Blanca Like Snow

Chapter 6 - Memories

       "Why are you staying with me?" I ask Clarisse as she gives me my lunch. She isn't related to me, she's never met me before and can't even help me remember, but she's next to me like a mother should be. "Don't you have places to go?"

"I do, but I feel responsible for you and I can't just leave you without anyone to look after you. Being in a hospital is sad enough, let's not make it worse by leaving you all alone, shall we?" Her smile is kind and honest, even if her attitude is out of pity, it doesn't make me feel bad. On the contrary, I'm quite grateful for her presence. It would be very lonely indeed if she weren't with me.

"What happens to the place where you need to be?" I continue making inquiries. Despite my gratitude, I don't want to be a bother for her.

"I might look old, but I do know how to use a mobile phone." Cue to her words, she takes out of her purse a touchscreen mobile phone that she waves in front of me, her smile wicked and really amused at the same time. "I can keep an eye on all of them from here, and I have very reliable people working with me."

"Where do you work?"

"I'm the director of an orphanage. It's called the Dream House and we have just a few kids, which is good, of course."

"Orphanage..." I muse, the word being so familiar to me for some reason.

My head hurts a bit, as if it was overheating because the engines are working too hard to make sense out of these rootless feelings. I know orphanages are familiar to me, but I don't know why. Could it be that I belong to some? Or belonged to at some point? Maybe I'm an orphan, without anyone who would miss me if I disappear. Maybe I'm just like one of the kids Clarisse looks after in the Dream House.

"That's nice," I continue, pushing that thought aside because it doesn't feel quite right. That's guessing, not remembering. "How many kids do you have in the Dream House?"

"We have seven little kids and three teenagers that will be leaving us soon. They are eighteen already and finishing college. Our kids leave when they enter university or start working," Clarisse explains, her eyes looking fond as she thinks of them. I see actual love and care, which makes me trust this woman immediately. "The youngest is one year old. I know it's always heartbreaking that kids need to be in a orphanage, but in the Dream House we try our best to make a good home for them."

"That's wonderful. That's a place I'd like to sponsor..."

I confuse myself with my words that come out before I can even think of what I'm saying, they don't even make sense to me but they are automatic and feel natural. It's as if this is something I would normally say and it makes think of the type of person I am. Am I the altruist type that goes helping around? Do I do this normally or have I been looking for a cause to support?

The headache grows stronger as I try to understand better, calling for memories that will answer the questions and make sense to me, but these still refuse to come back.

"When you're back at home maybe you can come visit us and help. It's a really nice place and as we live in a very countryside area, we have our own little farm, which is lovely for the kids. They love chasing pigs." Clarisse laughs at the memory, shaking her head ever so lightly. "Vincent loves getting in the mud with them, which is really inconvenient for us."

"That sounds like fun. The closest I've been to a living animal is a dog..."

Clarisse's expression is as surprised as mine when I say that, which once again is an unconscious act, the words escaping me without me noticing. I don't even remember that, in my head there isn't any memory of any animal because it's all blank, but for some reason I know it's right, I'm not lying or anything.