Three Little Words (3 page)

DeSoto, the neighborhood primary school, had a pre-K program, so they enrolled me. I was so overjoyed to leave the house with the older kids that I raced to beat the others to the school on the edge of the bay.

My teacher called Mrs. Ortiz and asked her to come in because she had concerns about my adjustment. She said, “Ashley is a good student, but she does five times as many papers as the others.”

“What’s the problem?” Mrs. Ortiz threw up her hands and shrugged. “Give her more papers.”

While I liked school, I thought church was boring. They liked to dress Trina and me in matching frilly dresses and hats—hers were usually white and mine were pink. As Mrs. Ortiz dropped us off at Sunday school, she would say, “Ashley, if you don’t mind the teacher, you can’t watch
Alice in Wonderland
or any of your other movies later.”

Mrs. Ortiz often fostered infants, so she spent many hours bottle-feeding them. This was a good time to snuggle against her; and as long as the baby was sucking, she did not mind. When I was comfy, I would ask, “When can I see my mama?”

Mrs. Ortiz dodged the question as best she could because she probably knew that a few weeks after I came to live with her, my mother had been charged with possession of cocaine and drug paraphernalia as well as offering to commit prostitution.

When Mr. Ortiz took me to a family visit, I asked, “Will Mama be there?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “You’ll see your daddy and your brother. Won’t that be nice?”

“Are you sure my mother isn’t coming?” My birthday had been the previous week and I had been certain she would come with my gifts.

“Well, you never know,” he said to appease me.

Luke arrived with Mr. Hines, who called me “Pumpkin” and ruffled my hair. “His father is coming from South Carolina … out on bail …” were words I caught, but they did not mean much to me. When nobody else appeared, our worker took us back to our respective foster homes.

There was at least one time while I lived with the Ortizes that my mother did show up. The moment I saw her, I felt my heart would leap out of my chest. She wrapped her arms around me and told me everything would be all right—and I believed every word. Luke had not made it to this visit, so I asked, “Is Luke at your house now?”

“No, not yet,” she replied.

“Oh.” I thought about my other brother. “What about Tommy?”

My mother startled. “Who?”

“The one in the box.”

“You can’t ever tell anyone about him.”

“Why?”

“Because—” She checked to make sure we were alone. “He’s our secret. If anyone knew, they might not let you come to live with me again.”

“Why?”

“They might put me in jail.”

“Why?”

“Honey, you are too young to understand, but someday I’ll tell you all about it.” She gave me her sweetest smile. “Now, what shall I bring you on my next visit?”

All too soon, we separated, both of us in tears.

When I returned to the foster home, I started spinning to make myself dizzy. “My, aren’t you all wound up!” Mrs. Ortiz remarked. “Did you have a good visit with your mother?”

I stopped twirling and said, “My mommy told me that I have to keep our secret or she’ll go to jail and I’ll never see her again.”

“Oh, really?” Mrs. Ortiz arched her bushy eyebrows.

A baby cried and she went to tend to her. When she was giving her a bottle, I cuddled against Mrs. Ortiz and laid my head on her bosom. “Do you want to know my secret?” I asked.

“Only if you want to tell me.”

“My mommy put my baby brother in a box, and if I tell anyone, she’ll get in trouble and go to jail and I’ll never see her again.”

Mrs. Ortiz dropped the baby’s bottle. “Your little brother is in another foster home and he’s fine.”

“No, another baby,” I tried to explain.

She handed her husband the bottle to wash off the nipple. He brought it back and said, “I’ll call the worker and arrange a sibling visit,” he said.

“And check whether they know about another one,” Mrs. Ortiz added.

That summer I splashed in the pool and waited for more family visits—but none came. I was happier when I returned to the pre-K classroom with the fenced play yard and tubular slide.

Mrs. Ortiz asked, “Do you remember your grandpa in South Carolina?”

“Yep,” I said, even though I mostly remembered Aunt Leanne and Dusty.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if you and your brother could visit him?”

“Yep,” I agreed, and went back to coloring my school papers.

A few days later Luke and I met at the Department of Children and Families, supposedly to see our mother and Dusty, but Dusty arrived alone. He whirled Luke in the air, and then he got down on the floor and played with us both.

Our caseworker, Dennis Benson, asked, “How do you feel about them going to their grandfather’s?” he asked.

“You know my mother has put in for them too,” he said.

“She also withdrew the papers once before,” the worker replied, “and she is only related to your son.”

“If they’re with my wife’s father, my family can still visit them, can’t they?”

“I don’t see why not,” Mr. Benson said. “They live close by, right?”

“Yeah, but there’s been some bad blood, if you know what I mean.”

“We can arrange regular visitations for you and them at the county offices,” the worker replied. He checked his watch. “Is their mother coming?”

“Don’t you know?” Dusty asked with a lopsided grin. He pantomimed a key turning in a lock, which meant she was back in jail.

A few days later Mrs. Ortiz gave me a bath and dressed me in clean school clothes instead of pajamas. “Aren’t I going to bed?” I asked.

“Yes, but you’re getting up very early to go visit your grandfather.”

Before dawn Mrs. Ortiz awakened me from a deep sleep, hugged me against her pillow-soft chest that had a lavender scent, and whispered, “Don’t forget us!” Dennis Benson carried me to the car and placed a plastic bag with all my belongings beside me. Luke was in a car seat sound asleep. The next thing I remember is a uniformed woman lifting me into an airline seat and cinching a belt over my lap. Someone handed me a little white pillow. As the plane whooshed up and away, I fell asleep trying to memorize Mrs. Ortiz’s face because I had already forgotten my first foster parents, and I feared I would not remember my grandfather, my aunt Leanne, or worse, my mother.

Daylight and strangers greeted us when I stumbled sleepily into the South Carolina airport terminal. A woman lifted Luke and a man took me by the hand, but I pulled it away. “Don’t you recognize your grandpa?” the woman asked. I shook my head. “I guess it’s been too long a time.” She bent close and explained that she was Adele and the man was my mama’s daddy.

Mr. Benson passed over some papers and our plastic bags. Grandpa did not say much, but Adele cooed over Luke, who clung to her neck.

As we drove off, I started with my questions. “Where are we going?”

“To our house,” Adele responded.

“Is Luke going to stay with us?”

“Of course, darlin’.” Adele laughed.

“When do I go to school?”

“Not till you’re five.”

“I’ll be five soon.”

“I know that, hon, and next year you’ll ride the big yellow bus.”

“Wheels on the bus go round and round!” Luke clapped.

I cupped my hand over my brother’s mouth. “Will I have a birthday cake?”

“Sure, hon. Do you prefer chocolate or vanilla?”

“Vanilla!” Luke chimed in.

“No, chocolate.” I shoved him to be quiet. “Where’s Mrs. Ortiz?”

“Who?” Grandpa asked as we turned down their dirt lane.

“That foreign lady who had her,” Adele said in a disapproving voice.

While Adele fixed lunch, Grandpa took us to see the cow named Moe, the chickens, the goat, and the pigs.

There was almost no conversation while the four of us ate grilled cheese sandwiches, pickles, and potato chips. I was wistful for the commotion in the Ortizes’ home. “It’s too quiet here,” I announced.

“Peace and quiet are priceless,” Grandpa said.

I would soon learn that when he wanted peace and quiet, he had to have it; but when he wanted to raise a ruckus, it was best to stay out of his way. I sometimes held as still as a statue and pretended I couldn’t hear or see when my grandpa squabbled with Adele and called her mean names.

Luke and I shared a bedroom. Sometimes he would climb into my bed when he was scared. If he wet my bed, he would sneak back into his dry one.

“I never wet the bed!” I protested.

Adele grumbled. “Liars get soap in their mouths,” she said, and even made me lick a bar a few times. Still, I refused to take the blame for Luke’s mess.

Adele was a registered nurse and also had an associate degree in commercial art. She had decorated the mobile home with her paintings. She taught me how to color inside the lines and the proper ways to shade an object. While we were working on a project, Luke would follow Grandpa around like a baby duckling behind its mother.

Our life fell into a routine that—for once—usually centered on us. There were warm chocolate chip cookies and my favorite video,
Fantasia.
Grandpa built a two-story playhouse in the backyard, where I played house and Luke took the roles I bossily assigned to him. In the evenings we would watch whatever television show Grandpa wanted to see while Adele crocheted or sewed. Even though we arrived the last week in October, Adele made Halloween costumes for us. I was an angel with stiffened wings strapped on my back with a gold harness. She filled my closet with handmade dresses with puffed sleeves and made dolls’ outfits from the scraps. I had a basin where I would scrub my dolls’ clothes and hang them with tiny clothespins on the wash line Adele strung at my height next to the playhouse.

Adele tucked us in with prayers and kisses. Soon Luke was calling Adele “Mama” and my grandpa “Papa,” but I kept my promise to my mother and called them “Grandpa” and “Adele.” After a few weeks I let my guard down. I stopped worrying about someone coming to take me somewhere else.

The state authorities had only approved the transfer “with reservations” because Grandpa had never provided a stable home for his own children. He had had a tumultuous childhood and quit school in the seventh grade. By the time I was returned to South Carolina, their oldest son, Perry, age twenty-four, was in prison for murder. The twins, Leanne and Lorraine, were twenty-two; and their youngest, Sammie, had just turned eighteen and was still in foster care. My grandpa had been in and out of jail for crimes he committed while intoxi-cated, and my grandmother had divorced him because he abused her. Perhaps the authorities believed that Adele, who was twelve years older than my grandfather and had been his live-in companion for two years by that time, would make sure that nothing happened to us. She had three grown children, four grandchildren, and a clean record.

Two weeks after we arrived, Ava Willis, a local caseworker, came to check on us. Adele showed her my drawings and some of my make-believe schoolwork. “This child is itching to go to school.”

“You know I had concerns about this placement,” Ms. Willis replied, “but I always say that it’s best for children to be with their family, so I am delighted at how well everything is going.”

“Who wants to go for a ride?” Grandpa asked while Adele was napping. We rarely rode in his beat-up car because it did not have doors or seat belts. He joked that it had “all-natural air-conditioning.” The junker was so rusty that I could see through the floor.

We stopped at the country store, and Grandpa told us to wait in the car while he shopped. When he came out of the store, he was yelling at a man. He got in the car muttering obscenities, floored the gas, and the car lurched forward. I clutched the seat as we whizzed past our dirt road. The tires screeched as Grandpa did a 180-degree turn. Coming directly toward us in another car was the man from the store. “Let’s see who’s boss!” Grandpa shouted. He hit the accelerator even harder. The gap was closing between the oncoming car and us. Terrified, I looked away. The pavement rushed by like a river. When I glanced to the side, ribbons of flickering green flashed by the nonexistent door.

“Fassa!” Luke laughed with manic delight.

“Stop, stop!” I yelled.

The other guy swerved around us at the last second, but not before he clipped our rear fender. I smashed my face into the back of the front seat. By the time we got home, my lip was swelling. Dust blanketed our clothes. “What in the world?” Adele asked.

Grandpa gave Adele a don’t-you-start-with-me look, marched into the kitchen, grabbed a can of beer from the refrigerator, planted himself in his favorite chair in front of the television, and lit a cigarette. Blue smoke curled into the air like an exclamation point. Adele herded us into the bathroom and shut the door with an incensed slam.

Two weeks later, Ava Willis was back and she was furious. Grandpa had taken Luke to town and had been arrested for drunk driving.

When Ms. Willis confronted him, he was belligerent. “I only drank apple cider. Those deputies were out to get me.”

“You know I was worried about your stability,” she chided him, “but I hoped that Adele’s strengths would compensate for your shortcomings.”

“I haven’t had a single drink in three years!”

“The police tested you, sir.”

“Sometimes I have a taste, just to be social.”

“It’s my fault,” Adele said as she wept. “I should have been more protective. I won’t let them go with him ever again.”

“I have to report this to Florida,” she told Adele and Grandpa.

“Are you going to send them back?” Adele moaned.

“The authorities in Florida are still in charge of the case,” the caseworker said. “Personally, I don’t think the children are at risk based on this single incident, but my supervisor is probably not going to want to accept further responsibility.”

All the commotion caused Adele to cancel my fifth birthday party. She still gave me two dolls: Lilly, a Cabbage Patch doll; and a life-size baby doll I named Katie. I wrote my initials—A. M. R.—on her bottom with permanent black marker.

“Christmas is my favorite time of year!” Adele said. She decorated the whole trailer before Thanksgiving. We went to the mall and sat on Santa’s lap, and I wore my angel costume again in a holiday pageant at church.

There were many phone calls about our placement, and Adele pleaded with the authorities not to move us before the holidays. “We’ll do anything you say,” she promised Ms. Willis, who had stalled our return after Adele and Grandpa had agreed to undergo psychological examinations.

On Christmas morning I received a pink bicycle with training wheels and Luke got a red tricycle. Grandpa gave me a battery-powered Barbie car that I could drive down our long road, and Adele made me a red dress with a white pinafore that had strawberry appliquÉs and matching outfits for my dolls. After we opened our presents at home, we visited Adele’s relatives and played with her three grandchildren, who were close to my age.

A few weeks later Adele woke me up early. “We’re going to drive up in the mountains so you can see snow.”

I slept in the car until Adele nudged me awake. Huge flakes whirled around and the ground looked as if it were coated with shiny pearls. When the car stopped, I ran outside, opened my mouth, and curled my tongue to catch snowflakes. I thought that they would taste like vanilla. Instead, they had a rusty-nail flavor. I wanted to make a snowman, but the thin layer was melting into mud.

After our trip to the mountains, I asked when it was going to snow at our house so I could build a snowman. “It’s very rare around here,” Adele said, and made me a cup of cocoa with a marshmallow bobbing in the middle.

“But could it happen?”

“Only the weatherman knows.”

From then on, I listened to weather reports for any mention of snow. When I finally heard the word, I kept checking for the predicted snow, but it never came. “That weatherman is a liar!” I said.

“It’s snowing in Colorado,” Adele said with a laugh.

“Take me there!” I demanded.

“Maybe someday,” she replied offhandedly.