Three Little Words

by Ashley Rhodes-Courter

  It rang again about an hour later. “Lena who?” Adele asked. Apparently, a new Florida caseworker, Lena Jamison, had just taken over Dennis Benson’s job. Adele’s expression went from irate to crestfallen. “You’re coming when?”

  She hung up, went to her room, closed the door, and sobbed loudly. I put my head on the hound dog and snuffled into his salty fur.

  4.

  waiting for mama

  “I don’t want to go!” I wailed.

  “It’s just for a little while,” Adele promised. She told us we would be back in a few days and convinced me to leave behind my dolls and dresses.

  She packed only one small green suitcase for the both of us. “We’ll leave your school clothes here ’cause you’ll start kindergarten as soon as you get back.” She hugged me close. “Besides,” she added as an afterthought, “your mama’s in Florida. Won’t it be nice to see her?”

  At the airport we met Lena Jamison, a stocky woman with a no-nonsense voice. She shook my hand and then inspected Luke’s speckled arms. “What are those red marks?” she asked accusingly.

  He started to cry as though he had done something wrong. “They’re just mosquito bites.” I kneeled next to him. “Don’t worry, Lukie, we’re just going to visit Mama, and then we are coming back when Grandpa is better, right?” I looked up for some confirmation, but the worker avoided my eye.

  Fourteen hours later we swayed sleepily in a car that wound down a twisting road back to Seffner, where Ms. Jamison deposited us on Paula and Milton Pace’s doorstep.

  From the exterior, the ranch home did not appear large enough for the dozen or so residents, and I quickly learned that it wasn’t. Five of the children, including Luke and a set of fraternal twins, were three years old. In the boys’ room miniature bunk beds were stacked three high, while the girl twin and I shared a room with the biological daughter.

  If I counted living with my mother, this was my seventh home in a little more than two years and the worst place I had been—so far. A few years later, when I moved into the Mosses’ home, I would be reminded of the cramped quarters and zooey smells I first encountered here. In a few weeks four more children joined the fray, for a total of eleven foster children between the ages of two and six.

  At first I refused to unpack. “I’m going back tomorrow,” I insisted.

  After a few days I took out my toiletries but kept the rest of my belongings in the suitcase. I did not want to settle in, and I also did not want the rug rats messing with my few possessions. Mrs. Pace always seemed to be yelling at someone and often it was Luke. I was disgusted by the piles of dirty diapers, the snotty noses, and the screeches of children vying for any sort of attention. As I stared out the picture window that looked across a horse pasture, I wondered where Adele and Grandpa were and why I hadn’t seen my mother yet. Beyond where the waving grass met the sky was South Carolina, but how could I get back there?

  “Why are we here so long?” I asked Mrs. Pace when I had worn many times over all the clothes Adele had packed. She mumbled something that made no sense. “When can I see my mama?” I stamped my foot. “Adele said I would visit her, so where is she?” My demands resulted only in timeouts, where I anxiously bit my fingernails.

  Luke would not let me out of his sight. “Sissy!” he would shout if I was in another room. He even tried to follow me into the bathroom. “I wanna sleep in Ashley’s room,” he begged at bedtime.

  “Boys stay with boys, girls with girls,” Mrs. Pace said, as though that would satisfy him.

  Even at that age, I knew what he needed more than the professionals did. I was the one who comforted him when he was scared or lonely. At the Hines’, he came to me for everything and even at Grandpa’s, he ended up in my bed most mornings. When Mrs. Pace told Lena Jamison that she had found him sneaking into my room, the caseworker noted in our files that a psychologist needed to evaluate us for sex abuse. If any worker had bothered to review our case, they would have realized that at the age of three, Luke already had lost his biological mother—whom he had barely known—then Mrs. Hines, and now Adele. Seeing Grandpa shot or our hasty removal might have traumatized him. Now he was in a congested home with strangers. He received no loving, individualized attention from a parent figure. I was his security blanket—nothing more—and none of this had anything to do with sex. However, sex was a hot-button topic and I think caseworkers liked to gossip about it, even if the accusations were ridiculous.

  The Paces ran the Perfect Angels daycare center in Plant City, where the younger children went while the older ones attended school. I wished I could wear my angel wings that Adele had made, but of course they had been left behind. In the afternoon the school bus dropped the school-age kids off at the daycare center; and then we all went home when the center closed. We were a needy bunch of baby birds who had fallen out of our original nests and were desperate for any scrap of attention. We each found ways to be noticed. Luke hid under the bed at bath time, threw food on the floor, and bit other children. When Mr. or Mrs. Pace swooped down flapping parental wings, he was getting precisely what he wanted.

  In early September, Adele wrote me a long letter saying that she had washed my dolls’ clothes and that my “babies” were doing fine. I miss you both something awful, but I know you are well and taken care of. She said her granddaughters were enjoying school, that her grandson had started pre-K, and that Ms. Hurley was holding a spot for me in her class. Adele went on to tell me that Uncle Sammie and his girlfriend, Courtney, had stopped by after visiting with Uncle Perry. When I was there, we had gone to see Uncle Perry in prison as though it were a typical family outing. She closed with, I love you both so much … always and always. Love, Mama.

  The letter made me miss Adele but also wonder what had become of my mother. I convinced myself that she was coming for us, which is why we had to stay in Florida. She was somewhere out there … nearby … I just knew it! 41

  It turns out Mama was in the women’s state prison and Dusty was in another jail in Florida. In the meantime, Adele was making good on her promise to become a licensed foster parent. Grandpa had moved out and she was getting the property in shape. Adele wrote that the hen with the feathers on her feet was sitting on seven eggs. I was desperate to be there when the chicks hatched. I could not understand what was taking so long for Adele to get us back. Adele had my dolls, dresses—everything that mattered—so I was confident I would be leaving any day. In a corner of my mind I had realized that my mother was unreliable, but Adele was a loving grandmother who had always done what she said. My mother, my grandfather, and Adele detested the state people, so I did too. If they would stop meddling in our lives, we would be fine.

  Lena Jamison came to Perfect Angels for a visit. “I have your inoculation records, so you can go to kindergarten,” she said in a singsong voice. “Won’t you like that?”

  “No, I’m supposed to be in Ms. Hurley’s class.”

  My first day of kindergarten at Lopez Elementary School should have been a special event, but since it was already October, nobody fussed. The class was busy coloring Ps for “pumpkin.” Adele had promised to make me a princess costume for Halloween, and I kept hoping I would get back in time—just as we had the year before. Unfortunately, the holiday came and went with only some candy at the daycare center.

  On my birthday the school bus dropped me off at Perfect Angels. Ms. Jamison was waiting with a big box from Aunt Leanne. I ran to claim my gifts. The box contained a new doll with matching clothes and a Chutes and Ladders board game. “Where are Lilly and Katie?” I asked.

  “Who?”

  “My favorite dolls!”

  “These are new presents, honey.” The caseworker stroked my red curls and turned to Mrs. Pace. “How’s she settling in at school?”

  “She’s a very good student—way ahead, even though she missed the first nine weeks.” She indicated Luke with her chin. “He’s finally stopped wandering around the house at night.”

  “When am I going
home?” I whined.

  “Honey, you just go play and enjoy your birthday,” Mrs. Pace said. “Why don’t you show the other kids what you got?”

  I repacked the gifts in the box and vowed I would not let anyone else near them because the other kids destroyed everything they touched.

  Adele received her South Carolina foster care license on my sixth birthday, but she was told it would take several more months before the interstate paperwork would allow us to travel. She begged the officials to return us in time for Christmas. When it looked like that was not possible, she promised to send us some warm clothes and my dolls.

  Then, to everyone’s surprise, the documents were ready in early December, and we shuttled back to South Carolina.

  “Look, I lost a tooth!” I crowed when Adele met us at the airport.

  Grandpa was no longer there, which made life easier since there were no more raised voices or slammed doors. I felt comfortable in Adele’s loving embrace. On Christmas, I received a pink Barbie radio and a Precious Moments sleeping bag. I liked the way we did everything the same as we had the previous year, including opening one gift on Christmas Eve and the rest before breakfast the next morning. Then we had crisp bacon and biscuits before going to open more presents and have lunch with Adele’s grandchildren.

  “I want to do this next year too!” I said to Adele when she tucked us in that night.

  “Of course you will,” she assured me. “How else will Santa know where to find you?”

  “But what if they come to take me away again?” I asked.

  “They tricked me last time, but I’ll never let you go again.”

  “Promise?”

  She kissed my forehead. “You are here to stay.”

  By the time spring came, I had lost both front teeth. Adele made her granddaughters and me Easter outfits in pastel colors, and we celebrated with an Easter egg hunt and picnic in a park.

  Fresh flowers popped out of the grass every day like all the new lessons I learned in school. I couldn’t wait to see my teacher’s welcoming smile, open to the next page in a book, or start marking a clean work sheet with a sharpened pencil. I tried to keep these thoughts in mind as I made the scary walk down the long, rutted dirt road all by myself each morning. If it had rained, I had to try to balance on the high part to keep my shoes clean. If it had been dry for a spell, dust swirled around, and I had to breathe through my nose to keep from eating grit. Adele was always busy with Luke, so mostly, I had to plod along on my own. One morning I waited and waited, but the bus never came. I sat on the grassy shoulder and wrote my name in the dirt with a stick. I saw a rabbit scamper into a hole and wished I could follow him like Alice in Wonderland would have. After several hours the man who ran the mom-and-pop shop in town sauntered up to me. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Waitin’ for the school bus.”

  “Honey, there ain’t no school today. Didn’t Ms. Adele know that?” I shrugged. “Well, it’s a good thing someone told me about a little girl out here. Are you hungry?” I nodded.

  He led me to his store and gave me a Coke and a sandwich. While I was eating, his wife called Adele. When she arrived, Adele was flustered. “I told Ashley that I thought this was a holiday, but she insisted.” Adele had trouble catching her breath. “I never did see a child who liked school so much.”

  “When are you going to listen?” she shouted when we were in the car. “And you missed lunch.”

  “I ate at the store.”

  “Did you pay?”

  “I didn’t have money.”

  She took a few dollars from her purse. “You go back up there, pay the man, thank him, and tell him you’re sorry.”

  “By myself?” I asked. Seeing her stern face, I did not complain any further.

  I was furious that I had to walk up that hated road and then back again. As I kicked stones along the way, I had no idea that I would be living with her for only another week. I have never been able to find any official reason why we were returned to Florida a second time. Perhaps someone reported my being alone by the side of the road and that is what led to our removal. Maybe the neighbors reported something. Grandpa had started coming around again while we were still there—he did live with Adele again after we left—and maybe the authorities found out. Adele did receive foster care payments from Florida during that time, which is unusual, so money might have been the issue. All I know is that at the end of April, Luke and I were back at the airport. This time I carried Katie wrapped in her pink blanket. Nobody was ever again going to talk me into leaving without my precious dolls. Adele kept wiping away tears as she snapped pictures.

  Lena Jamison led us onto the plane. I was so upset, I was shivering, so she wrapped her sweater around me. “I didn’t know you were afraid of flying,” she said, completely misunderstanding me.

  She folded her hands across a manila envelope in her lap. “What’s in there?” I asked.

  “Your papers.”

  “Does it say where we’re going?”

  “No.”

  “Are we going back to the Paces’ house?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why can’t we stay with Adele?”

  Ms. Jamison puffed out with annoyance. “Honey, we need to keep you safe.”

  Again, she missed the point. Adele had fussed over us even more than our mother had. She gave us more attention, food, and affection than anyone ever had. It seemed logical to me that Luke and I would be safest with someone who actually loved us.

  When we arrived in Florida, Luke and I went our separate ways—he ended up at another congested baby farm, while I “lucked out” and got to be the only child in the home of Boris and Doreen Potts, an older couple who lived in a double-wide mobile home surrounded by a chain-link fence that seemed to buckle into itself like a Slinky. The strawberries in the field next door smelled so ripe that I would press my nose through a diamond of wire to sniff the fragrant fruit.

  The Pottses had a revolving wash line in the backyard that I enjoyed spinning when it was empty. I often sat in the shade of their tangerine tree and played with my dolls. I had my own room, and I folded my Precious Moments sleeping bag at the end of the bed. Sometimes they would leave gifts on my sleeping bag, like a pair of jelly sandals with silver sparkles that I thought were the greatest shoes I ever had.

  Mr. Potts barely talked to me, but I was always questioning him. When he dumped ketchup on his eggs, I asked, “Why are you doing that?”

  “I like it that way.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “That’s disgusting!”

  “It isn’t polite to comment on someone else’s food,” Mrs. Potts chided.

  Mostly, though, Mrs. Potts liked me because I entertained myself.

  “Could you turn the sprinkler on?” I asked on a blistering summer day.

  “It’s going to rain,” Mrs. Potts said, but then she relented because she knew it would keep me amused for a while.

  I put on my bathing suit and jumped around as it sprayed back and forth. A dark cloud hovered nearby, but I kept playing until I was forced to stop. I felt rain on my shoulders and looked up to see if I would be called inside. The sun still baked the yard near the driveway, but it was pouring near the house. I skipped between the wet and the dry side of the yard a few times, calling for Mrs. Potts. “Come and see the miracle!”

  She said, “If it rains when the sun is out, it means that the devil’s beating his wife.” This scared me, so I came inside.

  After dinner I would sit on the porch swing and wait for the first star so I could make my eternal wish: to be with my mother. My yearning was like an insect bite. If I left it alone, I would stop noticing it; but if I focused on it, it would drive me crazy. I had sucked on my fingers as a baby, so when something bothered me, they still fluttered into my mouth. The more anxious I was, the more intensely I gnawed on my fingernails, sometimes making my fingers bleed. Then I could concentrate on that rather than the feelings inside.

  I could not he
lp worrying about Luke. He lived only about twenty minutes away, but we rarely saw each other. His foster parents had a three-bedroom mobile home on a property that also had a plant nursery. On one visit there were eight foster kids, and my brother shared a room with five other boys.

  “We have more room at our house. Why can’t he come and live with us?” I asked Mrs. Potts.

  “That’s not my decision.” She closed off all further discussion on the matter.

  My favorite activity was watching a television that I did not have to share with other children who hogged the remote control. I would get up early and flip to Care Bears or Adventures in Wonderland. I wished I could go through the looking glass so I could find my mother.

  Then there was the video.

  The last time I had watched a movie, it had been a Disney tape, so I pressed the play button on the Pottses’ VCR remote. This was not a cartoon, but I could tell it had something to do with history. Thinking it was educational, I curled up in Mr. Potts’s chair. A female Nazi commandant was torturing some of the prettier female prisoners with electric dildos because she was jealous of them. I knew I should turn it off, but I kept hoping that the good guys would prevail so I wouldn’t have to go to bed with the frightening images etched in my mind. I shuddered as the story became even more gruesome. The commandant forced guys to make love to her, and she castrated those who did not satisfy her insatiable lust. An American prisoner was the only one who was able to pleasure her, so she spared him. In other frightening scenes she tortured women sexually and drunken German men doused women with beer and then raped them.