Forever, or a Long, Long Time

by Caela Carter

  Has she totally forgotten about me? I feel empty.

  “Homework,” I say.

  “Oh,” Ms. K says. “Do you remember what I told you this morning?”

  I shake my head.

  Ms. K comes over and sits in the little desk next to me, David’s desk, even though it’s for kids and she’s a grown-up. Then she stands back up, crosses the classroom to the mouse tank, and comes back with Castillo in her hands.

  As she lets the mouse crawl over to me, she says, “Your mom emailed this morning. She said you guys had a rough weekend and you didn’t get to your homework. Is that true?”

  I nod. “Sorry,” I say.

  Ms. K sighs. “You’ve been working hard to become a great student so I’m really sorry that something interrupted you this weekend. But I do understand family emergencies. Do you want to go to recess?”

  I shake my head. Now that I’m back in my body and now that the math problems are all answered, my headache and stomachache are back. Elena is at recess.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Ms. K asks.

  No. I don’t want to talk about it. But Person told me to talk more. Maybe if I talk more to Ms. K she won’t be as eager to get rid of me. Castillo nestles into my palm, making me brave.

  “Too many changes,” I say.

  “Ah,” Ms. K says, nodding. “You mean fifth grade? Or the baby?”

  My mouth drops open. “You know?” I say. “About the baby?”

  “Your mom told me last week,” she says. “I understand it might be scary, Flora, but you’ll be an excellent big sister. You already are.”

  “Thanks,” I say. But she’s talking about Julian. It’s different to be Julian’s sister. I can never be anyone’s the way I’m Julian’s.

  I take a deep breath. I’m going to do what Person says. I’m going to express myself.

  “Will you be our fifth-grade teacher?” I ask. “Please?”

  Ms. K smiles. “No,” she says. “I need to stay here and teach the fourth grade. You deserve a fifth-grade teacher who is used to the fifth grade, who knows what she’s doing.”

  I shake my head.

  “But thank you, Flora,” Ms. K says. “That’s a huge compliment that you’d like me to be your teacher again.”

  “Yeah,” I say. Except now I’m mad at her. I don’t want her to be my teacher again, exactly, I just want her to stay. I want to see her every day. I don’t want another person to come into my life and go away.

  It’s so hard to believe in Forever when it only counts for some people and not all of them.

  That night I get up to sneak into Julian’s room like usual. At least that’s what I tell myself I’m doing.

  But when I pass outside of Person and Dad’s room, I stop. I press my ear against the door. I still don’t hear anything so I lean into the door until it cracks open a little bit.

  Then the whispers filter out.

  I don’t think I did this at any of my homes before. I don’t think I bothered to worry about when we were leaving or where we were going. I sat and shook in the certainty that we were leaving one day.

  Dad is talking. “I know you’re worried. I’m also worried . . . but I want to know. Don’t you?”

  I hear him kiss Person, a short kiss. Maybe on the cheek or forehead.

  “I should want to know everything . . . I can’t think about some of the stuff, though.”

  “It’s tough,” Dad says.

  “I’m awful,” Person says.

  Person is not awful.

  “This is one thing and it’s a tough one and you’re going to do it anyway,” Dad says. “You can’t force yourself to want to do it.”

  “They need something. I don’t know what it is, how to give it to them. They both think they were never born. They’ve started the erratic behaviors again. We have to do something about all of this . . . Maybe . . . Maybe Dr. Fredrick is right, but . . .”

  Dad sighs. “How did this stuff start up again? I thought we were through the rough patch, the adjustment.”

  “The adjustment will last the rest of their lives,” Person says.

  I gasp so loudly I freeze to make sure they don’t hear.

  I can’t believe Person knows that. That she admits it.

  Person says she’s here forever, but I know Person doesn’t still live with Grams who used to be her mom. And Ms. K doesn’t live with her mom either. And Dad doesn’t live with his mom, especially since his mom is dead. So Forever doesn’t mean what it is supposed to mean and adjustment will happen over and over again and it’s always going to hurt and I’m almost crying because it’s such a relief that Person realizes this even if I have no idea who else she means or what else she’s talking about.

  “The only thing I’m worried about is the message it sends,” Dad says. “To separate them. To take Julian and Flora away right when things get a little rough.”

  “I’m not taking them away to separate them from Elena. But I think we’re giving all of our kids what they need. Julian and Flora need their history, or something. Elena needs some time with you. They’ll forgive each other, if we let them do it on their own time. I’m sure of it.”

  “I guess it’s hard to forgive anyone when you don’t have a sense of who you are,” Dad says.

  “I know this isn’t the way I’m supposed to think but . . . The one I’m worried about is me,” Person says. “I . . . I have to see all of it.”

  And then I know why I’m nervous. Because, yes, I want to see Gloria and Megan B. again. I want to know everything that happened to me. I want to know where and how and why I got started on this life. But I don’t think I want Person to see all of this. The thought of Person in Gloria’s house makes me itchy.

  Person doesn’t belong anywhere near the chaos and dirt of foster care. And when she sees it, will she start to think that I’m dirty and chaotic too?

  “Do you think the baby brought up all this stuff? Do you really think they think they weren’t born?” Dad says.

  “Well, how about you, do you think you were born?” Person asks.

  “Huh?” Dad says. “Yes.”

  “Do you remember being born?” Person asks.

  Dad chuckles. “No,” he says.

  “Do you remember being a baby?”

  “No,” Dad says.

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

  He thinks a long time. Then he says, “There were pictures, of course. And my mom told me stories. The stories are there before my memory starts.”

  “Exactly. Flora asked me that question and I’ve been thinking of it ever since.”

  “God, I hope we find them a baby picture,” Dad says.

  I’m beaming. Person remembered what I said word for word and she’s still thinking about it weeks later.

  I feel like the smartest ex-foster kid in the world as I sneak into Julian’s room and curl up on the bottom of his bed.

  I don’t feel as smart when Ms. K hugs me good-bye on the last day of school. I’m heading out her door and she puts her arms around me and hands me a card.

  But it’s not that special because she’s doing the same thing for everyone as everyone heads out the classroom door for the last time.

  But it’s also sort of special because at least I’m last. At least I get the most time with Ms. K out of all of these classmates. I want to make her smile one more time but she’s already smiling.

  “Oh, Flora,” she says. She hands over the card. “I’m really proud of you, you know? I’ve so enjoyed being your teacher. And I am hoping and praying you’ve passed all of your tests this week and you’ll be onto bigger and better things in the next year!”

  “Fifth grade?” I say.

  “I don’t know yet. I still have some papers to grade. We’ll know for sure next week. But you worked so hard. I’m hoping for you!”

  She’s smiling but I don’t want to see it anymore.

  I barely hug her back and then I’m in the hallway and Ms. K is gone for the summe
r and maybe forever.

  When I get into the hallway, I open her card.

  Dear Flora,

  I am so proud of everything you accomplished this year. I will miss you a lot when you move on to the fifth grade. But you know who won’t miss you? Castillo the Mouse. He’ll be the fifth-grade class pet! You’re so good to him, I knew he deserved to be with you another year!

  Love,

  Ms. K

  THEORY #1046

  We come from the horizon, my brother and me.

  The slippery line between the earth and sky. The slice of desert or ocean that’s the farthest you can see. The spot in your vision that is always, always moving.

  One day the seagulls were flying over the waves; the snakes were slithering over the desert sand; the pine branches were bending across the trunks of their trees; the mountains were darkening, all turning toward the sun while it was setting. They noticed two dark dots on that faraway line.

  “Those dots are in the sky,” the seagulls said.

  “No, they’re resting on the sand,” the snakes said.

  “No, they’re dancing on the mountains,” the trees said.

  “No, they’re hanging from the clouds,” the mountains said.

  But the seagulls and the snakes and the trees and the mountains and all of the creatures were wrong.

  We were in the horizon itself. We were crawling out of the place where the earth zips itself shut. We were in the sky and the clouds and the waves and the desert and the forest and the mountain range. We were everywhere and nowhere.

  We were exactly where we’ve been every day since.

  Sixteen

  FAMILIES TAKE VACATIONS

  THE CAR IS STUFFED WITH EVERYTHING we could possibly want (except Dad). Person is in the front seat, driving. In the seat beside her is her iPhone and her iPad that she keeps offering to let us play on because it’s going to be a long drive from New Jersey to Maryland.

  Lilian Samuels is singing and bopping around on the stereo, her cheery voice filling the car because I once said she was my favorite when Elena asked and I knew that she was Elena’s favorite. Lilian Samuels used to be OK but now I love her because I know that Person is playing her just for me and this is yet another thing she listened to me say and then remembered.

  And the backseat is scattered with food. There’s juices and sandwiches and oranges and grapes in a cooler. There’s bags of pretzels and chips crinkling in the middle seat between us. There’s gummy worms and Tootsie Rolls and M&M’s sliding around at our feet.

  Julian is staring at the food with big eyes as I watch the road zipping by my window. Every time I turn my head to look at him, he’s holding a different snack. Not eating. Just holding.

  I know Person put all of these snacks back here to make him comfortable. We already ate a big breakfast and she said we’d stop for lunch around noon.

  “You wish all of this food was hidden in your closet instead of here where everyone can see it, don’t you?” I say, joking.

  But Julian is serious. He shrugs with guilty eyes.

  Which means he would prefer to have all of these snacks hidden in his closet rather than here for him to take any time he wants and which also means I’m never going to quite understand his thing with food. It’s weird that our things aren’t the same. We were always together. We have the same blank history. Either he should be terrible at talking or I should be obsessed with hiding food in my closet.

  We stop for lunch somewhere in Pennsylvania. We’re at a real restaurant where a person comes over to your table and asks what you want to drink like we’re visiting our aunt or something except that the waiter has a little notebook and I know Person is going to have to pay for it in the end.

  “So,” Person says as we wait for our drinks and look over our menus.

  I decide on a cheeseburger. It’s the cheapest thing on the menu. I don’t want to be too expensive for Person.

  “Have you guys ever stayed in a hotel before?” she asks.

  I shrug.

  Julian says, “I don’t know.”

  And then the waiter comes back. “Anything to eat, folks?”

  Julian orders chicken fingers and mac and cheese on top of the soda he already asked for. I shoot him a look but he doesn’t seem to notice.

  It’s not fair to Person. It shouldn’t cost her so much money—food and gas and a hotel—for us to find our histories. Not when normal kids like the one inside her, and Elena, come with their histories already attached.

  “You don’t know if you’ve ever been to a hotel?” Person says when the food is ordered.

  We stare at her. We keep telling her that we don’t remember anything but it’s like me and those concepts from Earth Science—she can’t quite grasp it.

  “Listen, guys,” she says. “I want us to have some fun on this trip, OK? I mean, there will be some tough stuff. We all know that. But tonight we’ll check into our hotel in Maryland and then wander down to the beach. It’s only a few blocks away. And there’s a pool too. I want us to have fun. Whenever we can. It won’t be fun the whole time, but when we can have fun we should try. Right?”

  Julian and I look at each other and sip through our straws. We don’t know what Person is talking about. She sounds stressed. My heart speeds up. Is stress contagious?

  The waiter comes back over and puts the cheeseburger in front of me.

  “Can I get you another Sprite, buddy?” she asks.

  I stare at my brother. I make my eyes say, No, no no. No more Sprite. You’ve already asked for too much.

  Julian has chicken in his mouth but he nods.

  Now I want to kick him for real.

  I wonder if there’s anything I do that threatens our place in Person’s heart, anything he can see but I can’t like the way Julian fakes happy and the way he eats and eats and eats without thinking about who is paying for all the food.

  “Last Sprite, OK, J?” Person says. “I want to get there before the pool closes tonight so we can’t have too many bathroom breaks.”

  “OK,” Julian says through a full mouth.

  I can’t help it. I add, “Plus, it’s expensive. All this food and drinks. And the trip. All of it. We don’t have to make it cost more for Mom with stuff like extra sodas.”

  “Flora.” Person says my name like I’m in trouble. I look at her, my heart now racing. “I want you to try to stop that, OK? I know it’s hard to stop a habit that grows and grows, but I want you to try.”

  “Stop what?” I ask.

  Person smiles. “Stop being so responsible.” She chuckles. “Now that’s not something most parents have to tell their fourth grader . . . or fifth grader.”

  She looks happy now. Happy about this bad habit of mine. I’m so confused. I want to be her normal fourth grader but I also want to make her smile like that.

  “Huh?” I say.

  “Be the kid,” Person says. “Let me be the grown-up. I’ll worry about money and food and where we sleep. You worry about as little as possible.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  “It’s hard for you to promise to do that all the time. So just give me these two weeks, OK? I promise I won’t spend more money than I can.” She turns to Julian. “I promise you’ll have plenty of food. There will be some hard and tough and uncomfortable moments, but I promise I’ll follow them with something fun or healthy. Let me take care of you. Let me be your mom. Like Dr. Fredrick says: I’ll earn your trust. You work on giving it. For two weeks.”

  We stare at her for a few minutes. I feel my heart rate falling.

  Is that all I have to do to make Person happy? Just stop worrying? It sounds so nice. It also sounds impossible.

  When the waiter comes back with Julian’s second Sprite, I say, “Can I please have a glass of milk?”

  Person looks at me with a smile so big I think her face will burst. “Good job,” she says.

  I look at Julian. He’s shaking his head at me like I shouldn’t have ordered the milk when he’s the one
who ordered two Sprites plus two whole meals.

  Don’t worry about that, Flora. Person says not to worry.

  “I think it would be a lot easier to not worry at all if I knew exactly what we were doing,” I say.

  “I was just getting to that,” Person says. “We’re doing exactly what you asked. We’re visiting all of your old homes, your foster homes, starting with Gloria’s.”

  I thought we’d start at the beginning looking for our histories. I thought we’d start at the sea or at outer space or at the bottom of the ocean or at the horizon. But no.

  We’re starting in foster care.

  “Gloria,” Julian says. “With too many kids.”

  “And dogs,” I say.

  “Yes,” Person says. “We don’t know enough to start anywhere else, really. We’ll start there and work on piecing together your story. That’s what Dr. Fredrick says to do.”

  My heart speeds up. My brain can’t help worrying. I tell it to stop. Stop worrying. Stop worrying.

  “But the file leaves off after just two homes,” Julian says.

  Person nods. “I know,” she says. She takes a deep breath. “But Dr. Fredrick says to keep looking. We’ll ask Gloria what she knows. We’ll ask everyone what they know.”

  She’s nervous. She doesn’t want to know what they know.

  “Maybe we can gather enough information to trace back to all of your previous homes,” she says, forcing a smile.

  “The white house?” I ask.

  I want to see it. It’s so weird to want something Person doesn’t want to give me. Something bigger than an extra bowl of ice cream or more screen time. There are other things I need in this big way: hugs and the same bed every night and enough food and to stay near Julian. But those are all things Person wants to give me. It’s so weird to have this big need that she doesn’t want to fill.

  Dr. Fredrick says it’s OK, but when Person smiles that sadly it doesn’t feel OK.

  “We’re going to try to go all the way back to the beginning, piece by piece.”

  “The beginning?” I say.

  Person nods. “When you were born . . . which you were. I just have to find a picture. Or someone who knew you as babies. You’ll see.”