by Susan Stoker
“Wow.” Tommy’s eyes were as wide as saucers. He looked over at Fatty, who was disinterested in the entire conversation, as evidenced by his utter concentration on licking himself. “Why do you guys do that? It’s gross.”
“Lick ourselves?” Boba asked.
“Yeah.”
“Because it feels good.”
“Ewwwww.” Tommy made a face and the cats chuckled.
“Just wait until you’re a few years older, Tommy boy, you’ll understand then,” Jango told him with a grin.
Tommy didn’t know what the cat was talking about, but didn’t want to admit it, so he asked, “There are witches, talking bears, cats, wolves, and honey badgers. What else?”
Boba and Jango lay down on the bed and nudged Tommy until he too was lying back down. “Well, I mentioned Roger the rabbit—”
“From the movie?” Tommy asked in awe.
“What movie?” Fatty asked, confused. “Roger’s in a movie?”
“It’s a cartoon,” Tommy clarified.
“Then, no. Our Roger is a psychiatrist,” Jango said. “He’s too dignified to be in a cartoon movie. Although I bet he’d get a kick out of knowing there was one with a rabbit named Roger in it. I’ll have to look it up and rent it for our next movie night. Anyway, I don’t think I mentioned Simon the skunk, did I?”
“No…doesn’t he smell?”
Jango laughed and said, “Only when he lets one. You do not want to be around when he farts. The last time he did it all the flowers around him wilted.”
Tommy chuckled, as Jango meant him to. There wasn’t anything funnier than farts to little boys. “I’d like to live in your world,” Tommy stated sleepily. “No scary men who can hurt me.”
The cats looked at each other, knowing there were plenty of things that happened in their world that were truly terrifying, but also knowing better than to tell Tommy about them. Boba spoke quietly. “It seems to me that you’re in a safe place here, Tommy. Alabama and Abe seem nice.”
“They won’t keep me.”
“Why not?” Fatty asked.
Tommy shrugged. “None of the others did. No one wants an old kid like me. Not one who…was hurt. They want the little kids.”
“Brinique and Davisa weren’t little when they got here,” Fatty said, tilting his cat head and twitching his ears.
“Littler than me,” Tommy insisted.
“You’ve had a craptastic life so far,” Fatty said resolutely, “And it sounds to me like you need a break. And I have it on good authority that Alabama and Abe want to keep you.”
“For now,” Tommy said sadly. “Wait until I screw up.”
“You planning on it?” Boba asked disinterestedly.
“No. But it always happens. I have a temper and I can’t control it.”
“Oh well, just say you’re sorry and it’ll be forgiven. We screw up all the time and Zelda always forgives us,” Fatty said matter-of-factly.
Tommy’s voice began to slur as he slowly fell back to sleep. “I mish my mama.”
All three cats began to purr and rub their heads against the heartbroken boy, lulling him back to sleep.
“I miss my mom too,” Fatty sniffed.
“You idiot, you never had a mom. You were conjured,” Boba told the other cat quietly.
“Then I miss having a mom,” Fatty insisted.
A soft snore came from Tommy as the cats argued. Their banter and warm purring bodies had helped him fall back to sleep, just as they’d planned.
Jango rolled his eyes at his friends. “We’re gonna have to keep a close eye on this one guys.” The other cats nodded in agreement. Healing Tommy was one thing, keeping him safe would be another challenge altogether.
“Christopher, I’m worried about Tommy,” Alabama told her husband the next morning.
“I know, me too, sweet. But he’s tough. He has me and you, and his sisters, he’ll pull through. Remember how hard it was to get Brinique and Davisa to trust us when they first got here? They spent a lot of time huddled together in their room hiding. You didn’t think they’d ever come out and talk with us. It’ll take some time. That’s all.” Abe pulled his wife into his arms. “Foster to adoption, especially with children as opposed to infants or toddlers, isn’t easy. We knew that going in.”
“I know, I know. I can’t believe his own dad took money in exchange for letting those awful men do…well, you know.”
Abe sighed and shut his eyes tightly. “I want so badly to get my hands on his father and kill him. I know the guys would have no problem backing me up. I bet if he ever gets out of jail, Tex could find him within seconds.”
“But then I’d have to visit you while you were in prison,” Alabama told him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I like having you around too much to risk it.”
“Ah, ye of little faith, wife. You know I wouldn’t get caught if Wolf and the others had my back.”
Alabama sighed and closed her eyes, resting her head on Abe’s chest. “I just…I see so much of myself in Tommy and want to hold him tight and tell him that it’ll be all right. He’s just so hurt. I can’t stand it.”
“He’ll get there. He’s tough, Alabama. Exactly like you. Give him some time.”
“I’m afraid if it doesn’t work out here with us, he’ll end up another statistic. I can’t bear that, Christopher.”
Abe continued to hold onto Alabama tightly. He didn’t say anything, simply rocked her.
“If his father does ever get out of jail and thinks he’ll get him back, he’ll have to go through me,” Alabama said in a soft voice, but laced with steel. Her fingers clutched at Abe’s shirt at his back as she fought against the angry feelings coursing through her body at the thought of Tommy being anywhere near his birth father.
Abe pulled back and put his hands on either side of his wife’s neck, his large fingers caressing her nape as his thumbs gently pushed her chin up so she had no choice but to meet his eyes. “Wrong. He’ll not get anywhere near you. He’ll have to go through me. And Wolf. And Dude. And Benny. And Cookie. And Mozart. And probably even Tex. And I could probably call up some Delta Force men I know and they’d be happy to help out as well,” Abe told his wife in a tone which held no doubt whatsoever.
“I love you, Christopher. Thank you for not thinking I’m insane for wanting to adopt kids who nobody wants.”
“I love you too, sweet. And there’re people who want them…us.”
4
For the fifth day in a row, Tommy woke up after a full night’s sleep. He didn’t remember having any nightmares in the last week or so, which was a miracle as he’d starting having them after being molested for the first time—and they hadn’t quit until the three cats started sleeping in bed with him. He somehow knew it was them. He had no idea how they were doing it, but he wasn’t going to complain.
His life with Christopher and Alabama Powers was actually pretty…nice. He’d never had siblings, but he was starting to thaw toward Brinique and Davisa. They kept out of his face and didn’t steal his stuff, which was a step up from the last foster home he’d been in.
Everything was going so well…it made him nervous. Generally, when things started to go good in his life, it went to shit soon after.
“I’m hungry,” Fatty told Tommy as soon as he saw the boy was awake.
“You’re always hungry,” he told the cat without heat.
“True. What do you think is for breakfast?”
“Probably the same thing you had for breakfast yesterday, and the day before that and the day before that,” Tommy told the overweight cat with a laugh.
“I keep hoping for the salmon,” Fatty groused.
Boba and Jango stretched and then turned to lick themselves.
Tommy rolled his eyes and climbed out of bed. He was more than used to the cats and the way they always seemed to be licking between their legs. He had no idea why they did it, but since it wasn’t hurting anything, he let them.
“It’s Friday, right?” Fat
ty asked, following Tommy into the hall and the bathroom.
“Yeah.”
“And we’re going to the beach this weekend.”
The cat wasn’t exactly asking, more reminding him. Tommy sighed as he shut the bathroom door, closing him and Fatty inside. He had forgotten about the upcoming trip. Alabama had told him about it earlier in the week. Saying that the group of men Christopher worked with had rented a ginormous house on the beach near the Navy base, and everyone—literally twenty men, women, and children—was going to spend the weekend hanging out together. It sounded like a nightmare to him, but he knew he couldn’t get out of it. It wasn’t like Alabama was going to let him stay at home alone.
“I guess.”
“You guess?” Fatty deadpanned. “You know what’s at the beach, don’t you?”
His mouth full of foamy toothpaste, Tommy asked, “No, what?”
“Fish!”
Rolling his eyes, Tommy spit out the foam and rinsed his mouth. As much as he liked the cats, and loved that he could talk to them, they were starting to get a little annoying. It was crazy that talking cats could ever get annoying, but Fatty, Jango, and Boba had definitely started to push his buttons.
Feeling the anger that was always simmering under the surface of his skin start to bubble and hiss, Tommy sneered, “I don’t know why you care. Alabama is gonna take you, Jango, and Boba to the shelter anyway. Since they haven’t been able to find who you belong to—”
“That’s ’cause we belong to Zelda, who lives in West Virginia,” Fatty interrupted.
Furious that the cat hadn’t let him finish his thought, Tommy kicked out at him in frustration. As had happened the last time he’d tried to kick him, Tommy’s foot was stopped in mid-air. This time, however, it was also twisted, as if an invisible hand had hold of it.
Tommy turned his body into the twist to keep his leg from hurting and ended up facing the mirror. His hands were braced on the counter and he was slightly bent over. He huffed out in anger, frustration, and pain. “Let me go.”
“Are you going to kick me again?” Fatty asked, completely unfazed as he sat on the floor licking a paw.
“No,” the boy answered belligerently.
As soon as the word left his mouth, his leg was released from whatever force had gripped it. Tommy whirled around and finished his thought. “You and the others are gonna end up in the shelter and will be killed. No one’s gonna want you. You’re fat and ugly and stupid.” The black ball of goo inside him swelled up and filled his throat. Making him want to lash out and make the cat hurt as much as he did.
Fatty’s gray tail swished back and forth on the tile floor as he regarded the little boy. “Is that what happened to you?”
Tommy felt the blood drain out of his face. “Shut up.”
“You’re not fat or ugly. And I don’t think you’re stupid, but maybe the other foster parents didn’t really understand you.”
“I said shut up,” Tommy demanded, the blood rushing into his face in a wave of heat.
“Alabama is gonna find that the shelter is closed today,” Fatty said nonchalantly. “She’s gonna have to take us with you to the beach.” The cat nodded his head in satisfaction.
There was a knock on the door. Tommy wrenched it open, more than happy to get away from Fatty. “What?”
“You’re not supposed to say that,” Brinique told her foster brother, obviously having overheard him tell Fatty to shut up. “Mommy doesn’t like it.”
“I don’t care, and you can shut up too,” Tommy told her, brushing past her, making sure to knock against her when he did it. The little girl stumbled and her shoulder hit the wall next to the door.
“Ow! Watch it!” she griped, glaring at him while she massaged her sore shoulder.
Tommy didn’t even see the glare as he hurried down the hall to his room. He slammed the door as hard as he could, making sure Fatty was still in the hallway when he did it.
“Wow, good morning to you too,” Boba drawled from his spot on the bed.
Tommy ignored the cat and stomped to his dresser. He pulled out a pair of jeans, which he hated—his last foster mother had bought them for him, and they were dorky, dark blue with silly lines on the pockets on the back—and a T-shirt he’d had since he was six. It was threadbare and too small, but Tommy didn’t care. It was something from his “old” life. A life he hated, but missed at the same time. He purposely didn’t put on any of the clothes Alabama and Abe had gotten for him, wanting to rebel against them in some way.
“I can’t wait to go to the beach,” Jango purred. “I’ve heard there’s all sorts of stinky things that get washed up on the shore.”
“Dead stinky things,” Boba returned. “If you eat them, you’ll get a stomachache then puke hairballs over the place.”
“Will not.”
“Will so.”
“Not.”
“So.”
“Tommy, think your mom will get us some salmon when we’re there? I heard the beach is a good place to get some top-notch fish. West Virginia isn’t exactly fish central. Although I’m sure Zelda could conjure us up some, she’s serious about this stupid diet she’s put us on,” Jango mused.
“Hildy never made us diet,” Boba grouched. “I bet if we purred real loud and rubbed up against some of the other women, they’d give us salmon.”
“Argh!” Tommy screamed, putting his hands over his ears. “I used to think it was cool that you guys could talk. Now it’s just annoying. I’m going to get some breakfast. I can’t wait to go to school to get away from you three!” And with that, Tommy stomped out of his room.
Boba and Jango grinned at each other.
“That didn’t take long,” Jango said.
“Nope. Getting him to want to go to school. Goal one, check,” Boba agreed.
“The others won’t be as easy.”
Boba sobered. “No, they won’t. But this weekend we’ll check the next two off.”
“Yeah.” Jango was silent for a moment and Fatty walked into the room just as he said, “Next week’s when it’s supposed to happen, right?”
“Right,” Fatty said. “He’ll be ready.”
“Are you sure?” Boba asked, nervously. “He hasn’t been here that long. I’m not sure he’ll have a chance to really acclimate. If he doesn’t bond with Alabama, Abe, Brinique, and Davisa, it’s not going to work. He’s not going to be ready.”
“He’ll be ready,” Fatty repeated stubbornly.
Jango and Boba didn’t look convinced, but nodded anyway.
“Come on, we don’t want to miss breakfast,” Fatty told the others, turning back toward the door.
It was as if he’d said the magic words. Boba and Jango sprang past Fatty as if the room was on fire. Not wanting to be left behind, and more importantly, not wanting his friends to get more food than him, Fatty jogged after them, his butt wiggling back and forth as he went.
5
“Now, I don’t want you to feel overwhelmed, Tommy,” Alabama told him from the front seat. They were in a mini-van headed down to the coast. Abe was driving, Alabama was sitting next to him, and their hands were clasped together over the center console between the two seats. Tommy wanted to roll his eyes, but the memory of his own parents doing the same thing when he was really young prevented him from saying or doing anything negative.
“There’s going to be a lot of people there, but the house is huge. You’ll have your own room, since you’re the oldest boy.
“Great, a house full of babies,” Tommy groused.
“Look at me, Tommy,” Abe ordered, dividing his attention from the road in front of them to the rearview mirror.
Reluctantly, Tommy raised his eyes and met Abe’s in the mirror. The man didn’t often use that tone with him, but when he did, Tommy knew better than to disobey. He wasn’t scared…exactly…but he didn’t want to push his luck either.
“I know everything is new and you’re unsure. That’s okay. You’re allowed to feel that way. B
ut what you’re not allowed to do is be disrespectful to Alabama or your sisters…or anyone else who will be there this weekend. Alabama told you that you’ll have your own room, but what she didn’t tell you is what she gave up to make sure you had that room to yourself. The room you’ll be staying in is the one that we usually sleep in. Because it was important to Alabama that you feel safe and comfortable, we’ll be sleeping on the pullout couch in the living room.”
Tommy gasped and his eyes whipped to the woman in the front seat. She wasn’t looking at him, but staring straight ahead at the scenery as it passed.
“Christopher,” she said in a low, pleading voice. “Drop it.”
“No, sweet. He needs to know,” Abe returned.
Tommy saw him squeeze his wife’s hand and his eyes came back to his in the mirror.
“Yes. We’re sleeping on the couch in the living room and you have one of the master bedrooms to yourself. Alabama wanted to be sure that you could get away from the hustle and bustle of everyone if you needed to. Brinique and Davisa will share one of the rooms with bunk beds in it with Sara and John. They’re four and three. The other couples there each have their own master bedrooms and the babies will all be bunking in with them. So you’re the only person this weekend who will have his own room.”
Abe’s voice gentled, but Tommy could tell he was still being very serious when he continued. “I get that you’ve had it tough lately, Bub. I wish to God that it hadn’t happened. But it did. The only thing you can do from this point is go forward. As much as we all wish we could have do-overs, we can’t. I wish I could erase it for you, but that’s impossible. Alabama wishes she would’ve found you before you had to experience the other three foster homes, but she didn’t. All I’m asking from you, while you’re dealing with the shit that happened—”
“Christopher! Language.”
Abe ignored Alabama’s gentle admonishment and continued on as if she hadn’t spoken, but Tommy saw the corner of his lips curl up into a small grin before he did so.
“…is that you are respectful to Alabama and the other women and kids who are there this weekend. If you feel the need to let off some steam, or if you’re confused or unsure about what’s happening, you can come to me. Or any of my friends. We’ll talk about it with you and help you understand what you’re feeling, or we’ll give you some space to work it out on your own. But respect is a hard line that me, and all the other men who will be there this weekend, will hold you to. Got it?”