I Found My Own Missing Poster

Synopsis

I was five the night I took one piece of meat off the dinner table, and they put me out of the house for it. Snow was coming down hard, so I climbed into a trash can and curled up to stay warm. A missing person poster was buried in the trash with me. The girl in the color photo had on a thick red coat, and her hair was pulled into two little braids. She had been born the same year I was. She had been missing for four years. I picked a piece of broken mirror out of the garbage and held it up to my filthy face. I had her eyes, her nose, and her mouth. When I smiled, I got the same goofy look she had. She had a birthmark on her arm. In the same spot on my arm, I had a bruise that somebody had put there. Her parents couldn't find her. My parents didn't want me. So I decided I would go be their daughter instead. I closed my fist around the last two quarters I had, got up on my toes, and dialed the payphone. On the other end, a man went quiet for three seconds. Then every police car in the county lit up.