Nowhere Girl by A. J. Paquette Page A

they are really thinking?
    All day I look around for Pensri, remembering the warm feel of her unconditional acceptance. But she has almost completely disappeared. Every morning, after a silent breakfast, she vanishes to parts unknown and I don’t see her for the rest of the day. At night, her rush mat is on the farthest side of the room from mine. And though I creep out to watch the rain every night, there is never a patter of feet behind me to say I am not alone.
    I am alone. I am still that girl in cell block 413. The bars are invisible now, but one thing is certain: as long as they exist in people’s memories, they exist. Apparently, the warning Pensri received about speaking with me was for her sake rather than mine. After all, who knows what strange habits and behaviors I might bring with me from such a dire place?
    It must be as I suspected: I am not a suitable big sister for a child. She cannot be my nong sao.
    I push away the hurt. It does not matter. I will be gone from here, just as soon as the rain lets up.
    But let it come quickly.
    More tolerable are the long evenings when music whips wildly around the main gathering room. Khun Yai is the only one in the house who has continued to treat me with a steady acceptance. She redoes my chores around the house, yes, for obviously I have little practice in the ways of this household. But she never accuses me with her eyes, never watches me as though something might go wrong at any moment.
    On these long, rainy nights I sit with the women and work on my first piece of needlework. Yai has given me a square of cream-colored cloth and told me I may use any colors of thread from the rainbow in her basket. She shows me how to poke the needle so gently into the fabric, pulling it in and out to form neat little lines that, when put all together, will make a picture.
    I pull on my needle, following the call of the colors, the feel of the cloth. Yai looks at my work. She smiles.
    â€œDo you have a picture in mind?” she asks.
    I look at my square. The colors streak this way and that, with no visible pattern or direction, brown and green meshed together in a strong, wild tangle. I nod uncertainly. “There is a picture here, but I don’t yet know what it is.”
    â€œIt will come to you,” she says. “You bring the color, and the pattern will appear.”
    With a nod, Yai returns to her own work. This may be as close as we ever come to communication, for while she does not shun me, I can see she will not go against the grain of her family with an active friendship. Again I think of Mama and all the things that were not said. And I see how easy it would be to build a life of small, easy silences.
    I see this, but I do not agree.
    Outside, the rain beats and beats, and I turn my mind to the sky, to the road, willing the rain to pause, for the way out to open for me soon. I long to be away from this tangle of tightly stitched people, this core of belonging that has no room for me.
    I fear behind these invisible bars I might lose myself all over again, might let slip through my fingers this small piece of myself I am just beginning to discover.

16
    On the fourth day, the rain slows enough that I decide to go out for a walk. Kiet offers to come along but I shake my head, pleased with my growing power to choose my own way.
    â€œI will just walk around the back,” I say. “The air is fresh, and I want to be alone.”
    He nods in agreement and I walk into the kitchen, where Yai is sorting beans with Pensri’s mother. Yai looks up, then tilts her chin toward a hat that is resting on the kitchen table. “Take this,” she says. “It will keep off the rain.” I can feel their watchful eyes as I shut the front door behind me.
    I expect to find my plastic sandals stiff and hard with caked mud. Instead, someone has washed them clean and set them neatly under the eaves. With mingled shame and gratitude, I slide them onto my feet and