the broken record

"I miss Pippi," Sally says. She's only said it ten or twelve times in the last five minutes, which is an improvement on the five minutes before that. She looks up at me expectantly, thin arms wrapped around her knees. "M, I miss Pippi."

"I know," I say. It's the same words, always, but I've been experimenting with different tones. Sympathetic. Tired. Sad. Frustrated. Annoyed. Distracted. "I miss her too."

I do miss her, my old roommate and confidante. Mostly, though, I'm full-up with missing Winnie and Alma and my dear, ridiculous Rosalind. They were moved to a different city last week, five hours away; I spent the weekend with them, soaking up the sound of their voices and the light of their smiles, gripping their hands through the cell door. One day, the police even relented and let us use a visitation room. This whole week has been haunted by memories: Winnie cracking my knuckles for me, Alma's stumbling recitation of the book we brought her (A Little Princess, because she loves fairy tales and I need her to believe that she will get a happy ending), the weight of Rosalind's skinny legs leaning against mine.

Back in the real world, Sally says, "I'm going home."

God, how many times can we have this conversation? I try to speak past the frustration blocking my throat. "I don't think you should."

She shakes her head, stubborn as always, a pretty teenage goat. There ought to be a cartoon. "I'm going home to the mother," she insists, and I don't have an answer to that. She might be working my nerves today, but there's no way I'm reminding a 14-year-old that she's here partially because her mother doesn't love her enough not to abandon her. "I miss Pippi," she says again, plowing ahead with her familiar argument. "I don't have friends anymore."

"Oh, really?" We've been through this a thousand times, but it still stings, somewhere in the over-sensitized mess of my heart. "Okay, so I'm not your friend, right? Julius isn't your friend. Betty isn't your friend. You don't love us. Go home, then. I don't care." It might sound cruel to an outsider, someone who doesn't get how we work, but I have to try to speak her language. Nothing else gets through to her.

She scowls, grabs at my foot, then my ankle, yanking at me hard enough that I can hear the creak of my old-lady bones. "M," she protests, and then again, louder, like she thinks maybe I'm not listening. "M." She doesn't say anything else, but she doesn't need to. God knows we've been through this enough times.

"Okay, Sally," I say. "Okay."

She stops pulling, and we sit together for a few quiet, melancholy minutes, her hands still wrapped loosely around my ankle. I'm grateful for the respite, but I'm feeling a twinge of regret for snapping at her. She looks sad, that dense kind of sadness that sits heavy in your chest, sugar in an engine, clogging up the works. I want to slap her and then tuck her into bed with a teddy bear.

"I miss Pippi," she says.

"I know."