“He required one thing before anyone else could permanently take the seat.”
“Then where’s the trap?”
“What?”
“That you see the program.”
I laughed without humor.
“So he thought he’d put sad foster kids in front of me and guilt me into staying?”
David didn’t answer.
Then Caroline appeared in the doorway.
“Then leave.”
I turned.
She looked exhausted.
“So he thought he’d put sad foster kids in front of me and guilt me into staying?”
“Walk out. Go home. Hate him forever if you need to.”
Her eyes sharpened.
“But don’t spend your whole life knowing nothing about what was behind this house.”
She walked away.
I hated that it worked.
Caroline led me through a side gate toward a building I’d assumed was staff housing.
“But don’t spend your whole life knowing nothing about what was behind this house.”
Inside, a teenager was arguing about a phone charger.
Someone had burned toast.
Two young adults were doing homework at a scarred kitchen table.
Then I saw a girl trying to glue the sole of her sneaker.
My body stopped before my mind did.
“What is this place?”
My body stopped before my mind did.
Caroline looked at me.
“Where I met Thomas.”
I turned slowly.
“What?”
“I’m not his biological daughter.”
I looked back toward the room we’d just walked through.
“I entered foster care when I was nine,” she admitted. “Thomas fostered me at 14. Later, he became my guardian.”
“I’m not his biological daughter.”
My hands curled.
“He left me in foster care.”
“I know.”
“And then he started taking foster kids into his house?”
“Yes.”
I laughed once.
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Ugly.
“So that’s it? He practiced being a father to somebody else’s children?”
“No.”
“Then explain it.”
Caroline’s eyes filled.
“He failed you first.”
“So that’s it? He practiced being a father to somebody else’s children?”
I stared at her.
“He started funding programs years later. Then volunteering. Then fostering.”
“He saved you,” I whispered.
She nodded.
“Why didn’t he save me?”
Caroline looked like I’d struck her.
Finally she said, “Because failing you was what finally taught him how not to fail someone else.”
“Why didn’t he save me?”
I was furious.
But I understood.
Thomas had not become better in time for me.
That was the tragedy.
Not the excuse.
Behind us, the girl at the table cursed.
Her shoe had come apart again.
I looked at the tube of glue in her hand and walked over.
“You’re using too much.”
Thomas had not become better in time for me.
She looked up.
“What?”
I sat beside her.
“You have to clean it first.”
She slid the shoe toward me reluctantly.
I scraped away the old adhesive.
“Otherwise it won’t hold.”
For 10 minutes, nobody mentioned Thomas.
Nobody mentioned money.
I just showed a girl how to fix a shoe.
For 10 minutes, nobody mentioned Thomas.
And somewhere in the middle of it, I realized the trap had finally closed.
Later, I found Caroline alone.
“Why did you call yourself his real daughter?” I asked.
She looked ashamed.
“I was jealous.”
“Of me?”
“He talked about you constantly near the end.”
I waited.
“Why did you call yourself his real daughter?”
“Sometimes I wondered if loving me started because he was trying to become the father he should’ve been to you.”
I laughed bitterly.
I wanted to say she had nothing to complain about.
She’d had the father I’d spent my childhood waiting for.
But looking at her, I knew that wasn’t the whole truth.
“Sometimes I wondered if loving me started because he was trying to become the father he should’ve been to you.”
“I knew he loved me,” Caroline went on. “But sometimes I felt like I was not enough.”
I sat beside her.
For the first time, neither of us had anything to defend.
Before leaving, I went back to Thomas’s room.
The empty bed looked enormous.
“But sometimes I felt like I was not enough.”
For most of my life, I’d wondered what was wrong with the six-year-old girl nobody came for.
I finally said it aloud.
“There wasn’t anything wrong with me.”
Caroline stood quietly behind me.
Thomas had been afraid.
He had failed.
Those were facts about him.
Not me.
“There wasn’t anything wrong with me.”
I dragged my suitcase toward the open doorway.
For most of my childhood, a packed bag meant somebody else had decided where I was going next.
This time, the choice was mine.
I set the suitcase down.
“What time’s breakfast?” I asked Caroline.
“Eight.”
For most of my childhood, a packed bag meant somebody else had decided where I was going next.
I offered a small smile. “Scrambled eggs, coffee, maybe a slice of toast. I’m easy.”
Caroline laughed through tears.
Forgiving Thomas wasn’t on the table.
Taking his money was out of the question.
Forgiving Thomas wasn’t on the table.
The board was still waiting on an answer.
All that had changed was my choice not to leave.
And for once, the bag could wait for me.
Nobody had decided where I belonged this time.
I had.
Nobody had decided where I belonged this time.
