Forever, or a Long, Long Time

by Caela Carter

  I’m sure she’s about to erase it, but instead Ms. K starts blinking a lot. She turns and picks up the red marker and puts a star next to 4. Castillo.

  “You all might not know this,” Ms. K says to the class. “But when a child is adopted, like we all know Flora was, she changes her last name so that it will match the name of her new parents. So before Ms. Baker adopted Flora, she was Flora Castillo. But now she’s Flora Baker. So, what do we think of this as a mouse name, class?”

  “That’s really special, Flora,” a girl behind me calls out.

  “Yeah,” someone else says.

  Then the whole room is clapping and I’m happy and warm and terrified and cold and melting.

  No teacher will ever make me feel the way Ms. K does. Worth the work. Smart. Real. Why can’t she be my teacher forever?

  In the end the four mice are Orange, Duck, Chips, and Castillo.

  Castillo is just one of the slimy purple thumbs, but I can totally tell which one he is. I think he’s the cutest.

  After school, Julian, Dad, and I are in the ice-cream shop, sitting at our favorite booth in the back on the right. Julian nuzzles into Dad’s big shoulder. Dad is so much bigger than Julian it almost looks like they’re different creatures. Like Dad is a pit bull and Julian is a Shih Tzu.

  “Don’t you love getting ice cream with us, Dad?” Julian asks.

  “You know I love it,” Dad says. He slurps a bit of his milk shake. “I only wish my Elena could be here too.”

  Julian looks up with the biggest smile on his face before digging his spoon back into his strawberry supreme. It’s his real smile, not his crazy one. He’s a sponge soaking in the love, the closeness, the family. Julian has always been a sponge but in the old days, when there was nothing for him to soak up, he was such a dry sponge parts of him were starting to chip off, parts of him got left behind in every house we were in and out of.

  “Want a sip of milk shake?” Dad asks me, even though I have a sundae in front of me.

  I nod. I suck a big mouthful up the straw. I love the way the malt coats the back of my throat. “Thanks,” I say.

  I try not to think of what I heard him saying last night. He said, “We’re running out of time.” Why would they be running out of time to tell us about the stolen postcards? What could the deadline be?

  I can’t think about it.

  I have to believe. I have to work hard to believe.

  We’ve been doing Ice Cream Fridays with Dad since we called him Jon, before he married Person. We’ve been doing this for longer than we’ve done anything.

  I have to believe we’ll be back here at this ice-cream shop next Friday and next-next Friday and next-next-next Friday. Forever.

  Julian and I sit on the couch watching cartoons while Dad clunks around behind us making dinner. Julian shifts to lean on me like usual and his pocket goes crunch-crunch-crunch.

  “Pocket,” I say. Julian freezes with his big brown eyes, wider than usual.

  I reach for his pocket and pull out a pack of sugar, a pack of ketchup, and a chicken nugget from the cafeteria lunch today.

  He looks at me and shrugs like it’s no big deal.

  “I’m not in trouble with Ms. K,” I say. “I got to name a mouse Castillo even.”

  I back away from him with his treasures in my fist. Julian lunges for them.

  I don’t know if he understood me, but Julian never asks me to explain. He either knows what I mean when I speak, or he’s so used to not understanding me after all this time of being Onlys that he lets the words wash over him.

  He lunges again for the cold chicken nugget in my hands, throwing his body across mine.

  “No!” I say. “Stop!”

  “You guys OK?” Dad calls.

  Julian and I sit back up and get quiet. Dad is the soft one. He’s all ice cream and no punishments. But if he catches us doing something bad he’ll tell Person and then we’ll get sent to our rooms without each other or, worse, have to see the look in her eye when she talks to us about making choices.

  “Good,” we call.

  Dad goes back to clunking.

  I lean back over to my brother and whisper into his ear. “You have to stop. No more food.” He looks at me so alarmed that I say, “No. You can still eat. Just no more food in the closet.”

  He still looks as scared. “Why?” he asks. He’s crying now. Soaking up too much love is dangerous for a sponge. It’ll leak right out of you once the ice cream is gone.

  “You were getting better,” I say. “You were returning the food.”

  “She’s stealing from us,” Julian says. “The postcards.”

  “Ms. K isn’t mad at me,” I say. “She wasn’t mad.”

  Julian nods.

  “It’s not me,” I say. “Whatever Mom was crying about. It’s not me.”

  Julian nods again.

  “It’s you.”

  “You think it’s the food? She’s crying about the food?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Or the faking happy. The lying. She was crying about you.”

  “But then . . .” He stops talking. He reaches for the ketchup, sugar, and chicken and I hand them over. He clutches them to his chest. “I need them,” he says.

  I don’t understand this. It looks like he’s hugging garbage.

  “We have to make Mom happy, Julian,” I say. “We have to work hard to make her happy.”

  Julian lowers his eyebrows. “That’s really what you think?” he asks.

  I nod.

  Julian bites his lip. “I’ll try,” he says. “I’ll try for you, Florey.”

  Before he turns so that Dad can see his face, he pastes that crazy, lying smile on again.

  He walks into the kitchen and I hear the whoosh of the food going into the garbage can.

  When he sits down again, his fingers play with each other. His breath is heavy and fast. He hates giving the food up.

  I hate myself. And Person. And I hate the hate.

  “Team,” I say.

  We’re in this together. It’s the only thing I’ve ever been able to do for Julian. It’s the only thing he’s ever been able to do for me.

  He leans against me again and I don’t even ask him to change the channel. We’re Onlys. Sometimes we can forget that now that we’re in a huge apartment where we sleep miles away from each other and we have all these other Ms. Ks and Persons and Dads and Elenas in our lives.

  But I love the moments like these. Julian’s little body making my right arm fall asleep. Julian’s breath even with mine. Julian and me, the only steady things in the constantly shifting universe.

  THEORY #300

  We come from the television, my brother and me.

  We were once the happy kids inside your screen. We were cartoons with funny voices that other people spoke for us. We were dancing teenagers with scripts that told us what to say.

  We were thought up by someone else for someone else.

  It’s why we don’t know how to be on our own.

  Six

  FAMILIES HAVE SERIOUS TALKS

  WHEN PERSON GETS HOME SHE PULLS me into my bedroom and we both sit on my bed, facing each other. She has her hands on top of mine. She’s looking into my face like she’s searching it for diamonds.

  This is how Person likes to have Serious Talks. This is not how I like to have Serious Talks. It’s the opposite. Person likes everything to be still and everyone’s eyes to be right on each other. I like everything to be moving all around us and my eyes to be anywhere but her face because I might need to escape the seriousness in a second if things go a bad way.

  “Let’s talk about what you said in your classroom today, Florey.”

  I relax because I’m not about to find out she stole from us. Even though I’m starting to believe it.

  “We weren’t babies,” I say.

  Person nods. “OK. Do you believe you were ever any younger?”

  I laugh. “Yeah,” I say. “Before my birthday. And the birthday before that.”r />
  “Yup,” Person says.

  “And in a few months when it’s Julian’s birthday, he’ll be older too. And he was also younger.”

  “Correct,” Person says.

  “But we weren’t babies.”

  She’s doing this thing where she bounces her eyebrows. I think she does it when she wants us to think whatever she’s talking about isn’t that important to her, even though it is. It’s a weird kind of lie, those bouncing eyebrows. “If you go back enough birthdays, you get to when you were a baby. And if you go back all through your birthdays, you get to the day you were born.”

  I’m shaking my head.

  “You don’t think so?” Person asks.

  “Nope. It’s different for us,” I say.

  Person lowers her eyebrows. They aren’t bouncing anymore. “Why do you say that?” she asks.

  “I don’t know . . . ,” I say. “I guess . . . we never had a birth mom. Most of the other kids when we were in foster care had birth moms. They had visits. They had bio relatives sending them birthday and Christmas presents. They had these books full of, like, pictures and letters and birthday cards from their first family.”

  “Lifebooks,” Person says, nodding. “I’m sorry you don’t have a Lifebook, Florey.”

  I shrug. “We don’t have a first family.”

  “But . . . you did,” Person says.

  “Did what?” I ask.

  Person’s face is getting red. I can see some beads of sweat along her hairline.

  “You did have a birth mom,” Person says. “Of course you did.”

  I tilt my head. She’s never told me that before.

  “Who was she?”

  Person sighs. Her face gets even redder. I wonder what’s wrong.

  “Flora . . . You were born. You live with me now, but on your birthday, you were born. That’s why we call it a birthday.”

  Person doesn’t say anything about this birth mom. I’m pretty sure that means she doesn’t exist after all.

  I shake my head.

  “Why do you think you were never born?” Person asks again.

  I think and think. And think. She asked the same question, which means I need to answer it in another way.

  “Were you born?” I ask.

  Person nods.

  “So you remember being born. I don’t,” I say.

  Person laughs like I’m being cute when I’m not being cute. “No,” she says. “No one remembers being born.”

  “So how do you know you were then?” I ask.

  Person gets quiet for a long time. Her eyes go off of me and I feel my jaw relax. I didn’t even realize I was holding it so tight.

  “Maybe I know we weren’t born the same reason you know you were born,” I say.

  Then I follow Person’s eyes to Dad in the doorway.

  “That’s a very good point, Flora. I’ll have to think about that,” she says.

  Dad says, “We’ll figure this out . . . We still have to tell them.” He says it like I’m not there. It’s like I’m eavesdropping even though I’m right in the room. Part of me wants to ask him what he means, but most of me doesn’t want to know. So my lung filters work for once and I stay quiet.

  “I know,” Person says.

  Dinner that night is honey-mustard chicken casserole: Julian’s and my favorite. We sit around the table in our usual spots. Person, me, Dad, Julian.

  As Dad is spooning casserole onto each of our plates, Person clears her throat. “OK, my lovelies,” she says. “We have to talk. I have some news. Some big exciting news. But before we get to that, we have some things to straighten out.”

  Julian’s eyes are huge across the table. The beginnings of tears glitter on the outside of his lashes even though he’s also smiling. She’s going to tell us something big, we can feel it. The ground shakes under our feet, tremors from the Creature of Change who is treading too close to us again.

  “So,” Person says. “Let’s talk about how we all got here.”

  Dad clunks the casserole down in front of me and I barely notice how delicious it smells.

  “Every single person—every single creature—” Person starts.

  But Julian doesn’t let her continue. He cries out, “We don’t care! We forgive you, OK? Just let us stay here.”

  I start to shake. No! I beg him in my head. Believe, Julian. We have to keep believing!

  Person’s mouth drops open. Dad falls into his seat at the same second Person is out of hers with her arms thrown over Julian’s shoulders.

  “Jules.” Person does that thing with her voice where you can tell she’s angry but her anger isn’t pointing at you, it’s more like it’s pointing behind you, holding you up. “That is not what’s happening. You guys are mine,” she says. “Forever. I mean that. You’ll live with me until the day you aren’t kids anymore, and maybe even after that. I’ll be at your graduations and your weddings and you’ll be with me at Christmas and Thanksgiving forever, OK? I’m your mom.”

  Somehow, as she was talking, Dad got up and put his arms around me too, without me even knowing. So now he’s holding me and Person is holding Julian and I wonder if that means we’re split up too. That we aren’t holding each other now in this new family.

  Julian isn’t crying anymore. Person isn’t talking. We freeze for a minute until she looks at Julian and says, “Got it?”

  He sniffles and nods.

  Then she turns to me.

  “And you, Flora?” she asks.

  But me? I don’t know. How does she believe in Forever? How is Forever until-the-end something you believe in?

  I shrug. “What is it then?”

  Person and Dad go back to their seats.

  “What is what?” Person asks.

  “The whispers,” I say.

  Julian kicks me under the table. “What?” I say.

  “It doesn’t matter. You heard her, Florey. We’re not going anywhere,” he says.

  “I heard the whispers!” I insist.

  “Explain?” Person says.

  She’s eating. So is Dad. They do this sometimes. Try to act the most normal when I’m being the most weird. Like normal is contagious.

  Julian spears a chunk of chicken. “Flora heard you whispering last night,” he says. “But it doesn’t matter why.”

  “Before the mice,” I say.

  “We have to tell them,” Dad says.

  Person takes a big shaky breath like she’s nervous. But that’s impossible because Person is never nervous.

  I guess she is now though. I guess she really did steal those postcards from us.

  “OK, kiddos,” she says. “Here’s the deal. Julian, Flora, Mom, Dad. We’re a family forever.”

  “And Elena,” Dad says.

  Person nods. “And Elena. Elena, Julian, Flora, Mom, Dad. Family. Forever.”

  But they’ve already lost me because I don’t understand why they keep saying Elena is family like the rest of us.

  “Nothing will ever change that. But just because something will never change doesn’t mean it can’t grow, right?”

  Julian’s lips spread into a slow smile “Grow?” he says.

  My heart is racing.

  “I’m so glad to see that smile, J,” Person says. “In six months we’ll be Elena, Flora, Julian, Mom, Dad, and Baby. Forever.”

  I’m shaking. It’s tiny shaking. Maybe it’s only my inside organs shaking. Maybe Person and Dad can’t see the shaking.

  “What do you think, Flora?” Dad asks.

  I think I’m shaking.

  I don’t know how to feel. That’s a change. That’s the opposite of Forever. It’s not the change I was afraid of, but . . .

  I shrug.

  “You OK?” Person asks.

  Am I? I nod.

  “Any questions from you guys?” she asks.

  “Is it a boy or a girl?” Julian asks. “And where will it sleep? And what will we name it? And can I hold him?”

  He’s smiling still, but the s
mile is fake. Of course he can talk, he’s lying. I’m only quiet because I’m trying to figure out the truth.

  Person laughs. “I don’t know, we haven’t decided yet, need to know if it’s a boy or girl before we name it.” She pauses to smile at him. “And yes. You will both hold the baby. It’ll be your brother or sister.”

  My heart is beating so fast. I put my hands on the table to try to hold myself still and on the earth. I don’t know why Julian seems so happy. I don’t know how I’m feeling.

  “It’ll be a baby?” I ask.

  Person turns. She puts her hand on top of mine and my heart slows. It shouldn’t though. She’s the one changing everything. She shouldn’t calm me down.

  “Yes, Flora, a baby,” she says.

  “Not adopted?” I ask.

  And she gives me a half smile like she does sometimes when she’s been trying and trying to understand me and finally she does. “No, not adopted this time,” she says. “This baby is in my body right now.”

  I nod. “So it’ll be a born baby?” I ask.

  Person’s hand is still on me. “Flora-girl,” she says. “All babies are born, OK? You and Julian were born too.”

  “Nope,” Julian says. It’s a cheerful noise. He’s covered in honey mustard and happily bouncing on his seat while he eats. My dinner is cold in front of me. I couldn’t even eat it now if I tried because Person has my eating-hand.

  Person looks at him. “What did you say?”

  “Not Flora and me. We weren’t born. We’re different.”

  Dad’s eyebrows are so low they almost cover his eyes. Person’s mouth won’t close. They don’t look angry, though, just curious.

  “Flora, Julian,” Person says. “All babies were born. Even you. I promise.”

  She finally lets go of my hand and I pick up my fork and dig into my casserole. It tastes good even cold.

  “Not us,” I say.

  “We were never babies anyway,” Julian says.

  “Where did you come from then?” Dad asks.

  I smile. I love this game, and now we can play with Person and Dad too. “I think maybe we came from the bottom of the ocean,” I say.

  “I think maybe we came from dogs,” Julian says.

  “Or maybe the television,” I say. “We came right out of it.”