Etched in Sand (7 page)

5

Failure to Thrive

November 1980; 1971 to 1974

M
S
. D
AVIS AND
the driver have set the mood with a stiff silence from the front seat of the car. A quick glance from Camille puts me more at ease, but when I turn to look out the window again, the trees and houses grow fast out of focus as tears collect in my eyes and drop down my cheeks. Social workers usually have a sixth sense; almost the ability to
hear
tears fall . . . but when Ms. Davis keeps her eyes locked on the road in front of us, I know she realizes that we’re too old for the “This is all for the best” speech. At this point in our foster care career, we know it’s not.

We’re separated again, and it’s because of me.

Because I
told
.

Until now, we’ve only ever been put in foster care for slips—for committing tiny errors that gave away our situation. By now, Norm, Rosie, and I have learned that we’re stronger together than apart. We’ve sharpened our instincts and it’s kept us together for six solid years, from the time I was in third grade. When I use my sleeve to wipe my eyes and nose swiftly and in silence, Camille reaches across the seat and gently sets her hand on my shoulder. We both understand that our years as a family will probably end today.

As the driver makes a right off Middle Country Road,
Ms. Davis finally turns to face us. “You’ll be at this next placement for two weeks,” she says, “until we figure out another home for you both.”
For you both
. Does that mean Camille and I might get to stay together for good? Ms. Davis explains that this temporary foster family has had kids coming and going for more than twenty years, and they’ve decided not to foster children permanently anymore. But when they heard we were teenagers who lived in the same school district that they did, they agreed to take us until social services found us a new home. I prop my elbow against the car window, partly to block my ear from Ms. Davis’s next topic. Through half a muffle, I hear her say:

“This family didn’t want young children.”

Why would she say that? As if it’s not excruciating enough to think of Rosie and Norm on their own—most likely holding each other, sobbing inconsolably, their eyes focused in terror out the car windows, completely unsure of what kind of questions to even ask the social workers.

What did I just do?

Within ten stifling minutes, we pull into the driveway of a tidy, red ranch house sitting on a manicured corner property. Camille nudges me out of the backseat and we edge around to the trunk to unload our Hefty bags. We follow Ms. Davis to the porch, keeping our eyes to the ground all the while. When I look up to the stoop, I’m met by the gaze of a blue-eyed, blond-haired lady, very proper and petite. She appears to be near fifty. Her forced smile turns to a look of horror, then a gasp escapes from her mouth. I suppose this is the first time she’s ever met a walking white Ethiopian with cuts and bruises covering her face.

Ms. Davis gestures for Camille and me to stand next to her. “Girls, this is Addie Peterman. You’re welcome to call her Aunt Addie.” I stare at the clean cuff at the bottom of Addie’s pants, at her shockingly white Keds sneakers. It takes all my will to stop from blurting, “Why don’t we call you what you are to us: Mrs. Rent-a-Kid.” I always hate this Foster Mommy Dearest baloney.

Addie opens the front door, a wreath and a lace curtain hanging from its window. She leads us inside and I gawk around the living room. “Don’t touch anything,” Camille whispers. As far as foster homes go, this is one of the nicest we’ve seen.

Addie looks down at our feet and I understand this is polite-lady code for
Please take off your shoes.
My feet leave imprints across the fresh-vacuumed nap of her carpeting. Addie’s décor is a quintessential 1970s housewife motif of gingham fabrics and lace; scalloped edges and spindle legs; braided rugs and silk floral arrangements. She leads us down the hall, suggesting for Camille to set down her bag while she shows us into my room.

I rest my shins against the Hefty bag, taking it all in. Addie’s generosity with her space does not melt my numbness to her home, nor does her domestic perfection. What’s the point? I’ll only be here two weeks. A floral wallpaper covers the walls, which are lined with bookshelves and a single bed (that includes both a mattress and a box spring), a dresser and a closet. Next to the bed is a white vanity desk that makes me imagine sitting down with a stack of books and some homework, until my eyes scan up to the huge mirror that’s hanging over it:

On second thought, why don’t I avoid mirrors for now.

There’s also a window—complete with a lock and actual shutters, the wooden accordion kind, for privacy. When Addie leads us into Camille’s room, we find her space is just as
Cottage Country
–esque as mine, only a little bigger. I raise my eyebrows at my sister.
Nice, but let’s not get too comfortable.

After Ms. Davis tells us she’s posted her number on the pad hanging next to the yellow wall phone in the kitchen, Addie instructs us to make ourselves at home while she prepares dinner. I head back into my bedroom and plop my garbage bag on top of the flowered quilt before it dawns on me that my luggage will dirty the bedding. I take in the delicacy of the patchwork comforter, along with the matching pillowcase covering a cushy pillow.

If Addie thinks she’s being generous with all these drawers and the closet space, I’d like to inform her how ridiculous it feels to be finished unpacking in two small armloads. In the bottom of my bag I find my other three possessions: One is a picture of the five of us when Rosie was just a baby, in which we’re all sporting matching T-shirts from Lake Havasu, Arizona. Then there are my two Jesus statues. The first is a plastic Baby Jesus from a Nativity scene. The other is the translucent Lucite head of the adult Jesus on the cross. I hold both my Jesuses and tap my finger against them, pondering which surface is the most polished for their display. I turn when Addie walks in and nods toward my hand. “There’s a church two blocks away, if you’d like to go and observe,” she tells me.

“Observe what?”

“Your religion,” she says. “You’re Catholic, I take it?”

I glance down at my Jesuses. “Not sure. I don’t go to church.”

She eyes my figurines and looks back at me, confused. Now I get it. I jump in to clarify my position on God and religion for this clueless woman. “If there was a God, he wouldn’t let bad things happen to little kids.”

Again her face moves from softness to a look of horror. “Regina, God does not do bad things to little kids—bad people do!”

We look at each other in silence for a moment. I raise my eyebrows, waiting for her to dare say more, before she turns on her heels and huffs down the hall.

I’m strategizing the moment I can put Addie in her place when my stomach rumbles from the smells of melted cheese and toast grilled in butter. Camille comes to my room and says it’s time for dinner. “You think I can bring it in here?” I ask her.

“I already asked,” she says. “She wants us to eat in the kitchen.”

Addie’s husband, Pete, is seated with his back to the wall, facing the room while Addie buzzes around the kitchen, placing plates on the table. We join Addie, Pete, and their foster son, Danny, who’s clearly annoyed we’re here. It’s no accident that the seat I scoot into is the one that’s closest to the front door—anybody pushes my buttons, I’m outta here! As she sends the bowl of steamed broccoli around the table, Addie fills us in on the house rules. “Regina, your curfew is seven thirty every night,” she announces. That sounds fine—besides the library, where else would I go? Then she adds, “And we don’t approve of your having any boys in the house.”

“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.