The Woodlands (#1 THE WOODLANDS SERIES) (COMPLETE)

9. LEAVING PAU

She was rattled, skittish, big brown eyes blinking repeatedly like she didn’t believe what she was hearing. Bobbing her head as if she could shake the news out of her brain like loose wax. I didn’t realize she was so certain I would stay. I didn’t realize it mattered to her one way or the other.

Due to the tight control in Pau Brasil, our wrist tattoos contained almost all the pertinent information needed to send me off. I looked down at the neatly printed barcode. I was canned goods. Scan me and you knew my value. I remember being held down on my twelfth birthday as they put it on—the burning pain of the needle and the foreign buzzing sound. My mother was holding my arms down but I was flailing and screaming. She told me it was a good thing; it meant I would have more freedom. I remember thinking quite the opposite. I was being branded. The frustrated tattooist gruffly gestured with his hairy, bare arm for Paulo to hold me still. He stormed over and held down my legs, telling me not embarrass myself. ‘Be stronger’ he had said. He wasn’t quick enough to stop me from kicking him in the face, a small drip of blood appearing on his lower lip. I remember him smiling, licking it away with his tongue, and squeezing my legs so tight I couldn’t budge. Disgusting. And exactly the kind of thing he would do. When I got home and changed for bed, I had finger-shaped bruises on both my calves.

To leave Pau all that was needed from Mother was a signature and a small bag containing a change of clothes and letter writing materials, but she was panicking. Her fragile state gave me a pang of guilt for making her do this but she was the one who was forcing me to leave eventually anyway. What difference was a few months going to make?

“I can’t find a pen, Rosa. Where are all the pens?” She sounded out of her mind with worry, her voice taking on a high-pitched, hysterical edge.

“Mother, come here and sit down.” I was going to have to be the calm one. Words came back to me, but not in Paulo’s voice, it was my own, level and heavy. ‘Be stronger’.

“It’s ok, I’m sure they will give me one if I ask.”

She followed me into the kitchen, back to place where all this started. She looked so frail, her tiny, dark frame teetering on the edge of the chair.

“I know you’re upset but I think it’s best to go now. If I stayed, I think I would only start to resent you and that baby.” As the words came out, I knew they were true. “I love you. I don’t want that to change. Just promise me you’ll look after yourself.”

I reached across the table to hold her hand. She withdrew, always a thin, cold pane of glass between us. She regarded me for a second, tears in her eyes. Then she stood up.

“There’s probably a pen in Paulo’s office,” she muttered, mostly to herself. That was it. She walked off talking to herself and I went to my room to change.

I stood in the doorway for a while. Taking in the home I was leaving—the standard, grey-green walls that were in every home, my small bed and yellow bedspread. I wasn’t really going to miss this place. To miss it, I would have had to have some enjoyable moments here. There were none I could think of. Not here. Not since Paulo came to live here. I put on my school uniform, grey-green again with a silhouette of the Pau Brasil tree on the front. Its tiny trunk completely out of proportion to its vast foliage, looking like a stick with a puffy cloud jammed on top. I looked in the mirror. A calm girl stared back at me, her brown and blue eyes steeled and determined. I had to make this work. I had to make a better life for myself. Anything would better than this. I combed my long, brown hair back into a ponytail and tied the allowable silver ribbon around it. A memory of strong hands straightening my uniform and tightening my ribbon swaddled my consciousness. Not now.

I looked tired, dark circles under my eyes. I wondered if Joseph would be there, feeling a sharp punch to my chest. I decided I wouldn’t care if he was there or not. Hilarious that I thought I could decide such a thing. We weren’t going to be in the same class so it didn’t matter. But it did. It mattered so much more than I could ever admit to myself, bringing with it a crippling, doubling-over feeling of pain. No, I wouldn’t care. I couldn’t.