Just Lucky

by Melanie Florence

  “She can’t go into a…a facility!”

  “Do you have someone you can stay with, Lucky?”

  “I can stay with my friend, Ryan.”

  “I mean long-term.”

  “Long-term? What do you mean? Just let me take her home and we’ll be fine. I’ll keep a closer eye on her. It was because I was late getting home!” I swiped at my eyes angrily.

  “And what about the next time you’re late? I’m sorry, but someone has to make some tough decisions.”

  “I’ll make the decisions!”

  “I’m so sorry, but you can’t. You’re a minor. You should call your mother. We’ll keep your grandmother here until she can be assessed further and a long-term care plan can be worked out.”

  “How long will that take?” I asked.

  “It’s hard to say. It depends what’s causing her dementia. She’ll get a room for now and we’ll start trying to help her.” She reached out and touched my arm. I wanted to smack her hand away but I knew, deep down, that it wasn’t her fault. “Call your mother. Tell her she needs to come as soon as she can.”

  I nodded as she turned and walked away. I hoped suddenly that my phone would be dead so I could put this call off, but the battery was at eighty-three percent. I scrolled until I found a number under the name CHRISTINA. I dialed and waited.

  “Hello?” said a voice I assumed was my mother’s, but which I hadn’t heard in so long, I couldn’t be sure.

  “Christina Robinson?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Lucky. Your daughter.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Mommy Dearest

  ME:My mother is coming

  RYAN:Rly?

  ME:I can’t make decisions re gma

  RYAN:Y not?

  ME:Too young

  RYAN:Do u want me to pick u up?

  ME:No. I have to wait. I’ll txt u ltr

  RYAN:Kk. XO

  I had walked around the entire floor three times so far. There wasn’t much to see. They had moved my grandmother to her own room, and she was sleeping, thanks to a dose of Ativan that had calmed her down considerably. The doctors left me alone, and I was just finishing my fourth lap when I saw the doctor standing outside Grandma’s room, talking to a woman in a black suit and what Grandma would have called “sensible heels.” Her lipstick matched the startlingly pink blouse she had on, and it was smudged slightly.

  “Lucky, this is Cynthia. She’s from Children’s Aid.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why is Cynthia from Children’s Aid here?” I asked.

  “Because you’re a minor, and we’re required to call and make sure you’re being cared for.”

  “I’m fifteen. I can take care of myself.”

  I suddenly heard the staccato clack of stilettos in the hall and somehow just knew they belonged to my mother.

  She looked considerably older and much more weathered, but otherwise, she was basically the same. A mess who had bleached her naturally dark hair until it looked like straw. She had way too much makeup on and a skirt that I instinctively wanted to pull down to cover a few more inches.

  “I’m lookin’ for room eighteen. Are you the doctor?” she asked the only person outside the room wearing a lab coat.

  “I am. You must be Christina.” They shook hands, and I cringed at the ragged fingernails with their chipped red polish. It looked like she had chewed them off.

  “I’m Cynthia,” said Cynthia from Children’s Aid. My mother nodded and shook her hand as well. She looked at me expectantly.

  “And you are?” she asked, holding out her hand. Was she serious? Jesus.

  “I’m Lucky. You know…your daughter?” My voice was dripping ice.

  “Oh, my god! It’s been a minute since I’ve seen you, hasn’t it?” she brayed. “You’re all grown up. What do you need me for?” she asked the doctor. “Lucky’s grown.”

  “Your daughter is fifteen,” Cynthia from Children’s Aid told her. “She’s still a minor.”

  “Oh, right. Of course.”

  “Your mother has dementia. She’s going to need help, and Lucky can’t take care of her by herself. Are you able to stay with them? Help out?” Cynthia asked. She didn’t look very hopeful.

  “I mean…I can stay a minute, but my boyfriend, Dan? He has a gig in Thunder Bay, and we’re going to road trip…” She trailed off, perhaps realizing that we were all looking at her in disbelief—and in my case, disgust.

  “She can’t live with just me!” I shouted, forgetting for a second where I was. “She needs another adult to help make decisions, and unfortunately, you’re the closest thing she has. She needs you!” I paused. “I need you.” I hated to admit it, but it was true. I didn’t want Grandma going into some care facility, and I didn’t want to end up on the street or whatever.

  “Well…how much does it pay?”

  “How much…I’m sorry?” Cynthia looked completely shocked. And I imagine it took a lot to surprise her, in her line of work.

  “What do I get for staying and helping? Do I get a check?”

  The doctor was speechless. Cynthia looked like she was trying not to yell at my mother. I was livid, but not even a little bit surprised.

  “You’re her daughter. And you’re Lucky’s mother. You don’t get paid for that, Miss Robinson.”

  “Right. It’s just that I’ve kind of been on the road with my boyfriend—he’s a musician—and I’m not sure I can stay here right now. I’m not really the mom-type.” She snorted with laughter at this. Like deserting your kid and your mother was something hilariously funny to her.

  “I understand that. I do. But your mother needs you,” the doctor told her. “Maybe you’d like to see her? Talk it over with her? She’s asleep now but when she wakes up?”

  “Oh, sure. For sure. I mean, yeah. I’ll just go grab a smoke and then come back. I can catch up with Lucky while we wait for her to wake up.”

  “Of course,” the doctor said. I kept my mouth shut. I had seen this particular number before.

  “All right then. I’ll be right back.” She turned and clickety clacked back down the hall without a look back at me.

  “See?” Cynthia from Children’s Aid smiled. “I think she understands the severity of the situation.”

  “Right. I’m sure she does,” I said, watching my mother’s retreat and knowing for absolute certain that she wouldn’t be back.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A Wake-Up Call

  My neck hurt.

  The blue chair upholstered in the scratchiest fabric known to man didn’t make much of a bed. I was draped across it, my neck dangerously kinked, trying to get a little sleep.

  “Lucky?” Cynthia from Children’s Aid was back.

  “Umm…yeah?” I moved my head this way and that, trying to work out the kink that had settled into it.

  “Why are you still here? Where’s your mother?” she asked, looking around the room as if my mother might be hiding in a corner somewhere.

  “I assume she left.” I yawned.

  “What do you mean, she left?” Cynthia frowned. She looked exhausted. I pitied her. How could she not have seen my mother for what she was?

  “Look, Cynthia…with all due respect, my mother wasn’t going to step up and take care of anyone. She can’t even take care of herself. If there was nothing in it for her, she wasn’t going to stick around.”

  “Well you can’t sleep here.” She gestured at the blue chair I had been dozing in.

  “I can call my friend Ryan to come and get me. I’ll just stay with him.” I shrugged.

  “Lucky, unfortunately I can’t let you do that,” she said.

  “Why? I’ve stayed with them before. It’s not a big deal.”

  “You’re a min
or. Children’s Aid is responsible for you now until we figure out what’s happening with your grandmother or until we can find a legal guardian for you. Do you have any other family you can call?”

  “No. There’s no one. So what does that mean?” I asked, not liking where this was going.

  “Well…I’ll have to find you a foster home to sleep in tonight. Probably for the next couple of nights until we can figure out your grandmother’s situation.”

  “Foster care? But I can stay with Ryan! I don’t want to go into foster care!”

  “It’s just temporary. You can’t stay with a friend, Lucky. There are protocols for this sort of thing.”

  “The sort of thing where I’m not allowed to go home?” I demanded.

  “I’ll do the best I can. And I can try to call your mother again too. Maybe she’ll change her mind.”

  “Right. I’m sure she’ll suddenly grow a conscience. Where am I staying?”

  “I have a couple that takes kids in when there’s an emergency situation. I’ll call them. In the meantime, we can go pick up some of your stuff.”

  “That’s it? I have no say in what happens to me?”

  “I’m sorry. I really am,” she said.

  “Right. Well…not as sorry as I am.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Fosters

  Everything smelled like smoke. The fire had been contained in the kitchen and hallway, but the entire house smelled like smoke. And just…wetness. A dampness that I knew I’d be smelling on my clothes and skin for a long time. The fire department had hosed everything down well, and I wasn’t sure how we’d ever clean it all up again when Grandma came home and we moved back. If she came home.

  I shook my head. I wasn’t even going to consider that.

  What was I supposed to pack? I was hoping I’d be back home before I had to change clothes too many times, but Cynthia told me to pack enough for a week, just to be safe.

  I grabbed a bag and stuffed some clothes into it. My laptop, phone, and chargers. My sketchbook. Some pencils. My iPad. The comics Ryan and I had bought but hadn’t gotten around to reading yet. I looked in the closet for a hoodie and saw a pile of sweaters that Grandma had made for me. She had knit me a sweater for every single birthday and Christmas since I was a kid. There were three sitting in a pile on the top shelf. Two, I was sure, were getting too small, but she had just recently given me the third. It was a soft, mossy green color that reminded me of spring. I touched it, thinking of her spending evenings in front of the TV with her needles, and packed all three even though I probably wouldn’t wear them.

  “Ready?” Cynthia asked, looking up as I trudged down the stairs.

  “I guess so.”

  “Good. All right. The Wilsons are waiting for you.”

  I nodded, trying to picture “The Wilsons” in my head. What kind of people took kids that weren’t theirs into their homes?

  We drove for a while…way out of my neighborhood.

  “How am I going to get to school?” I asked.

  “The Wilsons homeschool their kids,” Cynthia said.

  “Wait…I don’t want to be homeschooled! I want to go to my own school!”

  “They don’t live in your district, Lucky.”

  “I don’t care! I want to be with my friends!” I argued.

  “I’m really sorry. I am. But that’s not possible. We don’t have a foster family available in your district. The Wilsons were the only ones that could accept you tonight.”

  “Accept me? Like I’m a delivery from Amazon or something? Jesus. I have friends I can stay with!” I seriously considered jumping from the car and running for it.

  “You know it doesn’t work that way. I’m sorry, Lucky. I really am. But this was the only option.”

  We pulled into the driveway of a modest, two-story house. As Cynthia turned off the engine, a couple walked out and stood on the porch, arms around each other. The Wilsons, I assumed. The porch light shadowed them a little, but I could see that he was big and burly; she was small and blonde.

  “Well, here we are,” Cynthia said. “Come on and meet your foster family.”

  I felt a chill—an actual chill—as I opened the door of the car and stepped out. Someone was watching me from an upstairs window, and my instinct as I walked toward the couple standing on the porch was to run. Run fast and run far. Run back to my grandmother.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The Wilsons

  The man came down the stairs and grabbed my backpack out of my hand before I could stop him. I mean, he had a good foot and a half on me, so I probably couldn’t have stopped him even if I wanted to. But there was something about letting that bag go that made me feel like I was losing a battle.

  The man—Mr. Wilson—held out his other bear-like hand to me.

  “You must be Lucy,” he said, pumping my hand enthusiastically. “I’m Robert Wilson. And this is my wife, Mary.”

  Bob and Mary. Of course those were their names.

  “It’s Lucky,” I told him.

  “Sorry?” He looked confused. Not an uncommon reaction to my name.

  “My name. It’s not Lucy. It’s Lucky,” I explained.

  “Oh! Sorry about that. Lucky. I’ve never heard that one before. Is it short for something?” he asked.

  “Nope. Just Lucky,” I told him. He nodded, pumping my hand a few more times before releasing me.

  “Are you hungry, dear?” his wife—Mary—said, smiling. She looked nice enough. They both did. But all the niceness in the world wasn’t going to make me want to stay with these people.

  “No. Thank you. I’m just tired.”

  “Lucky has had a long day. I’m sure she’d like to get some sleep. I’ll leave you with Bob and Mary, Lucky. I’ll check in on you tomorrow.”

  And just like that, she was gone. You’d think Cynthia from Children’s Aid would stick around long enough to get me settled in, but maybe she had other kids to save tonight.

  “I’ll show you to your room,” Mary said. “You’ll have it all to yourself. It’s just us and our son, Robert Jr., right now.”

  Ah. The boy in the window. I had assumed he was a foster kid. She took the backpack from her husband and led me inside.

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  The first thing I noticed when we walked into the front hall was the cross. Now don’t get me wrong. My grandparents had a cross or two. They went to church. They believed. But this was a CROSS! In capitals. It was easily several feet tall. And it had a pretty scary looking Jesus staring down at me with what looked like condemnation. So it was going to be that kind of house. I kind of felt like Carrie in that Stephen King book. I wondered if Mary was going to tell me they were all going to laugh at me or mention my dirty pillows. Seriously. If you haven’t read the book, at least see the movie. Ryan and I had seen it eight times at least. I was even Carrie for Halloween one year.

  There was music playing softly from somewhere down the hall. It was a hymn I had heard many times. Mary hummed along quietly as she led me upstairs. I saw a face peering out of a slightly cracked open doorway.

  “Hi,” I called out, but the door slammed shut without a response. Mary acted like she hadn’t seen this. Weird.

  “Here you go.” She opened a door and put my bag inside. I walked into the smallish bedroom and nodded. It was fine. Nothing fancy. Nothing at all that set it apart from any other room. The walls were bare except for a small gold cross above the bed. The furniture was white, and there was what I assumed to be a handmade quilt on the bed.

  “Thanks. Ummm…goodnight?” She was still standing there smiling. More and more Stephen King-like by the minute.

  “Goodnight, Lucky. We’re happy to share our home with you,” she said. I nodded, and she finally left, closing the door behind her.

  I looked around. There was a dresser, but I was ho
ping I’d be out of here tomorrow or the next day at the very latest, so I didn’t bother unpacking. I put my backpack on the bed and opened it. The first thing I saw was a picture of the three of us. Me, Grandma, and Grandpa, arms around each other, smiling widely at the beach a couple of months ago. I held it up, staring at the life that had collapsed completely in the last month.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Breakfast

  I slept surprisingly well, considering the completely foreign environment. I didn’t have a clock in the room so I had to find my phone to see what time it was.

  10:45.

  There was a text.

  RYAN: Hey. U ok? Let me know where u r so I can come c u

  I had texted him the night before just to let him know what was going on. I still felt like things would work themselves out and I could go stay with him.

  ME: I don’t know the address. I’ll txt u ltr. Pretty sure I’m in Castle Rock

  RYAN: LOLZ

  He was as big a Stephen King fan as he was a comic book nerd. I loved that about Ryan.

  I changed into shorts and a T-shirt and wandered out to find the bathroom. It was right beside the bedroom, between it and the son’s room. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and put my stuff back. I could smell bacon and eggs and maybe…waffles? My stomach growled. The last thing I had eaten was a chocolate bar from the vending machine at the hospital.

  Mary was at the counter doing dishes when I came into the kitchen.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead,” she chirped. “We don’t usually sleep in, but I thought you could use some rest.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “Would you like some breakfast? I kept it warm in the oven for you.”

  My mouth was watering.

  “Thank you!”

  “You sit. The plate will be hot.” She gestured toward the table, where I eagerly pulled a chair out and sat down. “Those shorts are awfully short,” she said mildly.