But, as I’ve been forced to learn again and again as I’m passed from one set of strangers to another, nothing good is meant to last. The economy took a hit, Mollie had to close down her bakery, and it was determined that she was no longer fit to support me. So off I was packed, to a new family, a new set of introductions, and a new set of disappointments. Rinse and repeat.
With every good thing in my life, shadows seep into the edges and make it impossible to stay good for long.
As I turn off the main road and into Mark and Tonya’s neighborhood, I remind myself to stop ruminating. What has that ever gotten me, other than resentment? Feeling the reassuring pressure of Mollie’s necklace against my ankle, I speed up a little, motivated to at least minimize my time outside in the rapidly increasing downpour. Once I get home, I’ll have to finish my trigonometry homework, as well as work on the English paper that’s due this coming Monday.
It’s as I’m contemplating my schoolwork that I’m hit with an increasingly familiar new wave of anxiety. I turned eighteen last month, which means that not only am I in my last year of high school, but my days in the foster care system are numbered. One would think I would be happy to be finishing the endless cycle of lousy living situations, and I am, but I’m not blind to what this next transition will mean: I’ll be on my own, for better or worse. And given my luck so far, my money’s on worse. I’m going to have to decide what to do about university, about getting a job, finding a place to live… the training wheels are coming off, and I’m in no way prepared for it.
I guess that’s something every foster kid has to face, I reason, feeling the raindrops now pelting down on me. I lift my backpack and hold it above my head like a shield, aware that my papers are going to get wet but hardly caring at this point. But not every foster kid has had as hard of a go of it as I have. I know I’m just feeling sorry for myself, but it’s almost impossible not to.
The truth is that I’ve never really felt at home anywhere, with the exception of those two wonderful years with Mollie. No matter where I go or who I live with, I’ve never really felt a sense of belonging. I’ve made friends here and there, but by the time I’m ever really starting to find a niche in one place, it’s time to pick up and move somewhere else. It’s like my life has never really begun, leaving me with a lingering sense of emptiness and dissatisfaction everywhere I go.
By now, my blonde hair is beginning to dampen, and I pick up my pace, practically jogging now in a desperate attempt to stay dry. That’s enough chewing the cud, I tell myself. Just take things one day at a time. That’s all you can manage. By the time I reach Mark and Tonya’s old, single-story house, I’m thoroughly soaked and shivering. Like a lost kitten… or something. It takes me a minute to fumble my house key out of my dripping backpack, but eventually I get the front door open, pausing on the threshold like one wrong move will set off an explosion.
And for all I know, it will.
“Tonya, honey, is that you?” I can hear Mark’s voice coming from the kitchen. Good. If I’m lucky, I can get down to my basement room and change my clothes before he’s any the wiser.
“It’s me, Mark,” I call back, hoping my tone comes across as jovial and unbothered.
“Hmph,” he says, and then goes quiet. Judging from the sound of his voice, he’s been hitting the bottle for at least an hour already. Ever since losing his job at the factory on the other side of town, he’s been taking full advantage of the unemployment checks and letting Tonya put food on the table by herself.
Tonya, a mousy woman who probably won’t ever have the gumption to divorce her deadbeat husband, pulls odd hours at the diner down the street to support his drinking habit. Funny how they should take me away from someone like Mollie and then stay silent when I end up in a legitimately dysfunctional living situation. But what do I know, right?
I manage to slip out of the entryway and down the basement stairs, doing my best not to drip water on the grimy linoleum floor. The basement is half-finished, with a pull-out couch serving as a bed and my meager possessions all crammed into the closet by the back wall. It’s more or less a glorified storage area, but at least nobody comes down here to bother me. Down here, I can re-read my worn copies of Narnia, the Harry Potter series, and yes, even Twilight, in peace, daydreaming about being swept away into a life full of purpose and magic, where tragedy and boredom were always just the precursors to a grand new adventure.
The grimy mirror on the back of the door makes me pause, looking at my blonde wet hair falling around my shoulders, dripping rainwater onto my drenched clothes. My very dark blue eyes stare back at me, daunting me with how much they look like the very water that smothers my clothes. Not for the first time, I wonder what my parents looked like. Do I look like my mother or father? Or neither of them.
But the mirror doesn’t have answers for me. Of course it doesn’t. No one does.
I’m just pulling on a
