“Boys?” I laugh. “Look at me, I’m less lovable than a punching bag. Besides,” I mumble, “I’m only thirteen.”
Addie freezes and looks at me. In silence, Pete places his wrists on the table. “That doesn’t matter,” Addie says. “You’ll turn fourteen in three days, and the rule here is that there’s no dating until you’re sixteen. We’ve had that rule in place for all our foster kids and our three daughters, and it’s worked out very well.” Then she looks at Camille. “We know you have a boyfriend.”
Camille places her fork quietly on her plate, as though she’s been caught sliding their good silver into her pockets.
“Tell him there is a curfew of nine o’clock for you, and he has to come to the door to pick you up and drop you off. No horn-honking in this neighborhood.”
Ouch. One for Addie.
Then she goes on to discuss food distribution. “I’m on Weight Watchers,” she says, “so please, hands off the dietetic food.” Camille and I look at her blankly: Has she seen the size of our waists? We nod. No problem. We’re probably the only two teenagers on all of Long Island who aren’t trying to lose weight.
“And since there will always be someone at home, you won’t need a set of keys.” I nudge my knee into Camille under the table, and she nudges back hard: Here it is! The key conversation. Foster kids never, ever get keys. The phrase There will always be someone at home is to be translated as Being Rent-a-Kids, you are guilty until proven innocent, and we assume that almost certainly you are thieves who cannot be trusted. Addie tells us if there’s ever no one home, the porch is a safe place for us to wait. It’s a really pretty porch, too, I want to gush insincerely, but I stuff my grilled cheese into my mouth instead.
Addie tells us she has three grown daughters, Paula, Prudence, and Penny. I keep filling my face with grilled cheese, finding it hilarious all their initials are P. P. Two of them clean houses in a business with Addie every morning and the third is a nurse. They’re all married, and they’ve all decorated their homes just like Addie’s. As she says this, it’s clear she’s restraining herself from beaming.
She tells us how she and Pete met when they were teenagers and married right out of high school. Pete’s frame is short and strong, and he’s made a career as a contractor and carpenter—in fact, Addie says, he built the very house we’re sitting in. This reminds her of the remaining house rules. Whatever Pete wants to watch on TV is what we all have to watch. Who cares? I want to say. I’ll watch anything on cable. We have to clean our own rooms and do our own laundry, which is no bother to me. “You mean you have a washing machine?” I ask.
Addie looks at Pete and folds her hands in her lap. “Yes, dear. And a dryer, too.”
“Then why don’t we just do all your laundry while we’re at it?” I ask her, looking between the two of them. “It’s no problem.”
She dabs the sides of her mouth with her paper napkin. “Don’t you worry about our laundry—just know the washer and dryer are yours to use anytime they’re free.”
Addie informs us that she and Pete had asked to see our report cards before they took us in. Camille and I transact a puzzled amusement: If our most recent grades were acceptable, what kind of kids have they turned down? Then Camille helps clear the dishes while I carry the leftover broccoli to the counter. We stand in the doorway of the kitchen and thank them for letting us stay there a few nights, before heading into Camille’s room where we shut the door and, sitting arm to arm, speak in whispers. “You want to sleep in here tonight?” Camille asks me.
I nod, getting ready to cry again. “Yes.”
We both stare at the ceiling, knowing that somewhere on this island, Norman and Rosie are probably doing the same thing.
We wake early the next morning and enter the bathroom together, mindful not to hog it from Danny and the Petermans. Addie’s left us each a toothbrush—“You can have the purple one!” I tell Camille. “I’ll take the orange.” I squeeze a long strip of toothpaste from a fat tube onto the bristles; it feels like a wild indulgence.
“Don’t use so much, or they’ll take it away!” Camille says. I smile at her with a mouthful of minty foam.
When we walk out to the kitchen, looking for coffee—a habit I developed to get me through low-energy mornings in junior high, and which, according to last night’s rules, is not off limits—we find Addie in the kitchen, stirring her own mug. “You’re welcome to coffee, girls,” she tells us, pointing to the cupboard.
“Wow,” I say, finding all the shelves in the cupboard stacked with dozens of Mickey Mouse mugs. “You’re big fans of Mickey, huh?”
“Well, sure we are, we don’t drive our RV to Disney World every year to see nature!” She takes a sip of coffee and gets that grave look on her face again. “Girls, you should know, you’ll be staying home from school today.” Instantly, my stomach tightens—my face must be too scary for the little kids at their neighborhood bus stop. But Addie goes on to explain that, because it’s Friday and they want to keep our case moving into next week, Ms. Davis is on her way over to help us write our emancipation affidavit.
“Can we call our sister?” I ask her.
“Right now?”
“Yeah. She remembers a lot of the stuff that happened to us. If the social worker’s coming to get our story, we need our sister Cherie.”
Addie rests her arm against the kitchen door frame and tells us it’s fine, as long as it’s a local call. For us, a kitchen telephone hanging on the wall is usually just a good weapon waiting to be dismounted to help smash cockroaches and chase other vermin around the kitchen. “My only request is that before you use the phone, please ask first,” she says. “We may be expecting calls and just need to keep the line free.”
Addie hands me the receiver and I approach the base to poke my fingers through the rotary holes. Each spin of the dial adds to my nervousness because I know I have to tell Cherie what I did. As I fill her in on what’s happened over the past few days, I can hear baby A.J. murmuring under her chin. “The social worker says the more details I give, the more likely the judge will emancipate me and take Cookie’s guardianship of the kids away. Can you get over here?”
I wait for her to respond with annoyance, telling me she has a two-month-old to worry about and her in-laws will give her a hard time about watching him, but instead she says, “Hold on. Give me the address.” By nine thirty she’s on the front porch, introducing herself to Addie. See how stable my big sister’s life is? I want to ask Addie. Isn’t she great? Addie puts on another pot of coffee and some store-brand Oreos on a plate. I fill myself with sugar and caffeine, thrilled that Cherie and Addie are hitting it off with all this mother-to-mother talk. If we were here for any reason other than the affidavit, I’d be disappointed to see the social worker arrive and interrupt our breakfast date.
On the table between my elbows, Ms. Davis places pages and pages of lined paper with carbon sheets in between each page. She explains that there will be two copies of my affidavit—one for my file and one for the judge. She encourages us to start at the very beginning, as far back as we can recall. She instructs me what to write in the very first paragraph of the affidavit
I, Regina Marie Calcaterra, do swear that the information provided is a true description of my time with my mother, Camille Diane Calcaterra. The truthfulness of this affidavit is supported by my older sisters Cherie and Camille. Dated, November 1980.
Then Ms. Davis tells us the rest of the affidavit will be in our own words. At first we search one another’s faces for memories and details . . . but it doesn’t take long before it’s all flowing so fast that my pen can barely keep up with our words.
July 4, 1971
Four years old
MAMA JUST GAVE us each our own watermelon slice and sent us out to the picnic table, promising she’ll bring sparklers when we go into town to watch the Fourth of July parade. I take my watermelon under the redwood picnic table to see how many ants I can attract to our picnic. Mama always teases me, sayi
ng I’d prefer to live in a mud-pie mountain with ants, beetles, crickets, and lightning bugs as my neighbors over living with clean knees and fingers any day. Four white-sandled feet—Cherie’s and Camille’s—swing in my direction from the bench above. All their talk about this new mom and a new home distracts me from my ant collecting.
“If they adopt her, then we won’t see her ever again,” Camille says.
“They can’t adopt her,” Cherie says, “because Mom won’t let them. Either way, it’s bad for all of us.”
“How can Mom say what happens to Regina? Regina doesn’t even know Mom.”
“I know, Camille.”
“Mrs. G is her mom. I mean, how do you take a baby away from the person she thinks is her mom? She even calls Mrs. G ‘Mama.’ ”
“Camille, knock it off. Mrs. G is not her mom. And Regina’s not a baby—she starts kindergarten this year.”
“She shouldn’t even be in kindergarten yet, she’s only four!”
“Well, it’s that or she stays home with Mom all day!” Cherie says. “It’s safer for her to be at school! Stop arguing with me, wouldya? Regina belongs with us.” Cherie pauses from all her insisting to sigh. “I wish Mrs. G would adopt all of us,” she says. “I wish we could stay here.”
“Me too,” says Camille.
“Me too, me too!”
From above, my two sisters laugh at how I’ve chimed into the conversation. Cherie’s nicknamed both Camille and me “Me Too” because everything our older sister says, we younger sisters agree with. “You learned ‘Me Too’ at the Happy House,” Cherie says, leaning down and brushing dirt off my face. “Do you remember the Happy House?”
I shake my head. “What’s the Happy House?”
For as long as I can remember, I’ve lived with Mama, Papa, and their teenage daughter, Susan. I love my mama and papa, but I spend every minute I can around Susan. She reminds me of a princess in her long, flowery dresses. I like to snuggle up with Susan and play with her silky light brown hair or let my tiny fingers get tangled in her long necklaces of leather and wood.
Cherie picks me up. She and Camille take my hands, and we walk to the house to find Mama. “This is the Happy House,” I tell Cherie.
“No, Gi, this is the Bubble House.”
“Huh?”
When we walk inside, Mama and Susan are crying in the kitchen.
“Why you cry?”
“You’re going to go live with your new mom now,” Susan says through her tears.
My head tilts with confusion. “I have a mama . . . you mean I have another mama?”
“You have two mamas. And a little brother, too!” Mama says.
“His name is Norman,” Cherie says.
I sort of remember calling someone else Mommy because she wanted me to call her that. I visited her house last Christmas. Mama dressed me like a princess in a crimson velvet dress, patent-leather shoes, and clean white stockings. Susan called the other mommy my Christmas Mama, because she wanted to give us Christmas presents. But I don’t know why I have to see her now—you don’t get gifts for the Fourth of July. “Is it Christmas Mama?”
They all start laughing until it seems like Mama might start to cry. “Yes, honey,” she says. “It’s your Christmas Mama.”
I smile around at all of them. “I get Christmas presents?”
Susan and Mama pack for my visit with Christmas Mama. I wonder why I need so many clothes? As Mama tucks stacks of folded laundry in a suitcase, she explains that, even though it’s summer, we need to pack warm clothes, too.
“Why?”
“Just in case you stay with Christmas Mama.”
“Until Christmas?”
Mama stays quiet a moment. “Yes.”
I move in to help them pack my bag of clothes, my dolls and stuffed animals, and my toy Baby Jesus, resting in a pile of plastic hay.
In the car, Cherie and Camille are silent. I chat away, bubbling over about Christmas Mama and hoping there will be new toys, baby dolls, and maybe even an Easy-Bake Kitchen so Mama and Susan can show me how to bake when Papa comes to pick me up from Christmas Mama’s house.
Papa slows the car, then pulls into a lonely building in the middle of a three-road intersection. “This is it?” he bursts. “This is where she’ll have them living?”
Susan whispers in a way that confuses me even more. “This is only a Christmas visit, Dad, remember?”
Papa snaps back. “Enough with the fairy-tale talk, Susan.” His voice is starting to sound like he’s choking, like a frog. “She’ll figure out what’s happening as soon as we leave.”
“No leave,” I say.
Everyone climbs out of the car, leaving Camille, Cherie, and me in the backseat while they unpack the trunk. I watch closely as Papa walks in the front door of the building and comes back out with his face all red. His neck is bulging. He looks scary. Then he yells. “This is a goddamn glue factory!” he says. I’ve never seen Papa so mad. “The apartment . . . is upstairs . . . from a goddamn glue factory!”
“Dad, shhh—”
“She couldn’t have found an apartment in a normal complex? She had to pick a damn glue factory in the middle of all this traffic?”
He tucks in his shirt like he’s trying to calm down, and he directs Mama and Susan with our luggage up the steps. Then he walks us to the side door. Papa stoops down and wraps Cherie and Camille in each arm. He hugs them with all his might, until he’s crying, and he collects himself to stand over them. “Stay strong and take care of one another,” he says. “Especially Regina. She needs her big sisters now more than ever.” Then he turns to me, scooping me up off the ground and letting me nuzzle my head in his neck and shoulders.
“Papa, why do you look so sad?”
“You know you’ll always be my princess, right?”
“I know, Papa,” I tell him, cupping my hand around his neck. “And you’re my king.” He squeezes me against him, and Mama and Susan turn their faces away. Papa gently places me next to my sisters and tells Mama and Susan in his froggy voice that he can’t go upstairs and he’ll be waiting in the car.
Mama clears her throat and takes Cherie’s hand, then Camille’s. The three of them navigate the narrow staircase together, their shoes on the hollow steps the only noise. Susan holds on to my right hand, and I hold the wooden banister with the left. “Hey, Susan, watch!” I do what she, Cherie, and Camille have taught me to do whenever I get scared or sad—I count. “One step, two steps . . .”
When I reach the platform, I look up at Susan. Why isn’t anyone skipping or smiling, or excited at all? Then a door opens. Christmas Mama is standing there.
She’s thin, and her very black hair is in a tight ponytail. Her eyes have a lot of makeup like a lady on TV. Her dress is long and black with a belt around the waist and no sleeves, and when I look at her feet, she has on sandles with a little heel. She seems pretty, but something about her is spooky, too. A tall, skinny man pops up behind her. Behind him walks a big, gray, hairy dog. I hide behind Camille. The dog sits next to the man.
Cherie and Camille allow Christmas Mama to hug them. “Welcome home, girls,” Christmas Mama says. Then she looks at me and points into the kitchen past a yellow Formica table with aluminum legs. She says, “Regina, I am your mother. I love you, and here is a Big Wheel.”
A Big Wheel?
My mother?
I hold Susan’s hand closer. Nobody here seems happy, and everyone is watching me. Like a robot on a cartoon, Christmas Mama stands there smiling, blinking, waiting for me to say something. Susan leans down and whispers, “Say thank you, Pumpkin. Look at your present.”
I look at the Big Wheel bike and then down toward the floor. I start whimpering, then it’s a full-fledged cry into Susan’s flowing skirt. “But I don’t want it,” I say. “It’s not Christmas.” My whimpers continue until Susan grasps me tighter. Finally, I turn toward Christmas Mama. I’m afraid to look at her so I don’t, but I tell her through my tears, “Thank you for my Big Whe
el present.”
Mama says it’s time to go. She shakes Christmas Mama’s hand and tells her to take care of her little gifts. After we all get fast big hugs from Mama and Susan, they hurry down the stairs and disappear.
This visit feels different than the other Christmas visit did. I want Mama and Susan back, and I start to yell for them. Christmas Mama shushes me and takes us into a room with two little beds. My cries turn into a piercing wail. “Mama! Mama! Mama!”
Then it lands on my right cheek: a sharp front-handed slap. My head jerks toward my left shoulder but is jolted back with a backhanded slap to my left cheek that knocks me to the floor. “Stop crying or else I’ll really give you something to cry about, you little bitch!” she howls. “I’m Mom. You got that? I’m Mom.”
No, no, no. I look at Cherie and Camille. “This is our mom,” Cherie tells me. She looks sad.
“Listen to your big sister, you little whore. She’s right. You came from me, see this? From this belly. I’m your mom.”
No.
No.
No. I don’t want her for my mom. “I want Papa.”
“Oh, you want your father?” Christmas Mama says. “Well, he didn’t want you, and it’s no wonder, you goddamn little waste of skin. And he didn’t want me, either, so you just shut the fuck up about any papa. You got that? You do not want to get me started on that man, the arrogant, self-absorbed piece of shit.”
I almost cry again but Camille runs and puts her arm around my shoulders. Christmas Mama commands her and Cherie to go outside and bring up all our stuff. “I’ll deal with this bastard,” she says. She looks mad at me, and I want to cry again. I haven’t done anything bad. Mama and Susan never yelled at me this way.
Cherie and Camille stand in the door, staring with fear in their eyes. “You two go, goddammit!” she screams. When they run for the stairs, Christmas Mama tells me that she wishes I was dead, that I should have never been born. Then she bends over and grabs my right arm to yank me upright. She slaps both my cheeks again, then slams the door and locks it behind her.
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