by Caela Carter
Jeannie looks right at Person from where she’s in the middle of clearing a girl’s plate. “It’s exactly the correct amount of food. I follow all of the state’s guidelines to a tee, including nutrition plans, and I’ll have you know that the state and the caseworkers love me. I rarely have children for more than thirty days. I’m an emergency placement,” she repeats, as if that’s the important part and not the fact that this little boy has to exist on a tiny bit of carrots and mac and cheese until dinner. “It’s important that I keep to a structure. It’s good for the children to learn there are limits.”
“Limits?” Dad says. “These kids? You think they don’t understand limits? Everything in their life is limited. Their family is limited.”
“My kids were not with you for thirty days,” Person says. “They were with you for a long time, we think.”
But then one of the children at the table makes a squeak and Person looks at Dad like she just remembered that they aren’t carrot-and-mac-and-cheese-eating robots and they can hear her.
Elena doesn’t realize that. “He’s hungry!” she says. “They’re still hungry!”
The oldest boy looks scared enough to hide under the table. I look at Dad to try to make him make Elena be quiet.
Elena doesn’t understand that this isn’t a safe house.
Elena has never been in a not-safe house.
“My brother. He’s still hungry. He was here when he was like three and now he’s almost ten and still! He’s still hungry because of you.”
She’s crying a little. For Julian.
Her voice is quiet. I hope it doesn’t get these kids in trouble, the way our sister cried for us. I hope the next time I want to punch her, I can look at her and remember that she cried for us.
“And Flora, my sister . . . she’s still lonely. It was years ago and they’re still lonely and tired and hungry . . . all you had to do was look them in the eyes . . .”
She doesn’t think we’re lucky anymore.
Jeannie barely reacts. She says, “If you all would like to take a seat on the couch in the next room, I will get you the pictures in a few minutes.”
Person looks at us. “I think maybe Elena should go see the elephant. Does anyone else need to see an elephant?”
Julian and I shake our heads. I’ve never been so uncomfortable, but I know I need to be here. I need to be here when Person finds out this is really the end. I need to see the look in her eyes at that moment. I need to know if it’s love.
Dad must know what “elephant” means because he tucks Elena under his arm and goes out the front door while we follow Jeannie into the living room. It’s also white. We sit on the white couch: me, Person, Julian.
Jeannie disappears to finish up lunch and Julian and I shake under Person’s arms. We don’t say anything.
“This is not a family,” Jeannie says as she comes through the door after a few minutes. “This is a foster house. I do things differently. I give children warm meals and a warm bed and that’s what the state has asked me to do.”
Person says, “We’ll just take the pictures and the information and get out of your hair.”
Jeannie goes to a set of white binders she has on a shelf on the wall. “Castillo you said, correct?”
“Yes,” Person says through gritted teeth.
Jeannie pulls one of the binders down. “I take a picture the day a child arrives and the day they leave,” she explains. “I keep track of any information they came in with. First names again?” she asks.
This was our mom for a while. We don’t even know how long. But she doesn’t remember our names.
“Flora and Julian,” Person says. I can tell her lung filters are working overtime keeping everything else she wants to say down.
Jeannie flips open to a page and I see my brother as a toddler. I totally remember him like this: round and roly-poly with dimples in his cheeks and elbows. He’s not naked or covered in sand or anything like I pictured. He’s in a blue T-shirt. He’s looking at the camera.
How?
Person snaps a picture of the picture with her phone and Jeannie turns the page.
“You’re right,” she says. “He was with me for quite some time. Eleven months.”
The picture on the next page is still a toddler, but he’s skinny. His arms hang like ropes. His dimples are gone. His hair is even thinner. He doesn’t smile.
How can Jeannie look at these pictures and not see how she broke him? She broke my brother.
I hate her as much as Person does. I wish we could kick her and then leave.
I wish we didn’t need stuff from her.
Person takes a picture of the picture. She puts her arm around Julian and pulls him close. But she doesn’t say anything.
And then I see it, in the fist of that littler toddler, the picture from when we first came to Jeannie’s, is a ball.
“Did you give him that ball?” I ask.
It’s red. Rubber. The kind that bounces.
“I’m not in the practice of handing out toys when children arrive. He must have come in with it.”
He came with a ball? Then he came from somewhere. From someone. From someone who had a ball and a blue T-shirt.
“Do you know where they were before here?” Person asks Jeannie.
Jeannie flips pages. “Let me see,” she says. “Ah!”
My heart speeds up. I can almost feel Person’s heart and Julian’s heart through my shoulders. We all lean a little forward on the couch.
“Well, it says here that they were dropped off in the middle of the night. Neglect.”
Jeannie looks up at Person like that’s the answer.
“And?” Person says.
“I don’t know anything else. It was a case of neglect, which means wherever they were before, they were not getting proper care in terms of food or supervision or some such.”
“I know what neglect means,” Person says. I can feel her trying not to shout.
Don’t get us kicked out before we see my pictures, Person. Please.
“But didn’t they come with a history? Didn’t you have any details on the case?”
Jeannie shakes her head at Person. “It was seven years ago,” she says. “All I have written is that the state failed to ever find the previous caretakers.”
I know what that means. It’s simple. It means no first mother.
I look at Person. Now is the moment. Does she need us to be born? Will she be OK now that she knows we aren’t?
But she still seems unconvinced.
“You didn’t document anything?” Person asks. She sounds close to tears. I reach up. I just want to see my picture. It’s the oldest picture of the youngest me I’ll ever see.
“I document everything.” Jeannie says. “I cannot document what I am not told.”
“Who took them here? Where did they come from?”
“All it says here,” Jeannie says, getting louder, “is that a government official dropped them off on August second, at three a.m. The next day I was told I would receive details via a phone call. The call said that there was no information on the previous caretaker and I would be informed when there was. I was not informed of anything for eleven months. Then the children were re-homed. At this time, I was told that the caseworkers had been looking for a birth family, but that they were missing. You can see that I took the children to all of their dental and doctor appointments as scheduled.”
Person shoves those pages of the binder away from her face.
She’s angry. She’s angry there was no first family.
But if there was no first family, how did Julian get that ball?
“That’s it?” Person says. “That’s it?”
“But we didn’t start here?” Julian says.
Jeannie looks at him like he’s insane. “What?” she asks. “You weren’t born here. I’m not your mother, of course.”
“I didn’t say born,” Julian says. “I said we didn’t—”
Jeannie cuts him off
. “You came in the middle of the night because the state needed someone to take care of you. Since it was the middle of the night, I assume you came from your birth mother, but I don’t know.”
You can’t assume birth if you don’t know.
I look at Julian. He’s not smiling. I make myself talk.
“Do you have that ball still? The red rubber one?” I ask.
Jeannie shakes her head like I’m ridiculous.
“The next foster family would have gotten more information because they would be a long-term placement. I’m just an emergency placement.”
“The next parents didn’t know anything,” Person says.
Jeannie shrugs. “People disappear. Happens more than you realize.” She says this a little more gently though.
Then she hands me the binder.
Before I look at the picture, I list what I know: someone dropped me off here in the middle of the night. I was with Julian.
The only question is what happened before. Was it the sea or the TV or the horizon or the dogs or the crabs? The picture has to tell me. It’s the only way I’ll ever know.
Then I see myself at three years old. I’m in a pink dress and white shoes. Someone dressed me nicely. I even have white lacy socks on. I’m hugging the neck of a doll someone gave me. I’m smiling and looking right at the camera, like looking right into someone’s eyes.
Someone gave me a pink dress and white socks and a doll. Someone gave Julian a ball.
There was a someone. A someone who cared enough about us to give us a doll and a ball.
Someone taught us to hug and to look at cameras.
Person was right. There was something before. The white house was not the beginning.
I decide not to look at the next picture, the one after eleven months in this awful white house. I decide to keep that picture of myself in a pink dress with a baby doll in my brain forever.
There was someone before. There was someone at the beginning.
When we get back to the car, Elena has calmed down. Julian looks at me and says, “I told you there was a mom who only let us eat what fit into our hands.”
I stare at him. He did tell me that. But I can’t confirm it because my words are so stuck. My words are more stuck than they’ve ever been since I was wearing that pink dress, maybe.
I shrug.
He gives me a crazy smile and shrugs back.
I’m sad and happy. I’m angry for the new kids there and for little Julian and little Flora. I’m lucky that Person found us eventually. I’m sad that she didn’t find us here while we were in a pink dress and a blue shirt before any of the bad stuff happened. I’m happy that someone taught me to look at cameras and someone gave me lacy socks and a doll. I’m sad that I don’t have the doll anymore. I’m sad that I might never find it or the person who gave it to me.
I can’t talk with all of this other stuff going on in my lungs.
My words are stuck. I failed Julian. But he’s smiling like a crazy person even though we’re both sad and I’m not mad at him about that this time.
We have different reactions to bad news. We’re different.
Person turns to us. She has tears in her eyes. She’s sadder than Julian and me. She’s learning and we’re remembering what we already knew, somewhere deep inside ourselves. Elena seems sadder than us. Dad seems sadder than us.
“We can keep going,” Person says.
“Huh?” Julian says. “No. This was the white house.”
Person sighs. “I know,” she says. “But it wasn’t the beginning. We can keep searching for your birth family. We can look at birth records. Hospital records. Police records. We can go to the police tomorrow and see if a detective—”
Person cuts herself off when she sees me shaking my head.
“We’re done,” Julian says.
I nod.
“I want to give you all of the information you need,” Person says. “I so wanted to find you guys your beginning.”
I try to say it’s OK. Julian says, “It’s OK, Mom.”
“But listen,” Person says. “You were born. You had a birth mom. You had someone who loved you. I know you did because that’s the only way you came through eleven months with that awful woman still loving each other at the end of it. Someone taught you how to do that before you were dropped off here. You were born. You were babies. You didn’t come from the sky or the sea or the sand. You came from a mom who loved you but who couldn’t take care of you like you deserve, like I’m trying to. Because the world wasn’t fair to you guys and it probably wasn’t fair to her either. I thought we’d find out who she was, where she was. I thought we’d find a baby picture or an old address but . . . I don’t know what to do. I . . . I don’t know what to do except ask you to trust me. To believe me. About this.”
I look at Person. And I nod.
She shakes her head like she can’t believe me. “Really?” she asks.
I nod again.
I was born. We were born. We had a first family.
“Really?” she asks again.
Julian says, “Yeah . . .” He looks at me. “You think so, Flora? We were born after all.”
I nod. I think so.
Person thinks I needed to see a baby picture to believe that. But I think a pink dress and white lacy socks and a doll might be enough proof.
Julian puts his head on my shoulder and I realize I have even better proof than a pink dress: a brother who has always loved me, a brother who I’ve always loved. A brother who learned to love and the love inside of me for him that I must have learned from someone.
“It’s OK your words are stuck, Florey,” Julian says through the crazy, wrinkly smile. “They’ll come back eventually. We have until forever, I guess.”
I hug him. I nod.
Person starts weeping like she did when I passed the fourth grade and Elena puts her arms around Julian and me and we freeze like that until Person is done.
“Let’s go home,” Julian says. “All the way home. That’s enough, for now. Right, Flora?”
I nod. It’s enough.
Person chuckles. “Sounds good to me,” she says. Dad reaches out and holds her hand. And the five of us leave the white house for the last, last time.
Oops.
I mean six.
The six of us leave the white house for the last, last time.
My words will come back, I know it. They’ll come back smoother and faster now that I have Person and Dad and Elena and baby and Margie and Vanessa and Kelly and Ms. K and Dr. Fredrick and all the other people.
Now that I’ve let Julian be just my brother, outside my edges, I have more edges to share with other people and other people love my words.
My words will come back and get stuck again and come back and get stuck again. They’ll get stuck when the baby comes. They’ll get stuck when Meredith calls us dysfunctional again or when Elena gets jealous again. They’ll get stuck when I have to go to fifth grade without Ms. K or when I finally get invited to my first birthday party.
But they’ll come back.
With my family, my words will always come back.
THEORY #0
I come from the place where the words get stuck.
My brother comes from the hiding spots in his closet.
We were maybe born like the rest of you. Born to a woman who gave us things like red rubber balls and pink dresses.
But we come from the hidden corners. The dark spots in lungs or closets where secrets get lodged, the kind of secrets that take years to wiggle loose.
We come from the places where things get stuck and hidden and lost.
But Person, and people, love us anyway.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks from the bottom of my heart goes out to:
Karen Chaplin, for your brilliant insights, unbridled encouragement, and startling confidence in both me and Flora.
Kate McKean, for your advocating, your last-minute pep-talks, and your last-minute readings on this one.<
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Erin Fitzsimmons, for this beautiful, breathtaking cover that I know Flora would stare at for hours if she could.
Everyone at Harper—school and library, publicity and marketing, and everyone else—for your continued commitment and enthusiasm!
Jessica Verdi, Corey Ann Haydu, Alyson Gerber, and Amy Ewing, for your support, brilliant thoughts . . . and friendship.
Beth Carter, Bill Carter, Dan Carter, all the Larssons, the Carter-fam, and the Keating-fam, for your love and support.
All of my friends. I keep trying to list you but there’re too many, which makes me especially blessed. Know that I appreciate your support more than I could ever say.
My writing communities—The New School, The Lucky 13s, The Class of 2K13, Binders—and the wonderful friends, teachers, and mentors I’ve met through them, especially David Levithan, Patricia McCormick, Leila Sales, Mary G. Thompson, Kathryn Holms, Alison Cherry, Lindsay Ribar, Mindy Raff, Dahlia Adler, Caron Levis . . . I could go on. . . .
Greg. For everything.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Courtesy of Caela Carter
CAELA CARTER is a writer and an educator. She is a graduate of The New School’s MFA program in writing for children. She has been teaching children and teenagers for ten years. Her books for teens include Me, Him, Them, and It; My Best Friend, Maybe; and Tumbling. My Life with the Liars was her first book for middle grade readers. This is her second. Caela lives in Brooklyn with her family. You can visit her online at www.caelacarter.com.
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BOOKS BY CAELA CARTER
My Life with the Liars
CREDITS
Cover art © 2017 by Kenard Pak
Cover design by Erin Fitzsimmons
COPYRIGHT
FOREVER, OR A LONG, LONG TIME. Copyright © 2017 by Caela Carter. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.