by Caela Carter
So I love the meetings, but they still make me angry. Worried. Scared I’m not a normal kid, not the kid my person dreamed about before she met me.
At the last meeting we agreed on a homework system. I start my homework at the kitchen counter at four o’clock. I work there with Person or Dad or the babysitter until dinner at six thirty. Person or Dad or the babysitter checks my assignments. They sign off on them in my assignment notebook. And if I finish everything early, I get to watch the dancing teenagers show on TV. And if I’m still working at six thirty, Person writes a note and I don’t have to do the rest of the work. But that’s only if I’ve been working hard the whole time and not staring into space.
I do a lot of staring into space. But I don’t know I’m doing it. So how do I stop that?
The homework system has mostly been working. I’ve even been working on hand-raising sometimes. Why does Ms. K want another meeting? Does she know I figured out the bathroom loophole?
“The bathroom?” I say.
“You need to go?” Person says. “You can be excused.”
“No, does Ms. K know?”
“That you need to go to the bathroom?” Person says.
“No!” I say. This is the thing about a missing lung filter. The words that get out sometimes sound all messed up to other people so they don’t know what I mean and they lose patience. Ms. K is the first teacher I’ve ever had who tries to understand me.
I put the words together in my mind. Then I say them. “What are we meeting with Ms. K about this time?”
Person pats my cheek. “I’m not sure, honey. She only said she wants to talk to us.”
I’m staring at my plate. I’m ignoring her hand on my cheek. It’s starting to feel like needles.
“Let’s leave it until the morning, OK?” Person says.
Then she stares at me. Her eyes scratch my face. Her forced smile weighs on my heart. I want the attention. I need the attention. I hate the attention.
“Julian has a roll,” I say.
Julian is going to pass the third grade no problem. Julian talks in a way that everyone understands all the time. The only bad thing left about Julian is the food in the closet, and he’s returned most of it to Person by now. Julian is almost a normal kid. Julian is leaving me behind.
“Put it back,” I say.
Person holds her hand out. “Sweetie?” she says. Julian takes the roll from his pocket and hands it to her.
He sticks his tongue out at me and he hates me and I don’t care because at least we are the same again. Both trouble. Bad. Onlys.
I’m being buried in rolls. Thousands of rolls are falling all over my face and body and bed. They’re filling my room. They aren’t all-the-way real and I can’t feel them or smell them or taste them but they’re here in the darkness and they’ll suffocate me anyway.
Down the hall, Julian is screaming for a roll. That’s in my imagination. I’m imagining him screaming for a roll. In my head, he’s terrified he’ll never eat again because that roll isn’t hidden in the folds of his pants or the back of his shoes.
He’s crazy. Food is one thing we don’t have to worry about here.
But he’s a kind of crazy I understand.
I crawl out of the bed and my socks slide across the gold carpet in my room.
Dad and Person kissed me good night hours ago. The water has stopped running and the TV is turned off and everything is quiet except for the rolls and Julian’s screaming, which I know are in my imagination but in some ways they’re real.
I tiptoe into the kitchen.
When Person adopted us two years ago, we moved into this apartment in New Jersey. She had just moved in too. She bought the apartment for us even though she didn’t know who we were yet, which is something she tells us all the time like it’s super important but it makes me feel squirmy because I can’t figure out what it means.
It felt like a huge apartment for three people and then Dad moved into Person’s room when they got married, but there’s still lots of space. I have my very own room. It’s off of the living room and kitchen, which is one big room with a counter in the middle where Person and Dad chop vegetables and I do my homework. At the end of the living room there’s a little nook with our table where we eat breakfast and dinner. And past the nook there’s a hallway with two more bedrooms and the bathroom.
I have to be very quiet when I sneak into Julian’s room at night because it’s right across the hall from Person’s.
In the kitchen, I open the breadbasket and pull out a roll. This is allowed. You are always allowed to eat food in the kitchen and the kitchen will always have food. Person tells us that all the time because it’s supposed to make Julian stop hiding bread and carrots and chocolate bars and yogurts in his closet. It won’t ever work, not all the way. I could tell Person that, but it’s the sort of thing that would come out the wrong way and get all confusing.
With the roll in my fist, I tiptoe into the hallway and put my hand on Julian’s doorknob.
That’s when I hear Dad talking.
“I thought we were going to tell them today,” he whispers.
Person sighs. “Me too, Jon. Me too. I wanted to. I just . . .”
“Chickened out?” he asks.
Them is us. Me and Julian. Them is always us.
“I got worried when Cheryl called,” Person is saying. “I’m not sure I’m ready to . . . I . . . what if it destroys them?”
“You have to have a little more faith in them,” Dad says. “They’ve proven they’re pretty resilient.”
“Resilient,” Person says quietly. “But . . . we’ve all been working so hard at it. Things are going better than ever. You see the progress they’re making. Julian showed me his whole closet tonight—he only has four pieces of food hidden in there. And he showed them to me! He’s starting to trust me. Us. And Flora’s progress report this week showed only two missing homework assignments. And did you hear her today? Asking me to explain? She’s learning how to communicate with us . . .”
It sounds like Person is almost crying, which is impossible because Person doesn’t cry. Even when I scream “I hate you” to her face, she doesn’t cry. Even when Julian killed her goldfish—on purpose—she didn’t cry. Person feels good stuff or else she feels nothing.
But no. I hear sniffling. She’s crying.
“I know I have to tell them,” she says.
“We’re running out of time,” Dad says.
“I know, I know. But—” She gasps a huge sob and I feel tears building in me too. I have to go away before the tears come out. I haven’t learned to cry quietly. “I feel so selfish,” Person says.
I hold my breath to keep all the tears inside until I’m safely in the bathroom. Then I turn on the water and I breathe deep deep deep like Dr. Fredrick taught me. I stand there and breathe breathe breathe until the crying stops.
It’s not happening again, I tell myself.
It will never happen again.
You have to believe.
It’s the only promise Person has ever asked us to make.
She said, “Believe me. Just believe me that I’m here forever. The moving is over. I’m your mom forever,” she said. “Just promise me that you’ll try your hardest to believe. If you do that, we can get through anything.”
So I try my hardest. I tell myself We’re here forever.
And it’s true, so far.
Five minutes later I sink into bed beside a sleeping Julian and press the roll beneath his nose. He jumps awake and grimaces but then he grabs the roll and shoves it under his pillow.
There’s some moonlight spilling in through his window, highlighting our differences. Julian is a little darker than me, but we’re both darker than almost everyone else we know, and we’re both lighter than Dad. Julian is short and everything about him is tiny: his fingers, his feet, his nose. I’m tall and long and skinny. We’re both skinny, too skinny, still. Even after two years with Person and all of her food. But if you look at u
s closely you can see the things that make us brother and sister. We have the same round, brown eyes. We have the same hair that’s somewhere between curly and straight, but I keep mine long and tied up in puffs or twists or braids, and Julian keeps his cropped close to his head. We have the exact same smile. Or, we have the same smile when I’m happy and when Julian uses his real smile. So you don’t see our smile that much. But when you do, it’s exactly the same.
“Thanks,” Julian says, squeezing the roll.
“Team,” I say.
He smiles. He knows what I mean. I don’t need to say things a million times and use all the little in-between words. Julian understands what I mean when only the important words come out.
We’re a team. We’re Onlys.
I shouldn’t have told on him about the roll.
“She said she has to tell us something,” I say. “I heard her say that to Dad on my way to your room.”
Julian sits up and turns around so he’s looking at my face as I lie on his pillow. “No,” he says. “It’s not—”
I shrug. “I heard. Through the door.”
Julian shakes his head back and forth, back and forth.
“I’m sorry. It’s . . . a meeting with Ms. K . . . I’m . . . I’m bad.” I’m not saying all the words but I know he understands me. It’s my fault, whatever Person has to tell us. I’m never going to be the kid Person dreamed about before she had us.
“No. No more moving. Mom promised.”
“Are you believing?” I ask him.
In some ways Forever feels like Tinker Bell in the scene from Peter Pan. The one when she’s dying and she’ll only live if you believe in fairies and clap clap clap. We have to believe in it. We have to tell ourselves constantly to believe in it. And the minute we doubt, all the things that come with Forever will slip away.
Julian sighs. “I . . . you . . . Mom . . .” He shakes his head. I wonder what he was trying to say. Julian doesn’t have my problem with the wrong words slipping out. He somehow managed to grow the right lung filters even when we were in foster care.
He says, “Yes. I believe. That’s what Mom says. Just believe.” He pastes this crazy smile on his face. I hate that crazy smile. The smile has too many teeth and it wrinkles his cheeks even though he’s only nine years old and shouldn’t have wrinkles.
I haven’t seen that smile in a long time, I realize.
That smile means he’s lying or close to it. It means he’s afraid of the truth.
So I have to tell the truth. “It’s hard.”
Julian sighs. “I know,” he says.
“That’s why you hide food,” I say.
“Are you believing?” he asks.
I shrug.
“I believe, Florey,” he says, this time without the crazy smile. “It’s just . . .”
“OK,” I say. I don’t want him to say it. We both feel the same way but if we say it out loud something terrible could happen.
We believe in Forever. We do. But our belief is thin. It’s a tightrope suspended above a deep, dark canyon. We stand on it and wobble. The minute someone shakes the rope, we could fall into the dark abyss of foster care.
So yes. We believe in Person. But we can’t help preparing for the fall.
“It’s different,” he says. “It’s different this time. Anyway, I know what she’s talking about and it’s not us moving.”
“What?” I say. “How?”
Julian gets out of bed and walks over to his closet. He stands on his tiptoes and reaches into his pile of folded jeans. I expect him to shove his roll right into that spot, but instead he pulls out a few pieces of paper.
“What’s that?” I ask.
Julian turns around. He crosses the room and tosses the papers onto my lap.
I look at them. Postcards. A beach scene. A roller coaster. An illustration of fish and crabs. One that’s just black with the worlds “MARYLAND AT NIGHT” printed on the top.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“Postcards,” Julian says. “I found them in the mailbox. Found the first one a few weeks ago. I found this one yesterday.” He points to the black one.
“You’re stealing mail now too?”
Julian shakes his head. “I’m not stealing,” he says. “They’re ours.”
I flip over the MARYLAND AT NIGHT card. There’s messy kid-writing scrawled on the back.
Hi, Flora and Julian!
Isn’t this postcard funny? I haven’t heard from you at all so I hope you’re getting these. We miss you at Gloria’s. We have a new baby now, only a few months old. Sometimes Gloria lets me hold her. I’ll give all of the dogs a pat for you. I hope you’re liking your new mom.
Megan B.
I point at her name.
“Remember her?” Julian asks. “From the last foster house?”
I nod slowly. I haven’t thought about her in a long time, but I do remember. She was a little older than me, pale white skin with dark brown hair. We used to play together in Gloria’s house, the one with too many kids.
“She was nice,” I say.
“She’s still with Gloria,” Julian says.
“How did she even mail this to us?” I ask.
Julian points to the address part. It’s not addressed to our house in New Jersey, it’s addressed to our foster-adoption agency in Maryland, with a forwarding sticker attached. “The agency is sending them?” I ask.
“I think so,” Julian says. “Here, read this one.”
I pick up one with a beach scene on it.
Dear Flora and Julian,
I hope you’re enjoying your new family. I just wanted to tell you that I still think of you often. I wish I could get up there for a visit, or at least hear from you. I hope you’ve received the other postcards from me and the kids. We are all praying that you’re happy and we all know you’re safe and loved. But we still miss you sometimes.
Love,
Gloria
“That was the mom,” I say.
Julian nods.
“She misses us?” I say.
I’ve never thought about the moms we left behind missing us. I’ve never thought about them even thinking of us. I always thought I was too bad, too quiet, too confused and scrambled in the brain to be missed.
“The kids do too. I’ve found three cards from Megan B.”
He points to another and I flip it over. It has our names at the top and then a hundred smiley face stickers all over the rest of it. I smile back at the stickers.
“That’s what Mom’s going to tell us. Finally.”
I look up from the stickers. “What?” I say.
“That she stole some of these,” Julian says.
“But she didn’t. You have them.”
Julian shakes his head. “We’ve been living here for almost two years. Do you really think Megan B. and Gloria waited that long to write to us?”
“I don’t know,” I say. I can see what he means, but I don’t want it to be true. I want it to be impossible.
Person can’t steal from us.
Person is good.
We’re the bad ones who do things like steal.
“Flora, she took some of the cards. This one from Gloria is the first one I found and it says she wrote to us before.”
I shake my head again.
“I don’t . . . I can’t . . . no talking,” I say.
Julian sighs. “OK,” he says. “But you better talk when Mom tells us about these. The other ones.”
I nod.
“You remember Megan B.?” he says. “I don’t think I do. I remember Gloria, though. And a kid named Phillip and a tiny little girl named Rita.”
“Megan, yes,” I say. I’m too tired for full sentences. She had a dollhouse and she let me play with it. We’d spend hours in the girls’ bedroom making those dolls walk up and down the stairs.
“Do you remember moving out of Gloria’s house?” Julian asks.
“I think it was raining,” I say.
“Was that t
he gray house? Or the brick apartment?” Julian asks.
“There were dogs. Remember the wet dogs? I sort of remember wet dogs. They smelled.”
Julian giggles. “That was a good house, right? Gloria’s? With the dogs?”
It’s something slightly different between us. We both talk about bad houses, bad moms, bad kids. But Julian calls the others “good.”
I call them nothing.
Nothing is good if it slips away so often.
I shrug. “I know I liked the dogs,” I say.
Julian nods. “You love dogs.”
He lies down next to me and tears a piece of crust off the roll. He hands it to me.
“I thought you were saving this,” I say.
“We don’t have to, Florey,” Julian says. He shrugs. “We believe, right?”
I stare at him.
“I might have to stay back in the fourth grade again.”
Julian nods. “Maybe Jon is moving out again. Dad, I mean. Back to Elena and Meredith?”
“Maybe something’s wrong with Elena,” I say. “Or Meredith.”
“Maybe she’s still sad about the goldfish.”
That’s not true. The goldfish was over a year ago. But I can tell we both feel better. Person says we can mess up and mess up and no matter how upset she gets we aren’t going back to foster care. So we do this when we feel the belief-tightrope start to shake: we list all the ways we could mess up and that she’d still keep us afterward.
“Tell me your first memory again,” Julian says.
“OK,” I say. “It was a white house. Everything was white. I was standing in a long line, inside a house. And I was small, tiny. It was too bright, so I reached up along the white wall and I turned off the light. I hit the light switch. I remember being amazed I was tall enough to turn off a light. Then someone started yelling at me. I was scared, but I don’t remember why. Or where we were. Or anything. I know you were there, behind me in line. Your hand was on my shoulder.”