Forever, or a Long, Long Time

by Caela Carter

  I think that’s what I needed to do to make Person happy. I needed to let her between us sometimes.

  I notice strangers on the beach looking at us with these faint half smiles.

  I feel a weird sense of something.

  Of normal-ness.

  Normal family.

  People look at us and think: family.

  And they’re right.

  After the beach we go out for crabs again. Elena and Dad have never eaten them, so Julian and I help Person teach them how. Once everyone has the hang of it, the crabs do their magic again and the words start flowing out of Julian and me like someone turned a faucet.

  We tell Elena and Dad about Gloria who loved us but loved too many children at once. We tell them about Marta who wanted to love us but only if we were perfect, and tried to separate us when we weren’t. And we tell them about Margie and Vanessa and Kelly who loved us completely.

  “There’s a theory about people,” Person says. “In order to be healthy, we need to live with each other, you know? We need to live in community.”

  “Or else we get lonely,” Julian says.

  “Yup,” Person says. “And did you know that being lonely can actually affect your body? Your health?”

  “It can?” Elena asks.

  “It can,” Person says. “And that’s why it’s so dangerous for babies and little kids who don’t have parents. If no one teaches them how to attach, they can grow up to be very unhealthy.”

  “But it’s not like tying a shoe,” I say.

  “Yeah,” says Elena. “It’s not like someone had to teach me how to hang out with other people. How to like them.”

  I look at Elena. Is it possible that she just interpreted for me like Julian always does?

  “Actually,” Person says. “Your dad and mom did a great job teaching you how to attach. All of that time they spent with you that you don’t remember, that’s how you learned. When they fed you from a bottle, they looked into your eyes. When you cried, they came to see what you wanted. When you hurt yourself, they hugged you and kissed your boo-boo.”

  “That’s what parents do,” Elena says, shrugging.

  And I think: but I was never a baby and I had no first parents. Person didn’t do those things for me.

  “You’re right,” Person says. “It’s the most important job in the universe and yet everyone can do it: look in someone’s eyes, kiss a boo-boo. It’s not easy, but it’s doable. Isn’t that amazing?”

  If Person had done those things for me, would I believe in Forever?

  I’m sure she wants to have done those things for me. I’ve never been so sure of anything else in my life.

  “So I am who I am just because of my parents?” Elena asks.

  Person shakes her head. “No, no,” she says. “You’re Elena because you’re you. All the way. I’m saying . . . well, think for a second about the people you love, OK?”

  Elena closes her eyes. I realize I’ve never heard her talk to Person like this. This is the way Person talks to Julian and me, sometimes. Or a lot. But I don’t think I’ve ever heard Person talk to Elena like this.

  I hope Person is on the list she’s thinking of.

  I hope I am too.

  “OK,” Elena says.

  “What I’m saying is that your ability to love them isn’t instinct. It’s a skill. It’s the first skill you learn, when you are tiny, before you can talk or walk or anything. And for you, Elena, it’s your parents who taught you.”

  She nods. “That makes sense.”

  Person turns from her to Julian and me.

  “We all love you guys so much. I think Margie and Vanessa did some of that work for you. But I want to know who did it when you were smaller. That’s why we are down here. You guys love each other; you love me; you love Dad and Elena.”

  We nod.

  I do love Person. I do believe in her. Maybe I can learn to believe in forever just by being around her more and more.

  “I had to work really hard at this. Because sometimes it makes me sad that I wasn’t the person who looked in your eyes when you got a bottle and kissed your boo-boos. Sometimes I’m sad I wasn’t there to potty train you and teach you how to swim. But I see you guys now and you’re the best people I know. So, I want to shake the hand of all the people who gave you those skills. Tomorrow is the next piece of the puzzle. Even if it is rough, like Kelly said it might be. And I’m hoping Jeannie can tell us who came before her. Maybe she can finally lead us back to your bio mom.”

  “I want to go!” Elena says. She looks at Dad. “Please?”

  Person looks nervous but Dad speaks firmly, more firmly than I’ve ever heard. “Absolutely. We’re a family. We’ll all go.”

  After dinner, I take a deep breath and ask Person if we can go for a walk on the beach, just my mom and me. I have something big to ask her. I’m nervous. And she can tell.

  But we’re having this Serious Talk the way I want to. With our eyes on the waves. With the air moving around our faces. So I don’t have to look at her when I say it. “You said Margie and Vanessa loved me like only a mother can,” I say.

  “I think they did,” Person says.

  “And you said sometimes that makes you sad. That we had all these mothers. Not just Margie and Vanessa but Gloria and Marta and I guess Jeannie too.”

  “It shouldn’t make me sad, Flora,” Person says. “I don’t want you to worry about that, OK?”

  I dig my toe into the sand and Person stops next to me. We both watch my toe.

  “I wanted to tell you that . . . to me . . . you’re different.”

  Person laughs but I’m not making a joke or being cute.

  “I might not always believe you all the way. But I know you’re different from the other mommies. I’ve known from the start. Do you want to know how I know that I know?”

  I risk it and look in her face.

  “Sure,” she says.

  “Inside my head I don’t even call you ‘Mom.’ I’ve just . . . I’ve used that word too much.”

  Person’s eyebrows lower and I see her hand twitch. I’m afraid right now. Afraid she won’t see this as a good thing. But also I believe in her. I believe in Person. And I believe in me.

  “What do you call me?” she asks.

  I smile. “I call you my person.”

  And then tears come to her eyes and she leans over and hugs me.

  “You got that right, Flora,” Person says. “Mom is just a word. I don’t mind what you call me. But you got it right. I’m your person. One hundred percent.”

  That night, Person and Dad sleep in the hotel room that Dad booked when he came this afternoon. It’s connected to our original hotel room by a door, which they leave open so I can hear Dad snoring. Elena sleeps in the bed Person had been in. Julian and I stay put.

  It’s late at night and I don’t think I’ve closed my eyes once. We had such a good day. I feel so proud of myself for doing something nice for Person and for forgiving Elena and for being forgiven by Elena and for being a part of such a normal family that people gave us half smiles on the beach.

  But tomorrow is coming.

  “Hey,” I whisper as quietly as I can.

  Julian turns over and looks at me. It turns out he’s lying there awake too.

  “Are you nervous about tomorrow?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “Me too,” he says.

  “Do you remember Jeannie?” I ask.

  Julian shakes his head against his pillow. “I don’t remember her . . . but . . . it has to be the white house.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s the end.”

  What is Person going to do when she really finds out we were never born? Or . . . what am I going to feel if it turns out Person is right, there was some first mom, and then she left us and disappeared?

  “Team?” Julian says.

  “Team,” I say.

  I think that’s the end of the conversation, but after a minute he says, “Hey, Florey?”

>   “Yeah?” I say.

  “Let’s try to believe in forever tomorrow. Even if it’s really bad.”

  It’s exactly what I’ve been thinking. “OK,” I say.

  “Remember Mom said just two weeks? We’ve been trying, trusting her for two weeks, haven’t we?” Julian says.

  “Mostly,” I say. “I . . . I’ve messed up a little. I’ve . . . wondered.”

  “Me too,” Julian says. “But tomorrow, it’ll only be a few hours. Let’s trust. Let’s believe.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “That means I won’t pretend I’m happy if Mom is making me worried or sad. I’ll tell her my real feelings. Or I’ll do my best.”

  “OK,” I say.

  “And that means you can’t lose your words,” Julian says. “You have to trust Mom and me and Dad enough to keep talking.”

  I take a deep breath. “I’ll try,” I say. “I’ll really, really try.”

  Twenty-Four

  FAMILIES GET ANGRY

  JULIAN AND I HOLD HANDS IN the back of the car while Person drives toward this next house. I’m sitting in the middle of the backseat and Elena is leaning just a little bit into my shoulder. We’re all too quiet.

  The house is tan and on the corner of the street. It has a little yard like Gloria’s house but there aren’t any toys in it. It’s the biggest house we’ve seen, besides Marta’s mansion, but it’s also quiet. Almost creepy quiet.

  “Oh, OK, come in,” Jeannie says when she opens the door. “They told me you’d be coming, but you’ll have to understand that we’re in the middle of lunchtime here and I’m going to have to go about my day. I have seven at the moment.”

  Jeannie is tiny, white with graying black hair. She’s a foot shorter than Person and looks a little older but not too old. When she talks her voice clips off each word almost before she’s finished saying it.

  The house smells like floor polish and Windex. The smell makes my heart race in a way that’s not quite remembering but almost. Dad, Elena, and Person take off following Jeannie down the dark hallway but Julian and I stay frozen, until Person turns around and takes our hands.

  We’re in a white hallway. In front of us we see a white kitchen with a tiny table.

  Don’t lose your voice, Flora.

  “This is it,” I whisper to Person and Julian.

  “This is the white house,” Julian says.

  My hand shakes in Person’s. She says, “Remember the elephant, right?” We nod. Then we walk down the hallway, walk into our past, armed by our mother.

  “Seven?” Dad is saying in the kitchen. “You have seven right now? Children?”

  “Yes,” Jeannie says.

  “You must be busy,” Dad says with a smile that’s fake like Julian’s. But I don’t really mind it because the smell and the quiet make this house seem like one where it’s not safe to be honest.

  There’s a kid-sized table with plastic chairs in all different colors in the corner. Julian points at it with huge eyes. This is it. This is so it.

  It’s like being a dream, except having your family with you and they’re really here so they’re all going to remember it.

  Five kids sit around the mini-table. Two smaller ones sit in high chairs. No one makes a sound. The five kids have their hands folded together and they stare at the tops of their fingers like they’re praying. The two in the high chairs are slumped over and staring straight ahead, into space. They drool a little.

  They’re babies.

  Someone should be looking them in the eyes, I think. Looking babies in the eyes is the most important work that isn’t easy but that everyone can do.

  “Clean hands!” Jeannie says. It’s not a shout but it is a command. All the little kids around the table raise their hands in the air and Jeannie circles them, inspecting each one. She says “Um-hmm” ten times, one for each hand.

  “Alright, lunchtime,” Jeannie says. She picks up a Tupperware from the counter and each of the five children holds out two cupped hands. As Jeannie comes behind each child, he or she separates his or her hands, so that a dollop of cooked carrots falls onto his or her plate.

  “Measure,” Jeannie says once she’s gotten to all five plates.

  One of the babies starts to cry. Person and Dad look at him. Jeannie does not.

  The five children place their cupped hands over their carrots. Each pile fits perfectly into their two hands.

  “Eat,” Jeannie says.

  They pick up forks and start to eat. They’re painfully silent. The only noise in the room is the crying baby.

  My family is standing in a clump in the doorway, watching.

  This is not what I remember. I remember chaos. I remember noise. I remember crowds.

  This is worse.

  As the kids eat the carrots, Jeannie goes to the sink and starts mixing powder into water in baby bottles. I breathe a sigh of relief. The crying baby will get to eat.

  The other baby starts to cry.

  Jeannie is careful as she measures just the right amount of formula. She’s not saying anything to any of the kids or babies. The kids are not saying anything to each other.

  “Is carrots their whole lunch?” Person asks.

  Elena is tugging on our father’s arm and whispering “Dad.” He’s trying to shush her.

  Jeannie turns and almost seems startled to see us still standing there in the doorway. “Of course not,” she says.

  And that’s it. She stops talking.

  I wonder if her words get stuck. She looks too strong, too in control for stuck-words like mine.

  Jeannie fastens the two bottles into something that almost looks like a wire coat hanger. Then she shoves it up between the two babies.

  “They can hold their bottles now, but they choose not to,” Jeannie says to us. One of the babies takes his bottle. He puts his hands and mouth on it where it hangs in the wire-thing. The other begins to cry.

  “Dad. Dad! Why isn’t anyone looking into their eyes?” Elena says, being my voice again. Julian can’t be my voice because he’s shaking like I am. He’s in this weird dream with me.

  His smile is crazy. My voice is gone. We both broke our promises but I know we’ll forgive each other.

  “Sixty seconds to finish your carrots if you’d like mac and cheese,” Jeannie says to the kids at the table.

  I watch as the oldest-looking boy takes his last bite of carrots and then holds his two hands in the air. Slowly the other kids follow. They look too young to know what “sixty seconds” means. Jeannie must have taught them that. Somehow. For some reason.

  Every single kid eats all of his or her cooked carrots. There’s something scary about that too. Cooked carrots are slimy and mushy and gross. Most kids hate them. Definitely at least one of these kids doesn’t like them. But they’re all gone.

  We watch as Jeannie does the same thing with the mac and cheese, measuring each dollop to the size of the kid’s two cupped hands.

  The other baby has figured out how to drink from the bottle.

  I want to step out from behind Person’s leg and stand in front of the baby while she sucks at it. I want to look her in the eyes.

  Jeannie finally looks at us. “I thought Kelly said there were two children?”

  “Oh!” Person says. She sounds surprised to be addressed. “Yes. Of course. Flora and Julian. Castillo was their name.”

  She shoves us forward and Jeannie looks us up and down. “Well, they’ve found a family. That’s nice.”

  “I’m their sister,” Elena offers.

  Jeannie nods.

  “Do you have any pictures of them? Or any information?”

  Person asks the question it seems like she came to ask each mom.

  Mom. This person was my mom. It’s hard to believe. She seems more like a doctor. More like a bus driver.

  “Yes,” Jeannie says. And we all look at each other, surprised. It doesn’t even seem like she remembers us. How would she have pictures? “I’ll get them for you after the
kids’ lunch.”

  “OK,” Person says. Then it seems like her lung filters fail. “What happens after lunch?” She looks concerned and happy at once. I didn’t know that was possible.

  “Quiet time,” Jeannie says. “The younger ones nap. The older ones read books or play quietly in their rooms.”

  “Oh,” Person says. Then, “What happens after quiet time?”

  “Dinner,” Jeannie says, her voice thin. She’s losing patience with Person.

  “And then bedtime?” Person asks. Her voice is also thin. I look at her. I agree with her. It’s bad for kids to be quiet all day all through lunch and dinner and bedtime and in-between. But I want her to stop asking. I don’t want Jeannie to get too impatient with her and kick us out before we see the pictures. I don’t want to see Person’s face when she realizes this is it, this is the end. But I do want to see the oldest picture of the smallest me.

  I think I’ll be naked in it. I won’t have any clothes because where would I get them? Maybe I’ll be covered in sand or water or maybe I’ll be just covered in dirt. I’ll look sad and lonely. I won’t know how to look at the camera because no one will have taught me how to love yet. Person will be sad when she see this, when she realizes this white house really is our beginning.

  But I need to see it anyway.

  The biggest kid holds his hands up. Jeannie takes his plate.

  One dollop of cooked carrots. One dollop of mac and cheese. That doesn’t seem like enough lunch for that kid. He looks around six years old.

  “That’s it?” Person says. “That’s his lunch?”

  Jeannie looks right at her. “I’m an emergency home,” she says. “I keep children when the state cannot find anywhere else. I must maintain a clear structure or else I would not be able to handle it.”

  “OK . . . ,” Person says. “But . . . was that enough food?”

  No. It wasn’t. I only barely passed the fourth grade and even I know that. But Person is asking it like a question because she doesn’t want Jeannie to be mad at us and then to not show us our baby pictures. That’s how much Person believes we were born.

  I see the boy lace his hands together in front of his chest and stare at them like he’s praying again. I wonder if he’s praying for Jeannie to listen to Person, if he’s praying for more food.