Three Little Words (6 page)

When I walked in the classroom, Ms. Port saw that I had been crying, so she did not fuss at my tardiness. “Are you okay?”

“My bike—”

She assumed I had fallen off. “Are you hurt?”

“No, but my dress is ruined!” My sobs rolled in heaves.

“Honey, the bottom won’t show in the pictures and the spots will wash out,” she said, then sent me to wash up for the photographs.

I had moved in with the Hagens only six weeks before my seventh birthday, but I do not recall any special celebration or recognition. Christmas, though, was a big deal in foster homes. The foster parents’ associations provided plenty of gifts. Adele had promised me an Easy-Bake oven, but I had not heard from her since April. The Hagens said it was their tradition to open a single present on Christmas Eve. One of the girls asked if we could have a second. Mrs. Hagen relented. Someone asked for “just one more,” and somehow we ended up unwrapping all the gifts. I lay in bed that night feeling that Christmas was ruined. I no longer believed in Santa, so I knew the holiday was all over. The next morning we awoke to find one more gift under the tree for each of us! Although it was only a puzzle, it had been important to receive something—even if it wasn’t from someone who loved me. Since I had left South Carolina, I had not felt special to anyone in the world.

At the end of January, Clayton Hooper, my latest caseworker, visited me at the Hagens’ house. He watched me coloring valentines, then went to talk to Mrs. Hagen in a whispery voice on the other side of the room.

When I overheard Luke’s name, my ears alerted. I held up a valentine. “Can you take this to Luke?”

“Sure,” Mr. Hooper said.

I wrote
Mama
on the prettiest one. “Do you know where my mother is?”

He hesitated. “I believe she’s in South Carolina.”

“With Adele!” I felt giddy and sighed deeply several times. It was perfect. If Adele and my mother were together, they would figure out how to get us back. My face flushed with excitement. “Can you send this to her?”

“I’ll try,” he said.

I had not seen my mother since before our first trip to South Carolina—more than two years earlier—but now she would know where I was and could come back for me.

“I knew she would come! I knew it!” I danced around the Hagens’ home, hugging my doll when I heard that I would be seeing my mother. The closer we got to the downtown office, the shorter my already-stubby nails became. By the time my mother walked into the room, the cuticle on my thumb was bleeding.

“How big you are!” my mother exclaimed. Tears streaked her makeup. She fussed about a mark on my chin. “Did you bump yourself?” Using her spit on her finger, she wiped my face and was relieved when the smudge came off.

I pressed myself to her. “I missed you so much!”

“Oh, me too, Sunshine.” She rumpled my curls and sniffled into my hair.
“They
kept me away from you for so long! I would have done
anything
to see you.”

I did not doubt that it was “them” against “us.”

“I’m getting all A’s and I can read, Mama!”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not calling anyone else ‘Mama,’ are you?”

I shook my head. “No, Mama,” I promised.

“That’s my Sunshine. You were always my good girl.” She stroked my hand. “Luke is Dusty’s boy, and you are
my
girl.” She drew me onto her lap. “Do you want to live with me in South Carolina?”

I gulped. “Today?”

“I wish.” She bit her lip. “They won’t let me have you until I—” Someone peered through the doorway. “First, I have to find us a nicer place to live, but I’m getting my act together. Anyway, we won’t have to worry about Dusty anymore.”

I was confused. “But you said that Luke belonged to him.”

Mr. Hooper took a chair and listened while my mother tried to explain that Luke was not going to be my brother any longer.

“Is he my brother now?”

“Yes, for a while longer.”

A blurry vision of the baby in the box tried to surface, yet I could not express my confusion. Seeing that I still did not understand, my mother took a deep breath and tried again. “He’s just going with his daddy.”

“Dusty’s his daddy?”

“Yes.”

“Who’s my daddy?”

“Oh, he went away.”

Tommy had gone away, and Luke had arrived not too long after. Maybe if Luke wasn’t around, I could be with my mother. “I can get another brother.”

When it was time for my mother to leave, we hugged so tightly, the worker had to pry me from her neck. “Be good,” she said with heaving sobs. “You’re my good girl. You’re my Sunshine. I’ll see you soon.”

I started to chase after her, but someone tugged me in the opposite direction. As we rounded the corner, I turned for a last view of my mother. She looked over, and her strangled voice called, “Good-bye, my Sunshine!”

I was still at the stage where I did not question anything she said. While I was already dubious about many of the foster parents and caseworkers, I do not remember being angry or resenting my mother. If she said she would return soon, then she would. I ignored her broken promises and pretended to be unaware of elapsed time when it came to her.

As the weather warmed, I could not wait to go swimming. I began with inflatable swimmies on my arms, which Mrs. Hagen deflated a little at a time. When I could swim the width of the pool without them, I was allowed to jump off the diving board. I loved to float on my back and try to find my mother’s face in the cotton-ball clouds.

The Hagens, who had been foster parents for more than twenty years, had decided to close their foster home. They prepared us by telling us that we would be moving at the end of the school year.

I was elated. “I’m going to my mother!”

“Not yet,” Mrs. Hagen explained. “But you are going to live with your brother.”

I was confused. I thought I was supposed to live with my mother and Luke would live with Dusty. I worried that my brother was somehow keeping me away from my mother. I tried to imagine the perfect foster mother for us both. She would have Adele’s melted-butter voice. She would prepare tea parties with a blue-flowered pot of hot tea, cinnamon toast cut into triangles, and cream-filled cookies on miniature plates. That would be an agreeable way to while away the time until our mother took us home. She would arrive in a red convertible, and we would drive with the top down all the way to South Carolina. When we got there, I would start second grade. Every day my mother would drive me to school, and in the afternoon she would be waiting to pick me up and give me huge hugs. Then we would go out for strawberry milk shakes and sing along to Joan Jett on the radio. My mother was coming to get me. So it did not matter where I lived for the next few weeks. Besides, how bad could it be?

My caseworkers changed more frequently than my placements. Miles Ferris was fairly new when he arrived at the Hagen house to take me to my next foster home. He had a gentle smile and puppy-dog eyes. Mrs. Hagen helped stuff my clothes, dolls, and sleeping bag into large plastic garbage bags. The hoopskirt of my favorite dress kept popping back up like a child who refuses to lie down.

Mrs. Hagen lifted it out. “Why don’t you leave this here?” she asked. “It’s too snug anyway.”

“But it’s mine!”

She relented. “Maybe they have younger girls who can fit in it.”

“Oh, they have plenty of friends for Ashley,” Mr. Ferris said in a slick tone that didn’t match his friendly face. “And her brother is so anxious to see her.” I would soon learn that behind his gentle appearance was a careless and uncaring man.

Mrs. Hagen handed the caseworker my bags. “Check and see if you left anything in your room or around the pool.”

I found one of my doll’s shoes under the bed. I would have been frantic if I had left it behind. Some of the older kids were getting ready to swim, and I wished I could join them. It was not even ten in the morning and the temperature was over ninety degrees. I hoped the new family also had a pool.

Mr. Ferris carried the bags to his trunk. “You got a lot of stuff for a little girl.”

“I have a bike, too!”

“I don’t have room for a bike,” he said.

“How will I get to school?” I asked.

“You’ll be riding the bus,” Mr. Ferris replied. “Okay, let’s get this show on the road.”

We drove out of the suburban neighborhood to a rural area outside Plant City where there were no traffic lights, just infrequent stop signs. As the road narrowed, the branches of immense oaks arched across it. Tendrils of Spanish moss draped on the trees like gossamer green ghosts. The pavement was dappled with shimmering light. I imagined I was entering a fairy-tale kingdom inhabited by tree spirits.

The car slowed in front of a rusty metal fence. A rickety gate drooped inward. Mr. Ferris turned down a rutted dirt road, made even bumpier by the roots that crisscrossed it like the veins on an old man’s hands. We pulled up to a trailer that was even more decrepit than my portable classroom at Seffner Elementary. There were no children in sight. Maybe we were stopping here for another reason. I leaned back and closed my eyes as I waited to arrive at a more suitable final destination—preferably, a castle with turrets. The car’s engine sputtered off.

“You sleeping?” I stirred at this. “Rise and shine and meet your new foster mom,” Mr. Ferris said.

A screen door squeaked. “Well, hello, Miles,” called a syrupy voice. “And who is this young lady?”

He opened the car door. “She’s had a nice nap, haven’t you, Ashley?”

I slid out of the car. “I guess,” I said, then quickly added, “sir.”

He nodded at the woman. “This is Ashley Rhodes. She is one of the best-behaved children we have, and one of the smartest. She gets straight A’s.”

The woman seemed doubtful. “Isn’t that nice?” she said between clenched teeth. “Most of my kids have to attend summer school, but I guess you’ll have the whole summer to play, Miss Smarty.” She looked me up and down. I sensed she was trying to calculate whether good grades made me low maintenance or more trouble. By now I knew that foster parents were paid for taking care of me and that they could trade troublesome kids with a single call to their worker.

Mr. Ferris started unloading my garbage bags. “Ashley, this is Marjorie Moss. She’ll introduce you around because I have to get downtown for a meeting.”

“Oh, don’t worry about us, Miles, we’ll be just fine. Won’t we, Ashley?”

“Yes, ma’am!” I smiled hard enough to make my dimples show.

“Isn’t she a breath of sunshine?” Mrs. Moss beamed at Miles. The minute she said “sunshine,” my stomach flipped and that morning’s breakfast rose in my throat. “And who can resist those red curls?” She reached over to muss them. I squirmed away, so she only got a quick feel.

The trailer’s front door burst open. “Sissy! Sissy!” I managed to get to the steps before Luke flew into my arms, almost knocking me to the ground.

“Luke!” called Mrs. Moss. “You were told to stay in your room.”

“It’s Sissy!” He leaped up and locked his legs around my waist.

“Young man, get back to your room right this minute!”

“I’ll take him, ma’am,” I offered.

Her spine relaxed. “Luke can have a time-out while we get you settled.”

I steered my brother up the stairs. “Show me your room, Luke.”

“Girls aren’t allowed in the boys’ room,” he replied.

“I won’t go inside,” I said because Mrs. Moss was following ten steps behind.

“I want to be with you!” he wailed.

“I’m going to be living here now, so we can play later. I need to unpack.”

“You staying for real?”

“Yes, for real. Promise.”

When we got to the boys’ bedroom door, his bottom lip began to quiver. He looked up at Mrs. Moss to see if he would get a reprieve.

“Luke!” She began to count: “One, two—” He bolted in the room so fast that I wondered what would happen if she got to three.

Mrs. Moss showed me the girls’ bedroom, which had two sets of bunk beds, a crib, and a cot. It smelled like diapers. I gagged. “What’s wrong?” Her voice was harsher than when the caseworker had been there.

“I’m hot,” I said, which was true, since there was no air-conditioning in the trailer.

“You can have something to drink later.” We went outside again. A girl about my age approached warily. “Mandy, come and meet Ashley.”

“You have a lot of stuff,” Mandy said, eyeing my garbage sacks.

“You’ll have to sort out the dirty and clean clothes,” the foster mother said.

“Everything is clean,” I said, “and my dressy dresses are on hangers.”

“Where are the dresses?”

I touched the bag where the hoopskirt begged for release. Mrs. Moss grabbed a padlock on a storage shed and inserted a key. She lifted it off the hasp and opened a creaking door. Inside, clothes hung on two poles, and underneath were boxes.

I reached for the sack with my best clothes. “Want me to help you hang them?”

“No need for fancy things here. I’ll put them away in another shed.” Mrs. Moss peered into the sack that contained my sleeping bag and dolls.

“I’ll take those to my room,” I said.

“We don’t keep personal possessions in the house,” Mrs. Moss said. She unlocked another shed and tossed the sack containing my dolls on top of a pile of unmarked boxes and then added the bag with the fancy dresses.

“What about my play clothes?”

She pointed to the first shed. “They’ll stay here. Every day two of the kids pick the clothes for everyone else.”

“How will they know which are mine?”

Mrs. Moss locked both sheds. I noticed she wore a flashy ring on each finger. “You’ll see how it works around here,” she said. I had nothing to take in the house.

When we opened the front door, I heard Luke whimpering. “If you keep that up, you’re not going to get lunch.” Mrs. Moss watched for my reaction. “Your brother was spoiled before he came here. And the language he uses! I hope you aren’t like that.”

“No, ma’am.” I picked a corner of the ceiling where a spider had spun a web as my focal point.

She smiled. “I heard you might be a good influence on him. That’s why I took you in; but if you start trouble, I’ll call Miles in a heartbeat.”

All I wanted to do was get back to the Hagens’ and go swimming with the other girls. My mother or somebody else had better come for me soon because I did not think this was a very nice place.

I felt as if Miles Ferris had stranded me on a remote island. Charles and Marjorie Moss lived on a little more than ten acres of land with three fenced areas. The only neighbors were family members living in other trailers. Their home was a double-wide with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. At one point there were as many as fourteen children in there, plus the parents, even though their legal capacity was for only seven. We were all outcasts with convoluted lineages. Luke and I had different last names and fathers, as did Heather and Gordon as well as Mandy and Toby. The baby sisters, Lucy and Clare, looked like twins, but they were a little more than a year apart. It was comforting to know that the other kids’ lives were as accidental and chaotic as ours were.

The Moss menagerie also included a mule, goats, cows, and various smaller animals. During the day we were restricted to the fenced areas like livestock, with the sexes separated. Inside, the girls’ room was as cramped as a submarine. Beds used up all the floor space. There was no place for any belongings except under the bed and one dresser where we kept our panties, which we could not wear to sleep. Mandy and I shared one bunk bed while Heather was on the top of the other. Clare had the crib, and her younger sister, Lucy, slept in the master bedroom.

When I tried to fall asleep that first night, I ached for something familiar to hug. I had not slept without my dolls in years. Even the Paces had given me a stuffed bunny. My thin pillow was lumpy and had an ammonia scent that burned my nose. A lattice crisscrossed the window and made me feel as if I were imprisoned. No light from the moon, stars, or cars along the distant road pierced the inky blackness. I recalled one very dark night the year before when Mrs. Potts had warned me not to sit on the porch by saying, “If there are no stars out, something bad is about to happen.”

“Did you know that when there are no stars, bad things happen?” I whispered.

“That’s stupid,” Heather retorted.

“Shut up!” Mandy warned.

“Oh, fuck you,” Heather, the only teen in the house, said.

We heard footsteps. I was facing the wall, so when the door opened, I saw only a sword-shaped sliver of light.

Mrs. Moss stepped into the room. “Who’s talking?”

“The new girl is scared of the dark,” Mandy replied in a tremulous voice.

“If I hear another word, ya’ll have something to be scared about.”

In the morning Clare’s crying awakened me. “It’s your turn for the shitty diapers,” Heather called to Mandy.

Mandy made a gagging sound. “They make me sick.”

“Let’s get the new girl to do it,” Heather chortled.

Heather showed me how to swab Clare’s bottom with baby wipes and how to tape a diaper. Mandy carried the baby into the kitchen, lifted her into a high chair, and put some dry cereal on the tray. Heather made toast in batches and handed me one of the first pieces, which I gobbled dry. Then I reached for a second slice.

“You can’t eat in the house.” Mandy shooed me outside.

“When’s breakfast?” I asked.

“You ate it,” Heather answered.

“Can I have some milk?”

“Only the babies get milk.”

“I’m thirsty,” I whined.

She pointed to the garden hose. “That’s what we use.”

An hour later I went back to the house. I could hear the television through the locked door. I knocked. Mrs. Moss glared down at me. “This is outside time.”

Mrs. Moss expected us to remain outdoors for most of the day. Tall oaks shaded much of the Mosses’ property, but when the temperature and humidity were both high, we were miserable. Although the house was not much cooler, there were at least fans in there, and Mrs. Moss parked the babies in front of the TV during the hottest part of the afternoon.

Many of the older children were in summer school until around noon, making the mornings especially boring. For some unexplained reason, the girls and the boys could not share the same play area. The boys’ side had a wooden swing set, but the girls’ side had only a table and chairs. We could play with some old dolls and broken toys, although we mostly made up our own games and caught dragonflies. If I grabbed one’s wings, I could get its jaws to clamp on my fingers. With a deft maneuver, I then transferred the dragonfly to my earlobe and wore it like an earring.

By lunchtime I was always starving. Peanut butter sandwiches—sometimes with, sometimes without jelly—were typical; cheese sandwiches were a treat. Mrs. Moss reserved Kool-Aid for caseworkers’ visits. I could always tell when someone was having a visitor because the smell of vanilla or chocolate meant Mrs. Moss was baking. Unless it was your worker’s day, you were unlikely to taste the special treat. She distributed the extra goodies to the other family members who lived around the property. We were often hungry.