Just Lucky

by Melanie Florence

  “What’s wrong?” I asked gently.

  “I miss my mom,” she cried.

  “Oh Lucy. I’m sorry. I wish I could help. Maybe you could write her a letter.”

  She nodded.

  “Don’t you miss your mom?” she sniffled.

  “No,” I admitted. “My mom isn’t very nice. But I miss my grandma.”

  “And your grandpa too?” she asked, wiping her face on her sleeve.

  “Yes. Him especially.”

  “Can you help me make a present for my mom? Her birthday is coming.”

  “Of course. I bet she’ll be really happy you remembered.” I tucked her back in and stood up to leave.

  “Lucky?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can I sleep in your room tonight?”

  “Sure.” I held my hand out, and she jumped up to grab it, turning quickly to retrieve a stuffed dog.

  “My mom gave him to me,” she said, holding him against her chest. “His name is Walter.”

  “He looks like a Walter,” I told her, leading her next door to my room.

  I tucked her into the twin bed across from mine.

  “Okay now?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  I got into my own bed and pulled up the blankets.

  “Lucky?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Anytime,” I told her, and meant it. Being away from home was hard enough as a teen. I couldn’t even imagine what it must be like for Lucy.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Grandma

  For once, I managed to get into the city to visit Grandma without transferring buses a million times. Ryan offered to take me, and I eagerly took him up on it. With a mochaccino and a donut in hand, the drive to Sunset took half the time. I glanced into the carrier bag at my feet.

  “Do you think I forgot anything?” I asked Ryan.

  “Aside from packing her furniture, I think you got pretty much everything you could bring,” he said.

  “Funny.”

  “I am, aren’t I?”

  “Oh, you’re hilarious. Grandma is definitely going to be happy to see you,” I told him.

  “I miss her. And your grandfather.”

  “Me too,” I told him. “Do you think Grandma will be…okay today?” I asked him. I wanted her to be herself again. I wanted Ryan to see her the way she used to be and not who she was the last time I saw her.

  I wondered if she was ever going to be the same. I wondered if she was going to become less and less herself. I wondered if she was ever going to be able to go home again. Ryan had told me she wasn’t going to get better. And since the last time I saw her, I had been wondering if he was right. At the same time, I was afraid to admit that he might be.

  And if she couldn’t go home, that meant I couldn’t either.

  “We’re here,” Ryan nodded toward the Sunset building.

  “Right.”

  He pulled into a parking spot right out front, and I led the way into the building.

  “Holy cow!” he breathed. “This place is amazing! Think they’d let us move in?”

  “Her room is pretty big. We can probably put a bunk bed in there. Did I tell you they have a spa?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. Grandma can get her hair done without even leaving home.”

  “That’s it. I’m moving in.”

  I laughed and signed us in. “Her room is down this hall.”

  Ryan followed me, gawking around as we went. “Honestly, Lucky…this place is really nice. Your grandma is lucky to be here.”

  “I know,” I admitted, knocking on her door.

  We both jumped back as Grandma flung it open like she’d been waiting on the other side.

  “Hi!” She hugged me tightly and then turned to Ryan and pulled him into a hug too. “It’s so lovely to see you both. Come on in.”

  She ushered us inside. Her room was less sterile than it had been the last time I visited. It was more homey. More like Grandma. She was settling in, and it scared the hell out of me.

  “Wow. This is really nice,” Ryan told her, looking around.

  “Thank you. What did you bring me?” she asked. I handed her the bag, and she started pulling things out. “Oh, this is wonderful. Thank you!” She placed her photographs carefully on her dresser, then dug back into the bag, pulling out each item I had brought for her. As she put her things around the room and draped her shawl over the back of a comfy looking armchair, it looked more and more like home and like she wasn’t going to be leaving. Ryan reached over and squeezed my hand. He always could read my mind.

  “We’re missing something.” Grandma looked around.

  “Are you looking for this?” Ryan pulled her cookie jar out of the bag he had brought and then handed her several bags of Double Stuf Oreos.

  Grandma clapped her hands.

  “I’ll be the most popular person here.” She winked. “Maybe now they’ll forgive me for beating them at poker.”

  Ryan laughed as Grandma launched into a rundown of all the activities she was involved in and the people she had met. She seemed really happy here. And she was her old self again.

  Almost.

  “When are you two going to go on a date?” Grandma asked.

  Ryan opened and closed his mouth and then looked at me for help.

  “Grandma,” I said gently, “Ryan and I are just friends.”

  “I know that. But you’d make such a sweet couple.”

  “Ryan’s gay, Grandma. Remember?”

  She looked at Ryan.

  “I have a boyfriend now. His name is Thomas.”

  “Thomas?”

  “Yes. You’d really like him.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Do you want to play cards?”

  “I do,” he said.

  “Lucky?” Grandma asked.

  “Deal me in,” I told her.

  I may have been desperate to go home, but at moments like this, I started to realize that Grandma was probably safer here. The disease that had made her set the house on fire wasn’t something that could be cured. And in this place that now looked like home, she was surrounded by people who could help her in ways that I couldn’t.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Bonding

  Unlike Grandma, I added nothing to my room at Paula and Greg’s house to make it any homier. Because it was never going to be home. They’d move me to the next spot eventually. I’d move into another nondescript house on a random street to sleep in a beige bedroom with an empty dresser and an old bed that had been slept in by countless others.

  I went to school with a smile pasted on my face.

  I worried about Grandma.

  I hung out with Ryan and Thomas.

  I did my chores and my homework.

  I let Lucy sleep in my room.

  But I didn’t join any clubs.

  I didn’t try out for the play.

  I didn’t get to know Paula or Greg beyond what we talked about at meals.

  I didn’t make friends with the kids next door.

  Because any second, that doorbell could ring and Cynthia from Children’s Aid could be standing there, waiting to take me to the next place.

  But there was one commitment I kept and that was to Lucy. Every night after dinner, we worked on her mother’s birthday gift—a frame for Lucy’s school photo. We had a cheap frame that we had glued plastic gems to in a rainbow pattern. We had finally finished it tonight, and it was sitting downstairs, packaged and ready to be dropped in the mailbox in the morning.

  There was a knock on my bedroom door.

  “Come in.”

  Lucy poked her head in.

  “Sleepover?” she chirped.

  “Sure,” I told h
er. She ran in, clutching her pillow and her stuffed dog, Walter, against her chest. She dove onto the bed and slithered under the blanket.

  “Tuck!” she demanded.

  I got off my twin bed and walked to the other one. I tucked the blanket around her so she became a little baby burrito with only her head visible.

  “Is Walter comfy?” I asked.

  “Yes.” She giggled. “He likes being a burrito.”

  “Okay then. Sleep tight, little burrito.”

  “Sleep tight,” she said, yawning and closing her eyes.

  I turned the lamp off and got into the other bed.

  “Lucky?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you,” Lucy called out sleepily.

  I rolled over.

  “I love you too, Lucy.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Unlucky

  I spent the days that followed going back and forth to school. Visiting Grandma. Hanging out with Lucy. And although I didn’t change the room at Paula and Greg’s house, I got comfortable. So comfortable that the last thing I expected was to find Cynthia from Children’s Aid sitting at the kitchen table with Paula and Greg when Ryan and I walked in after school.

  “Hi, Lucky,” she said, as if seeing her didn’t make my heart pound.

  “Umm. Hi?”

  “I’m Ryan,” he held out his hand.

  “Hi, Ryan. Maybe Lucky and I can speak alone for a minute?”

  “Oh, sure. I can wait upstairs.” He glanced at me.

  “No! He can stay. If you’re sending me away, he may as well hear it too.”

  “Lucky, we’re not sending you away,” Paula said, glancing at her husband. “Not exactly.”

  “Then what exactly is it?”

  “I’m being transferred,” Greg said.

  “Okay.”

  “To Winnipeg.”

  “Winnipeg?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?” I asked Cynthia.

  “Six weeks,” she said.

  “We’ve been trying to find a way to take you and Lucy with us…but…” Paula shook her head.

  “My grandmother is here. I wouldn’t go to Winnipeg anyway,” I told her coldly. Ryan rubbed my back. Usually that relaxed me, but right now it just pissed me off more.

  “You can stay here with us…at least until we have to pack,” Paula said.

  “Just start looking for another place,” I told Cynthia. “I’m ready to go as soon as you have a spot for me.” I turned and walked out. Ryan trailed after me.

  “Lucky,” he started.

  “No. Don’t say anything. I don’t care anyway. It’s not like they were family or anything.”

  I turned up the hall and saw Lucy standing in her doorway. Shit. She had to have heard. Her face was streaked with tears as she stepped back into her room and slammed the door.

  “Lucy!” I banged on her door. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean you.”

  “Go away!” she yelled from inside the room.

  “I’m coming in,” I told her, opening the door. She was sitting on her bed, her knees pulled up to her chest, and she was holding Walter tightly in her arms. “I’m sorry,” I told her, sitting down on the bed beside her. “I just meant…I’m so tired of moving from place to place. I miss having a home,” I admitted.

  “Me too.”

  “Your mom will be out in a couple of weeks though,” I reminded her. “You’ll be back home before you know it.”

  “Yeah. But what about you? Where will you go?”

  I shook my head.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I wish you could come and live with me.”

  “Me too,” I told her. Lucy had become like a little sister to me.

  “I don’t want you to leave, Lucky,” she said, her face crumbling.

  “I know. Me neither. But I can call you. And visit. And send you letters and stuff.”

  She hugged me, and I hoped with everything I had that when she did go home to her mom, it would be the happy home she deserved.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  Leaving

  Leaving Lucy was hard. Leaving Ryan again was even harder.

  “I just got back,” I told him, wrapping him in a hug that was going to have to last a while. My new “home” was on the other end of the city. Nowhere near my school. Or Ryan. Or Lucy. Or even Grandma.

  “You’re not moving to another country, Lucky,” he said, squeezing the breath out of me.

  “I know. But I got used to seeing you every day again. It’s gonna suck not having you around.” We were sitting on the front steps of Paula and Greg’s house, waiting for Cynthia to pick me up and take me away to Home #4, as we were calling it, completely ironically of course.

  “I’ll come see you. And you can take the bus to visit me. Maybe they’ll let you spend the night sometimes.” He was sniffling and trying not to cry. I wiped my nose on the sleeve of my hoodie. “That’s so gross, Lucky,” he said, laughing.

  “Shut up,” I told him, hugging him tightly again. It might be the last chance I had for a while.

  Cynthia pulled into the driveway then.

  “I have to go,” I told him as Lucy flew out of the house to say good-bye. She’d be staying a little longer so her mother could find a job and a place to stay. “I’ll text you when I get there.”

  He nodded.

  “And I’ll see you soon,” he promised.

  I hugged Lucy.

  “You help your mom when you get a new home with her, okay? And I’ll come and see you when I can.”

  “Okay.” She smiled.

  “And you have my phone number, right?”

  “Yes. I’ll miss you, Lucky.”

  “You too.” I let go of her and walked down the stairs, then turned to the couple standing in the doorway. “Thanks for everything,” I said to Paula and Greg. They smiled.

  “Good luck,” Greg said.

  I climbed into the Prius and waved as Cynthia pulled out of another driveway and headed down another street to another neighborhood and another foster home.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Home #4

  The doorbell at House #4 played the theme song to Doctor Who. I almost cracked a smile when I heard it.

  Almost.

  A woman with a wide, welcoming smile opened the door.

  “Hi, Lucky! I’m Janine.” She extended a hand to me. “We’re happy to have you here. Welcome to our home.”

  Another “home” on another nondescript street whose name I won’t bother remembering.

  “This is Mia,” Janine tells me, gesturing to a girl the same age as me. “And this is Isabelle,” she says, nodding at another girl who is a little older, I think. “Mia, why don’t you show Lucky her room.”

  I nod. I don’t smile. I just follow Mia up the stairs to a room with empty dove-gray walls and that looks just like the last three rooms, with a window overlooking a street that could be anywhere and would never really feel like home. I didn’t even bother to unpack. Just tossed my stuff into the corner.

  “This was my room when I first came,” Mia was babbling at me, “but I moved into a better room when the last girl left.” I had a feeling Mia was one of those girls who always had to be better than everyone else. I’d have to keep an eye on her.

  “Cool,” I told her, not really wanting to engage in conversation.

  “Yeah. Isabelle has the biggest room because she’s the oldest, but when she ages out, I’m taking her room.”

  Wow.

  “Janine’s a teacher at my school. Well…I guess your school too now.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So what do you do for fun?” Mia asked, apparently trying to decide if I was cool enough for her. Something told me I wouldn’t be.

  “I don’
t know,” I told her.

  “Do you go to the mall? Watch The Kardashians or Teen Mom? Get your nails done?”

  “Ummm. Not really. I read comics,” I admitted.

  “Oh gawd! Another dork in the house.” She flounced out of the room and left me alone—finally. I lay down on the bed that was not too soft and not too hard. Every foster family seemed to shop in the same place, I thought. I was just drifting off when there was a knock at the door.

  “I really don’t want to watch The Kardashians with you,” I called out.

  “Well good,” a voice laughed from the doorway. “I can’t stand those people. I don’t know how Mia can watch that show.”

  “Oh, sorry.” I sat up as my new foster mother stepped into the room.

  “It’s okay, Lucky,” she said, smiling. “Are you settled in?”

  I glanced over at my backpack that was still full of all my stuff and shrugged.

  “I guess.”

  “Good. Well, I just wanted to say good night and let you know that if there’s anything you need, I’m right down the hall.”

  “Thanks, but I’m good.”

  “Okay. Is there anything you’d like to get for your room? Do you want to paint the walls or anything?”

  “Why?” I asked. I mean…it was a foster home. It wasn’t like I’d be there long enough to even settle in, if my past experiences were any indication.

  “To make it feel more like you,” she said. “More like home.”

  “I haven’t spent more than a couple of weeks in one place since my grandmother burned our house down. I doubt I’ll be here any longer.” I was being bitchy. I knew it. But I couldn’t help myself. There wasn’t much point in making friends with these people. I’d made that mistake before, I thought bitterly, remembering Charlie, Jake, and Lucy.

  Janine smiled kindly despite my rudeness.

  “All right. Just let me know if you change your mind,” she said. “Sleep well, Lucky.”

  “Thanks.”

  It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate the offer. But honestly…what was the point?

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  Janine

  When I opened my eyes the next morning, I couldn’t remember for a second where I was. It was pretty disorienting when every room you stayed in looked the same as any other.