,” her mother says. She runs hard and fast, till her small lungs burn. She stops at the big water.
The big water is her favourite place, she likes to play there. This is where her shells are. Sometimes if she goes in a little, she finds better ones. She never goes in far, if she’s very wet, it’s worse with them, they hurt her more.
Sometimes, if she sits on the outside step, the water dries, even if she’s wearing pants. Sometimes they don’t even see her waiting for the water to dry. That’s when they’re busy with the small plastic bags. There are so many shells today, she always wants the best ones. She doesn’t see the wave. It takes her hard and fast. She coughs, cries and runs home. She is so wet, she will have to sit on the step for a very long time. They walk past her on the step. She is so happy that they didn’t take her inside with them. When she’s wet and they take her inside, that’s when the bad things happen. She sits there for a long time but doesn’t get dry at all. She sits there until its dark. She’s not afraid of the dark.
Her mother comes outside and sits next to her, with her big stomach. Still she sits outside waiting to dry. She stays there for a long time. Then there’s another girl, one who looks like her. Her mother brings the small new girl outside, she’s so pretty. The girl follows her mother into the house. He’s still there and so are the small plastic bags. He wants to put a cigarette on the small new girl. She won’t let him do it. She takes the small new girl in her arms and takes her to the big water, that’s where they’ll live now.
He tells the police, “Officer, her mother drowned her and so she came to fetch her sister to get back at us”. The officer realised that both of them were high and incoherent, but kept wondering what is that rotting wet toddler’s dress doing in the middle of a clean dry floor and why is baby’s clothes hanging on the washing line outside.