Sometimes you have stories that you want to tell just right or not at all. Unless you can paint the picture in the same hues you first saw it, then why try? I feel this way about Raquel. What happened on Sunday, though, can’t be allowed to leave my memory. She’s too important for that.

My pot of water was just about to boil when I saw Roxy, backpack loaded and being followed by a group of boys with black trash bags. My mind whirred. Bernice, an SM, had told me that she hated  Visitation Day because someone always went home. I hadn’t noticed this previously, probably because I didn’t have many close relationships with the kids yet. When I heard about a child leaving, there was only a face to remember, not a person. But I knew Roxy. Should I stop her and ask where she was headed with all her belongings? I almost didn’t. It would be too awkward and I was busy. No, I had to go!

“Tu estas saliendo?”

 “No yo, pero Raquel, si.”

Raque!? I could now see a line of people, arms intertwined, coming towards me, Adam a few steps out to the side. Not Raquel. We had spent an hour together the night before, in her room, drafting a good- bye letter to her SM. She wanted it to be in English. Being ten years old, she was easily distracted by her collection of trinkets. Although I loved her dimpled wonder at her simple treasures, at the end of the hour, I pushed her to finish by almost leaving several times.

Raquel was leaving? I knew her brother and sister had left the month before (probably on Visitation Day), but they had wanted to go home, apparently tired of living under our rules. Raquel had chosen to stay despite their absence. I knew if she were leaving it was not by choice.

When I saw her tears, the trauma in her eyes, I gave her the biggest hug I could. How can you wipe away the pain of the inevitable? Her “brothers” and “sisters” were weeping too. I kept stroking her hair as we continued down the roadway, each step closer to an unexpected good-bye.

It was her parents. They decided they wanted her home, just like that, no warning. No, “In a month we’ll be back, so get ready.” Why did they want her after eight years of not caring? Papi Jose came toward us, her Papi from Casa 2. We stopped. They embraced, and as he pulled away, I could see the tears welling in his eyes. The sheer agony in that embrace was tangible. I had no choice but to participate in the grief. A girl was being pulled from the only family she could remember. For what? To where? I kept trying to catch my tears with the side of my hand, but there were too many.

At the office, we sat and stood around, waiting. Raquel’s real mother was there, waiting too, for paper work or something. At her side was a little girl, in appearance about 1 ½ or two years old, in reality, three.  Give up three children and have some more. Makes sense. She smiled often, trying to make light of the situation. One girl asked her, simply, why? Her Spanish was rapid, slurred and colloquial, but the words I picked out were further disheartening, trabajar and vender. They need her to work, I thought. Poor Raquel. Not only is she losing her family here, the family that she lost years ago still doesn’t really want her.

I couldn’t quit crying. At one point I had to hide my head in Adam’s shoulder to let the sobs spill out more inconspicuously. By this time, Raquel was calm. I felt strange being the one who couldn’t keep my emotions in check. We waited some more, silently. What do you say? “It’s going to be aright.” That’s a joke. She’s lived here since she was two.

Adam went home to get a photo of us for her. I couldn’t bring myself to leave, not wanting her to be alone. At noon, the groups of visiting families started to pack up and leave. I knew that there couldn’t be much more time. Not wanting to prolong the awkwardness and because more kids from other houses were coming to say their good-byes, I gave her my last hug and turned toward home.

The rest of the day felt unreal. I was emotionally drained and yet actively pouring over the day’s experience. What could we do? That evening, I was out on the playground with Eduardo and Mami Mirna. Jairo meandered toward us in his ambling way and stopped to chat. Something about his expression and demeanor was strange. “Como estas?” I said.  The story unraveled, but at first I didn’t’ catch on. He was describing a tiny, one-room house with nine people living inside. He told us where the beds were, the stove, the TV (nicer than his). He told us that there was only a coke and a tortilla for dinner. Something clicked in my mind. No!

“Jairo, who’s house are you talking about?”

“Raquelita.”

No. When he said that her parents had reacted to her tears by rudely saying, “Why are you crying?” I felt more than grief; I felt anger, anger at delinquent parents who care more about entertainment than children, anger at the people who originally started our orphanage for accepting kids under the table and with parents who could whisk them away without warning.

What can we do? She lives an hour and a half away, which is a long ways for such a small country. From what I understand, the law says that if the parents want her, they get her. If we were to send money for her education, it would probably go to upgrade their cell phone, even though they only have a dirt floor and no bathroom. How can we keep her face in our minds and her name in our prayers? Time erases even grief. But I don’t want it to leave because it would be like losing her forever.