Forever, or a Long, Long Time

by Caela Carter

  “Discriminatory,” Vanessa finishes.

  “Discriminatory?” I say.

  Person takes my hand and looks right at me. “Because they’re both moms,” she says.

  My eyes go big. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Having two moms was part of what made this home work so well.

  No one says anything for a minute. Julian and I were ripped out of this place where they wanted us and put into a home that only wanted perfect kids. And that happened because the world is stupid.

  It’s stupider than me and I barely passed the fourth grade.

  “I can see why you stopped taking kids. That sounds so painful,” Person says.

  “Well, actually . . . ,” Vanessa starts, then she looks at us and trails off. She glances at Margie. “We have to give them the whole truth, don’t we?”

  Margie sighs. “I still have a foster child from time to time,” she says. “I do emergency placements now. The kids still need homes and . . . well . . . having my heart broken when Julian and Flora left . . . it was sort of a reminder of how much pain these kids must be in every day.”

  “Wait,” Person says. She looks at Margie. “You still foster kids”—she pauses and looks at Vanessa—“and you don’t?”

  The moms nod. They keep their eyes on the lemon cake crumbs left on their plates. They look guilty.

  “You’re separated?” Person says. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”

  They nod again.

  “Separated?” I cry. “Like divorced?”

  It feels like a part of my heart just got stitched back together only to have one of the stitches fall back out right away.

  “Well, we never got married, officially,” Vanessa says. “But yes, it’s like we’re divorced.”

  “No!” I say. I feel tears building in my throat. How could I go from so happy to so sad so quickly?

  “But I wanted to invite you both to my birthday party!” Julian says.

  It’s such a stupid thing to say. I want to kick him under the table.

  But the three moms all laugh.

  “You can still do that,” Margie says. “If it’s alright with your mom. We are obviously capable of having a meal together, still.”

  “Consider yourselves invited,” Person says. She’s still not being her normal smiley self, but I don’t think Margie and Vanessa can tell.

  And I’m not supposed to worry about that. I’m not supposed to worry.

  “If you can make it all the way to Jersey City,” Person adds.

  “Of course we can!” Margie says.

  “We’ll carpool,” Vanessa says.

  Suddenly it’s all smiles around the table again while I still have the tears building.

  “But the kids you take care of now,” I say to Margie. “They only get one of you.”

  “Well, yes, but that’s OK. I mean, you only have one mom, one parent, now, right?”

  “We used to,” I say. I feel a little better. Person was enough all on her own. But that’s different because there was always only one. Right now it feels like Margie-without-Vanessa wouldn’t be a whole Margie. Or Vanessa-without-Margie wouldn’t be a whole Vanessa.

  “We have a dad too,” Julian says. “Now.”

  “Really?” Margie and Vanessa yelp. “Well, congratulations!” they say to Person. “That’s fantastic news. Tell us about your daddy.”

  Julian and I spout off a few Dad facts and everyone gets happy again and it seems like the divorce doesn’t matter and maybe it doesn’t because we don’t even live here anymore and anyway, both of these moms are coming to Julian’s birthday party so maybe it doesn’t matter at all that they don’t live together and that they don’t mom kids together. But even if it doesn’t matter in any sort of practical way and even if everyone can still be happy . . . it matters to me.

  We move into the living room. We talk and laugh and tell stories. We hunt through the hallways and the living and dining rooms and count the pictures of us left on the wall in Vanessa’s house. Twelve total. Four of me. Four of Julian. Four of both of us together or with Vanessa or both moms.

  We don’t start to say good-bye until the sun is setting.

  At the door, Vanessa holds me close. “I’m so happy I got to see you guys again,” she says. “I feel like there was a Flora-shaped hole in my heart for the past years and hugging you filled it in.”

  I feel the same way except maybe there are more holes with a lot more names in my heart and I don’t even know the names.

  Then I hug Margie, who says, “We’ll see you next month! This isn’t good-bye this time. Isn’t that exciting!”

  At the last minute, before we leave, Margie hands two white rectangular books to Person. “You have these, right? We passed a copy of them along to Kelly to give to the next parents so that—”

  And then Person starts crying. Big huge tears. “Are these Lifebooks?” she says.

  Margie rubs her back. “I take it you didn’t have them?”

  “You have no idea how much we need these,” she says. She turns to Julian and me. “Kiddos, these books are your right. They’re your history. They’re the answer.”

  We smile back at her, but I feel like I have the most important answers already.

  Born or not born, Margie and Vanessa wanted us.

  Twenty-One

  FAMILIES DO NOT ALWAYS LIVE TOGETHER

  WE ARE QUIET IN THE CAR on the way back to our hotel.

  I watch the sunset paint the sky pink and purple out the window. I think about what it was like having two moms. I marvel that I remember, that a lot of it has come back to me.

  Person pulls into the parking lot but once the car stops moving, she doesn’t unbuckle her seat belt. She takes a deep breath and then speaks toward the windshield, without looking at us. “What do you say, kids? Is that enough for now?”

  Julian and I look at each other. He scrunches his eyebrows.

  “Huh?” he says.

  “Should we enjoy some days at the beach and stop looking backward?” Person says.

  My heart speeds up.

  “Should we stop here for now? Should we let Margie and Vanessa be the last house we visit instead of looking for the one that came before? Should we end on a high note?”

  “Not really, right?” I say.

  “What?” Person says. She turns to look at me now. It’s like my question snapped something in her face and put her back in mom-mode. “That wasn’t really a high note? You guys both seemed so happy.”

  “No, I mean, that’s it, actually, isn’t it?”

  “That’s really the last house?” Julian translates. “That’s the beginning?”

  “You guys were three and four when you came to live with Margie and Vanessa.”

  Julian and I shrug. We nod. Maybe that was the beginning. It makes sense.

  “Guys,” Person says, turning around in the parked car to look at us. “You were babies. You were born. If we keep going, we’re going to find proof of that.”

  Julian and I shake our heads.

  “Well, I guess that’s the answer,” Person says. “I guess we better keep going. We’ll look at your Lifebooks over dinner. I bet there’s more in there; I bet they found some things from previous homes. Maybe there’s baby pictures.”

  “OK,” I say.

  “OK,” Julian says.

  But he’s wearing a fake-crazy smile. He knows as well as I do there aren’t any baby pictures in these books. Or anywhere.

  As we get out of the car, I notice Person rubbing her belly.

  And I remember the baby. I think about that baby so rarely here in Maryland that whenever I remember it, it’s like it’s shoving itself into my brain like an intruder.

  It’s too late to go out for crabs again, Person says, so we go to a little shop down the street from our hotel where you order at the counter and then bring the food to a picnic table. Julian and I get burgers and fries and Person gets a crab cake, which makes Julian and me both laugh because we never knew she
was obsessed with crabs.

  Maybe we never thought too much about what Person liked. Besides us.

  Person puts our Lifebooks in front of us. They look like white photo albums, the kind you send away to an online photo place to make the way Dad and Person did after their wedding. We have one at home full of me and Elena in our purple dresses and Julian holding the rings and Person and Dad kissing.

  This looks like the same thing, except it’s going to be full of pictures of me and Julian and Vanessa or me and Julian and Margie. It’s going to be me in another family.

  The front covers are different. Mine has a picture of a little girl plastered in sand and holding a shovel. She’s in a pink bathing suit, crouching over what looks like it used to be a sandcastle, and she’s smiling huge but she’s missing her two front teeth. It’s me.

  The other one has a picture of a little boy. He’s got a puppy in his lap.

  We haven’t even opened them yet and I say, “Hey, two more points for us.” I point to mine. “The sand theory.” I point to Julian’s. “The dog theory.”

  “That’s like five to zero!” Julian says, fake-happy.

  Person smiles at him. She’s never been able to tell when he’s lying the way that I can.

  “Alright, well, I only need one point. The first baby picture in there and I win, right?” Person says.

  “Sure, Mom!” Julian happy-lies.

  I shrug. There aren’t going to be any baby pictures in here but I almost wish there were. I almost wish Person was right so that she would win so that she had to keep loving us the same as the baby.

  Except if Person is right, that means we had another person before Person. A person who was a mother. A mother who is now gone. It’s a weird thing to wish for. I’m not sure if I can wish for that.

  “OK,” Person says. “Open on the count of three. Ready? One, two, three!”

  I put my hand on the front cover and I think about the Jesus from Ms. K’s religion book. Baby picture, baby picture, baby picture, I pray. Person says that’s it. One picture would prove it. If Jesus is as powerful as Ms. K’s religion books said, surely he could put one baby picture in there.

  I flip open the cover. Nope. It’s a picture of Julian and me looking tiny and scared, but standing on two feet with our hands out in front of us. Small, but not babies. Julian’s book starts with the same picture.

  “No baby picture,” I say.

  Person’s eyes are big. She looks surprised. “I thought for sure they would have . . .” Then she trails off.

  “Well, let’s look,” she says.

  We flip through the books side by side and the story of our life with Vanessa and Margie blooms around us for the second time today. Some of the pictures are things I remember, and other pictures make me remember, and some of them are things I just forget. There are tons of pictures of us, together and apart, with the two moms or without them, with other kids, in huge groups of kids all lined up and with a teacher, or with packs of kids at the beach or in the yard. There are pictures of the house the way it used to look, covered in toys and artwork and schoolwork. There are pictures of Christmas time and Easter time and Halloween time and Thanksgiving time. There are pictures of us taking swimming lessons and music lessons and Julian taking karate lessons and me taking dance lessons. There are pictures of babies, but they aren’t us. I remember the babies that Margie and Vanessa had every once in a while. Foster babies, but born ones.

  Then there are things that aren’t even pictures. There’s my first-grade report card and the beginning of my second-grade one. There’s notes from my kindergarten and first-grade teachers. There’s evaluations from my speech therapist. There’s silly valentines I received from my classmates and birthday cards I got from Vanessa’s and Margie’s parents. There’s so much.

  I’m not even to the end when I pause. I can feel the warmth of living there, feel what it was like to be surrounded by so many people, by two moms.

  “Are you OK, Florey?” Person asks.

  “Yeah . . . ,” I say. “It’s just . . . I . . . I remember it.”

  Person smiles. “That’s so great, Flora. I’m so proud of you.”

  “No, I mean like. Not just the big stuff. Not just moments. I remember . . . I remember what it was like to be there. I remember being.”

  Julian stops and looks up from his book. “Me too,” he says.

  Person lowers her eyebrows at me. “That’s a good thing, right? You wanted to remember?” She looks sad when she says it though.

  “Yeah,” I say. “But . . . it’s so sad they got divorced.”

  Julian shrugs beside me. “They’re still coming to my birthday party together,” he says.

  “Yeah, but . . . if they’re divorced, are they still family?” I ask.

  “Oh,” Person says. “Well, that’s sort of complicated, isn’t it? But they certainly still look like family to me.”

  I nod.

  “And either way, both Margie and Vanessa still love you, Flora. I really have to think about that and learn to accept it. We have to invite them to birthday parties. I have to let them in.”

  I bite my lip and keep my eyes on the book. It’s almost like she’s convincing herself she has to love them back, even though they’re the most wonderful people ever.

  “They’re still each your family,” Person concludes.

  I look up at Person. “No,” I say. “They aren’t.”

  “Sweetie, they still love you so much. I’m your forever mother but they loved you like only a mother can.”

  “But I don’t live with them anymore.”

  Person’s eyebrows lower. “You’re telling me that you don’t think those two women are your family just because they don’t live in our house?”

  I shrug.

  “So am I your family?” Person asks.

  I giggle. Beside me, Julian is listening with a lying smile. I decide to ignore him. I have both words and the truth for this conversation. I’m doing the best I can. “Of course you’re my family,” I say.

  “Why?” Person asks.

  I think and think. I try to come up with an answer. Images pop into my brain. Person rubbing my head part-ear-neck in the dark. Person patting my back in the middle of the night when I was bent over the toilet with the stomach flu. Person checking my homework even after she’s had her glasses on for hours so I know she’s so tired. But these pictures don’t have words. I say the only words I can come up with. “Because I live in your house.”

  Person looks so startled she leans back from the table before leaning forward toward my face. “Excuse me, dear,” she says. “It’s our house.”

  “I know,” I say.

  “I don’t want all of these other houses to confuse you. This is part of what I’m worried about. Your house used to be Gloria’s house. So you called it yours and now you call it Gloria’s. But I am not Gloria or Marta or Margie or Vanessa. I’m Mom.”

  My cheeks get red. I’m really good at the truth, most of the time. But Person doesn’t know that I don’t call her Mom.

  “I know,” I say.

  She almost looks a little angry. I’m not sure what I did wrong. Could it just be because I said your house? Or could it be this whole trip? Maybe she’s angry that we’re so complicated.

  Person shakes her head and seems to snap back into mom-mode again. “So that’s really your definition of family, Flora?” Person says. “Just people who live in the same house?”

  I nod.

  “So are you telling me that when you grow up and get married and have your own kids, if that’s what you choose to do, that you won’t be my family anymore, just because you have your own house?”

  I shrug.

  “And are you telling me that if Marta had succeeded in keeping Julian, you two would no longer be a family?”

  I look at my brother. That’s impossible.

  “And what if Julian went and lived somewhere else for a while—” Person says, then she must see the look of alarm on our f
aces because she interrupts herself. “That’s not happening, don’t worry. We are together forever. But if that did happen, wouldn’t you still be family?”

  I shrug. Of course we would. But then how do I explain it? What makes a family?

  “Family isn’t just who you live with, Flora,” Person says.

  “Who is it then?” I ask.

  Person thinks for a minute. She takes a slow bite of crab cake. “I’d guess there’s a lot of ways to define it, and if you wanted to use your live-together definition you could. You could say that family is people who live together. But that doesn’t sound like my family. I’d say my family is the small group of people who are bonded to me, who I’m choosing to love forever. My parents, my sisters, Cate, you guys, Dad, Elena, and the baby. And now, because of you guys, Margie and Vanessa.”

  It feels weird. Ms. K is left out: she can’t be my family even though she loved me more than Marta ever did. And Marta and Gloria were my family but aren’t anymore?

  There’s no room for levels, which means it doesn’t quite work. Julian is more my family than even Person is. He’s my other Only.

  Julian nods. “OK,” he says. “That’s my family too.” His fake smile is gone. I honest-ed him right out of it.

  Person pats his hand. “Sounds good, J. Because whoever is my family is also your family. Right?”

  “But this is supposed to be a family vacation,” I say.

  “Hm. The vacation parts are but all of this visiting and hard stuff isn’t exactly vacation,” Person says. “Next year we’ll take a real family vacation where we don’t have to worry about anything.”

  I look at her. She didn’t understand me, which is normal. But this time she doesn’t realize that she didn’t understand me.

  “Can I borrow your phone?” I ask. “I have to make a call.”

  Person lowers her eyebrows and seems like she’s about to laugh and call me cute again. But then she gives me her phone and I take it to the side of the restaurant where Person can still see me but she won’t be able to hear me, and where I can hear the waves from the beach echoing between the houses.

  “Hi, babe,” Dad says when he answers the phone.

  “It’s me,” I say.