Page 27

“I was so fucking unprepared,” I admitted, glancing down at Lil’ Bit, but seeing a different baby this time. One that was completely reliant on a much younger me who felt like he was doing everything right, but the baby never stopped screaming.

“Luckily, the one thing my parents did have to do was show their faces at doctor visits. Especially with a newborn who needed vaccines and shit. I went with my mom and told the doctor about all the crying and other issues. Found out the baby needed to be on soy formula.”

“I’m not paying for that fancy shit,” my mother had said in the car when I’d asked her to stop at the store to pick some up.

“I’m having such a hard time imagining someone being so cruel to a baby,” Zoe said.

“To this day, she’s the most selfish person I’ve ever met.”

“What’d you do?”

I’d sold my stereo—the one nice thing I had, purchased with cash my maternal grandmother had sent for my birthday before she died.

“The difference was night and day with the right formula.”

“But formula is expensive.”

“Sure is. And I got good as hell at stealing it.”

“That’s… so much for a kid to have to go through.”

“Baby, I’m just getting started,” I admitted.

“What the hell else could they have piled on?”

“Babysitting. Apparently, I was so good with the kids that my parents thought they could open an unlicensed, under-the-table, child care situation.”

That whole summer, I had my five foster kids—including a toddler and an infant—and a revolving door of different kids from infant to ten, dropped off by parents who had no child care to get them through the summer break.

“There was no one you could talk to?”

“I wouldn’t have had the fucking time even if I did know how fucked up the situation was. And for a long time, I didn’t.”

I got good at being a single parent, though. At making a penny stretch because, despite more money coming in by the day, the grocery budget didn’t increase.

On occasion, a child care parent would see me playing with the kids when they showed up to retrieve their kid, assume I was just being a good kid, and tip me.

That money went right into groceries.

I learned quickly to keep kids fed on a lot of basics: rice, pasta, potatoes, eggs, and beans.

“I’m amazed that you managed to make little kids eat beans and rice.”

“There was a lot of cheese, ketchup, or ranch dressing involved,” I admitted.

“Well, whatever works to keep bellies full.”

“That was my thinking too.”

“How long were these kids with you?”

“The first set, the three of them, that was over a year. The second set was about eight months. But they were quickly replaced. By a larger sibling group. A set of four-year-old twin boys and two girls: ten and twelve. This is where the tallies come into play.”

“The tallies for the… bodies?”

“Yeah.”

“You killed people as a teenager?”

“No, I learned about people worth killing. Those two girls, they came with a speech to my parents about trauma. And weekly shrink visits. Their mother’s boyfriend had been… doing some shit grown-ass men have no business doing to little girls.”

“Oh, those poor girls.”

“Yeah. They were terrified of my father. When they were with us, it was lucky that he was rarely around. He was fucking around on my mom at the time. But she was too sloshed to notice those days.”

“Geez. Coast. This is all too much. What happened to the girls?”

“They were moved to another foster home with their brothers. We got another group.”

“How many arrows are we up to now?”

“The arrows are just for the babies. There were dozens of other kids that came and went. Older kids. Teens. Most of them were pros at foster homes, so they mostly took care of themselves. But I did hang with them. I did hear their stories. I did write down names to look into when I was older.”

“Why? I mean, I get that what these people did was awful, but why did you feel like you had to be the one to do something?”

“Because who the fuck else was going to? That boyfriend who’d been touching the girls? He was a cop. And the other cops didn’t want to believe their comrade could be capable of that. It went nowhere.

“Other parents nearly starved their kids to death, but got to get custody back.

“There were addicts who were so busy getting high that they didn’t know their baby had diaper rash that made their skin peel.

“There was one case where there was a newborn and a two-year-old in the house. While the baby was in the NICU, they took off on a bender, leaving the toddler in the house to dehydrate to death.”

“Oh, my God,” Zoe whimpered, pressing a hand to her chest.

“Yeah. They went to prison. We got the newborn when it left the NICU. But both parents got out when the baby was twelve.”

“What? Shouldn’t they have been doing life?”

“The lawyer got the sentence down from aggravated homicide to negligent. Lighter sentence. My sentence wasn’t quite so lenient when I finally tracked them down and found them up to their old tricks.”

“So, all the tallies, they’re for people who abused kids that you took care of?”

“Not all of them, no. Most of them, though.”

“Honestly, I get that. I ran over that man last night. Sort of. I think. I would have done worse. I was practically feral with the desire to protect my daughter. And, in a way, those foster kids, those were your kids. Even if just for a little while.”

I never really thought of it that way.

In the thick of it, yeah, I mean, I was doing all the care tasks: feeding, changing, playing, treating sickness, bathing, putting everyone to bed, doing the cleaning and the laundry.

Then, almost as soon as one child or group went to new foster homes or back to their families, another child or group appeared.

There was no downtime to really think about the whole situation.

Looking back, though, yeah, she was right.

Those were my kids. I didn’t just do the tasks because I had to—though I did—but because I cared.

You couldn’t take care of someone day in and day out and not become attached.

I slept on the floor near their beds or cribs when they were sick.

I stressed when they were struggling with school.

I worried about their happiness and my capabilities.

And, yeah, it felt like a little piece got chiseled off my heart each time one of those kids left.

“How did it eventually end?”

“It went on for years. I dropped out at seventeen. Took jobs here or there when I could because the kids needed shit that their checks weren’t paying for.

“Getting out more, exposed me to the shit I was missing, to how fucked up the situation was. Around that time, my dad’s affairs were getting outta control. And my ma was getting more and more outta control. I thought she was just boozing more than ever. Until I found a meth pipe in her drawer.”

“Each time I think it can’t possibly get worse,” Zoe interrupted.

“This is the home stretch. At the time, the house had seven foster kids. Which was fucking insane. The limit for kids in the house—including biological kids—was eight. So we were maxed out. And at the time, the oldest was eight. There was a set of twin three-month-olds, toddlers. It was too much. I’d had enough.

“So I did the only thing I could to finally end it. I contacted DCF with an anonymous tip about my mother’s drug use. And empty cabinets. Then I spent the next few days making sure there was nothing left in any of the cabinets. Got rid of all the evidence of food after each meal.

“Sure enough, the knock came one day. Random check. The lady had been pissed about the cabinets for sure. But then she went upstairs with me following behind, holding both babies, to find my mom so fucking high that there was no denying she was on something.

“The kids were immediately removed.”

I remembered the guilt of that night, the way one of the toddlers clutched my pant leg, the way another’s lower lip had wobbled. How the babies immediately went fussy in the arms of DCF workers.

“You did what you thought was best for them,” Zoe said, giving my leg a squeeze again.

“Did I?” I asked, glancing over at her. “Or did I just do what was best for me?”

“Hey, the choice had never been yours. You didn’t agree to do that work. Those children went to places that did make that choice and agree to that work. People who would put the money toward the kids. Who had the means to take care of the kids.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

But I was still struggling with that choice.

I hadn’t let myself think about it much since that day. Anytime the memories popped up, I tamped them down with partying, with fucking, with fighting, with any kind of crazy activity I could find.

It wasn’t until Zoe—and, particularly, Lil’ Bit—that it all came back to the surface. Especially when Zoe had been sick and I’d been the one fully taking care of Lainey.

The coos and hoots brought back fifteen other babies and the time I spent rocking them, feeding them, giving them tummy time so their neck muscles developed, getting to share their first smiles and their belly laughs.

Only now—older, not so riddled with responsibility and the bitterness that came with that—I felt a tug. A regret. A sadness at all that loss.

“Have you ever found any of the kids?” Zoe asked.

“What?”

“I mean, I guess maybe the babies wouldn’t remember you. But the older kids. Have you ever tried to see what they’re up to?”

The thought had never crossed my mind.

“No.”

“Do you not remember their names?”

“I remember everything about them.”

Full names, the years they were born, allergies, likes, dislikes, traumas, physical difficulties, their fears, who was plagued with nightmares, which songs they danced and sang, the silly little things some said they wanted to be when they grew up.

“Maybe you should see if you can find some of them. Even just on social media. Maybe that would help with the guilt you feel about the whole thing: to see that they’re doing well.”

“And if they aren’t?”

“That’s still not on you. There were other families after you, their own families, even. They might remember you and want to be in touch. But they wouldn’t remember names like you do.”

“Think they deserved to keep all that shit in their past,” I said, not wanting to upset these adults and teens who just wanted to focus on the present and future, not hard times in their past.”

“Okay,” Zoe agreed, reaching across me to place her hand on her daughter’s back. “Thank you for telling me all that.”

My head turned, resting on the side of hers.

“Can I ask one more thing?”

“Sure.”

“What happened to your parents?”

“My old man shacked up with one of his mistresses. Never came back to my mother, who spent a few years in my grandfather’s house, but eventually she lost it when she didn’t pay the taxes.”

“Oh, that’s a shame.”

This part, this I never told anyone.

But, somehow, I wanted to tell Zoe.

“I bought it.”

“What?”

“The house. I saw it go up for auction and I bought it. About half a year after I joined the club.”

“You still own it?”

“Yeah. I’ve never stepped foot in it. Have kept it rented out. But it’s mine.”

“Did your mother know it was you?”

“Doubt it. She was so fucked up at the time. Still is, from what I can gather.”

“You’ve never wanted to go back?”

“Never really even thought about it.” I just knew I wanted it, that it was a part of my past that I needed to, I dunno, have control over now that I was an adult.

“Well, you always have the option, which is nice,” Zoe said.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“I knew you had to have some kind of history with babies. You’ve been so good with Lainey.”

“She’s an easy baby.”

“She adores you.”

“The feeling is mutual,” I admitted.

And whether or not I was ready to admit it, I fucking felt the same way about Zoe.