by Lynn Galli
“That’s okay. You go ahead.” I should get used to not being with them as soon as possible.
She bent to look me in the eyes, her expression as sad as mine but very determined. “There’s nothing left for you to do to get ready. Put that behind you now and come enjoy the rest of the night with us.” She pulled on my arm and smiled.
I didn’t know how she knew so much about how a foster kid felt, but sometimes it was like she could read my mind. I bet she even knew that I’d take being put on punishment every day if only I could stay here.
13 / OLIVIA
ON SUNDAY MORNING, I was heading downstairs when I heard Caleb raise his voice from the living room. I halted on the steps as Briony was telling him to calm down. I was pretty sure they were talking about me.
“But why?” he said. “She shouldn’t have to leave. She lives here. She’s ours.”
“I know it feels like that, and we wish it were true,” Briony told him in her best mom voice.
“Can’t we adopt her? You had to do that with me. Why can’t we do that with her?”
That would be so great, but it wasn’t going to happen. The older girls in the group home said nobody gets adopted once they hit double digits. Parents want to adopt babies and toddlers so they get to shape how they turn out.
“Sweetie, you were different,” Briony told him what I already knew. Yeah, he was different. He was her son from the beginning. “Mommy gave birth to you, and the courts let me adopt you because she and I were married. Olivia’s aunt wants her. Wouldn’t you want to live with Aunt Sadie or Aunt Danica if something happened to me?”
He was quiet for a long time. I didn’t want to think about something happening to Briony and she wasn’t even my mom. “I guess, but it really blows. Why’d they let us have her if her family could take her?”
Yeah, why? Why’d my aunt decide now to take me? Why not last summer when the other family thought I was stupid and didn’t want me anymore?
“It’s complicated, honey.” That was every adult’s way of saying that things just suck sometimes.
“Caleb,” M spoke up. She didn’t usually go for the things-just-suck explanation. “Her aunt was really upset when her sister died. She probably felt too sad to try to raise her sister’s child when she was barely an adult herself. I know it hurts, but we can’t let our wishes keep Olivia from discovering her family. That wouldn’t be fair.”
He didn’t respond. I wouldn’t have known what to say either. I decided that I should make noise on the way downstairs so they’d stop talking about me. I didn’t want to spend the whole day sad when nothing could be done to change anything. Aunt Nell was coming for me and I just had to deal with it.
“Morning, Livy.” Briony pulled me into a hug. I was really going to miss these. I wrapped my arms around her back and just breathed in her scent. I wanted to remember how this felt forever.
“What do you feel like for breakfast?” M asked, reaching out to stroke my shoulder.
“Waffles,” Caleb whispered from beside me and pulled on my arm to get us moving toward the kitchen.
“Waffles,” I echoed.
Briony laughed and kissed our foreheads. “I’ll need helpers.”
Caleb and I headed into the kitchen to start pulling out ingredients and mixing bowls. Briony got the waffle maker as M set the table. I could tell they were going to make my last day with them the best it could be.
“What should we do today? Something with Eden and Hank, maybe?” Briony asked me.
I looked up, happy that I’d get the chance to see them both before I had to leave. I should have known they’d think of that for me.
“A picnic?” M suggested. “Soccer in the park? A game of kickball? Rollerblading? Whatever you want to do, sweetie.”
“All of it,” Caleb joked.
Yeah, all of it. I only wish we had the time.
14 / OLIVIA
SHINY NEW CELLPHONE IN hand, I climbed out of Aunt Nell’s car. We were in the parking lot of a townhouse complex. It had taken more than two hours to get here. Aunt Nell had babbled on about a lot of stuff, but I didn’t really pay attention. My throat still felt like I couldn’t swallow whatever was lodged in it. I hated saying goodbye to Briony, M, and Caleb this afternoon. They kept saying that I could call anytime. That they’d visit, but after that long drive, I didn’t think I’d ever see them again.
We were in Maryland now, a long way from Charlottesville. Too long for them to just pop over for a visit. At least Aunt Nell seemed friendly. She was different from what I remembered. After what M had said, I guess I didn’t realize that she was only twelve years older than me. She was a lot more serious now. And she looked like my mom. That was really hard. She hadn’t before, but now she kinda did.
“Home sweet home.” She gestured to the townhouse with the blue door.
She went around to the trunk and pulled out my stuffed duffle. I grabbed my equally stuffed backpack. Briony and M’s friends had given me an eReader as a going away present. It was super nice of them. Briony and M got me a gift card so I could download as many books as I could ever read and more. Willa and Quinn gave me the phone so I could stay in touch. Willa said she wanted to get texts from me. She already paid for the service contract so I had no choice but to take it. I should have given it back because it was too expensive. But I knew I’d be desperate to text and call Eden and Caleb whenever I could and call or text Briony and M and Willa for a long as they wanted to keep talking to me.
“Let’s go, Livy, I’m sure Ian is waiting for us.”
Ian. Aunt Nell’s fiancé. They lived together. He was a pastor and they were getting married next month. I was supposed to be in the wedding. She talked and talked and talked about the wedding plans. It took almost the entire trip here.
I followed her inside and wanted to turn around again. Stuffy, like no one ever opened the windows, and cramped compared to Briony and M’s house.
“I hope he likes you,” Aunt Nell said in a quiet voice.
I glanced up at her. She looked like she hadn’t meant to say that to me. Yeah, me too.
“Hello, my sugarplum,” a deep voice called out. A man appeared at the end of the hallway. He was tall. Not quite as tall as Jessie but pretty tall. He had a full beard and wore glasses. Some of his hair was already grey. I wondered how old he was. He must be a lot older than Aunt Nell if he was getting grey hair.
“Hi, baby.” Aunt Nell dropped my duffle and raced to him for a hug and kiss. It lasted really long and made me queasy. Briony and M would never make out like this in front of me or Caleb. I’m sure they made out. They just didn’t do it in front of people.
“I see you’ve finally got your niece.” He looked over her shoulder at me. “Olivia, I’m glad to have you in my home.”
His home? I thought they lived here together? “Thanks.” I said because I couldn’t think of what else to say.
“Isn’t it wonderful, Ian? Now we can finally be a family just like you said.” Aunt Nell seemed to get more serious as she talked to him. Not at all like the woman who used to come visit my mom and me.
“As it should be. No one should be raised in that way,” Ian told her. He came closer and held out his arms. I didn’t want to hug him, but it didn’t look like I had a choice. Thankfully it didn’t last long. He smelled like the storage locker filled with Caleb’s baseball equipment. His clothes were clean, just stale, like this house.
“Thank you for having me.” I said that to every foster family that took me in. I knew this was different, but it didn’t feel much different.
“Very polite. Good. At least they didn’t screw that up.”
“Ian,” Aunt Nell warned in a firm tone.
“What? You never know with those people.”
I wasn’t sure if he was talking about Briony and M or all foster parents. If he meant Briony and M, I didn’t like what he was saying. He didn’t know that theirs was the only house that never felt like a foster home to me.
“Let
’s let her get settled in.”
He bent to pick up my bag and led the way up the narrow staircase. He showed me the bathroom as we passed it. We’d be sharing it. That was going to be weird. Caleb and I had to share, but our bathroom had two sinks and the shower and toilet were in a separate area with a door between. I’d get up to take a shower first and could dry my hair and brush my teeth while Caleb took his shower in private. I’d just have to learn a new routine here. It was the same at every house.
He showed me to a bedroom at the end of the hall. There was a daybed lined against one wall and a big L-shaped desk took up the rest of the room. A desktop computer with one of those old monitors covered a quarter of the desk. I felt like I’d walked into a museum display of a room from before I was born.
“Ian bought you the bed, Livy. Wasn’t that nice of him? Before it was just his office.” Aunt Nell’s brow rose in expectation.
Before I could thank him, Ian interrupted, “I’ll still need to do some work in here, but I’ll knock before I come in.”
This wouldn’t be the first time I had to share a room, but it would be the first time I shared it with an adult. That was even worse than the bathroom arrangement. I swallowed the heavy lump again. This time it wasn’t sadness at leaving Briony and M. This time it was because everything changed the moment I walked through that door, and for the first time, I didn’t feel grateful that I wasn’t in the group home.
I nodded and let him take my bag to the closet. When he opened it I saw that it was packed to the gills. I wouldn’t be able to hang any of my clothes. I might not even be able to fit my duffle on the ground. I wish I could stop comparing things to how it was at Briony and M’s. I should be happy that my mom’s sister finally wanted me. Maybe we could talk about her more. Maybe we could remember the times we spent together. Maybe that would make this easier.
“We’ll let you get settled in. Dinner is in two hours,” Ian said and reached for Aunt Nell’s hand to pull her from the room with him.
I almost started crying when he closed the door behind them. I was pretty sure that meant that I couldn’t bother them until dinner two hours from now. Not that I felt like leaving the room, but it was different from being able to leave the room if I wanted.
Everything was different now. The sooner I accepted that, the easier this would be.
M / 15
Silence never seemed so loud. I used to welcome it, used to crave it. In this house, it meant something was off. I never thought I’d get used to voices or laughter or the noise of everyday happenings at home. Never wanted it. Now I missed it.
I set my cereal bowl in the dishwasher and glanced out at the empty living room. Briony was at a meeting with the dean. Caleb was at soccer day camp, dropped off by his mom. And Olivia was gone. Taken from us.
Pain squeezed my heart. I did this to myself. To my family. Brought in someone to love and laugh with, knowing full well that something like this could happen. It was a stupid move on my part. To think I could make up for my past, honor Kathryn with this one child. I thought I could care for her, give her a safe place to live, a loving home but know in my heart and mind that she wasn’t ours. Instead I grew to love her, and I’d forced it on my family, too. It was unforgivable.
Loading everyone’s dishes into the dishwasher, I shook off the melancholy. Nothing could be done to fix this situation. If I really wanted to do something, I’d tell child services that we were ready for another foster child, but I couldn’t. And I wouldn’t do that to Briony or Caleb. They were already upset enough, angry even. At me. They didn’t realize it, but they were angry with me for suggesting this. It didn’t matter that we were careful to choose a child who didn’t have parents, who had family that had refused to take her in. I thought we were safe from this very thing. I’d been wrong.
But it wouldn’t get any easier if I continued to dwell on it. Hopefully time would make this easier.
I left for campus at exactly the same time as yesterday. I still had my precisions that I couldn’t give up, no matter how much having a family sometimes impinged on that. Caleb wasn’t exactly precise, but a countdown clock helped the morning routine. He preferred an impersonal timer that looked like it came from one of his favorite action movies over his mom and me yelling out reminders of how late he was going to be. Olivia never had that problem. She was like me in that regard. Like me in a lot of regards.
I drove to campus trying not to think about how quiet the house had gotten in only a week. Caleb asked to spend every night at Hank’s, and Briony had been going to bed early. They were grieving and I tried not to take it personally, but I was the one to suggest we take in a foster child. Insisted almost.
As I stepped out of my car in the nearly empty parking lot, I wondered for the first time if I should have skipped this summer session. This was usually my favorite time to teach. I liked the kids, I appreciated the shorter length of the semester, and I loved the opportunity to teach with Briony. Now that things had changed at home, I wish we hadn’t signed up for summer session. We should have taken a family trip somewhere to get out, get away, leave the reminder of the empty room behind us. Instead, Briony and I were teaching our combined business venture class again, and I had one other class. Even that reminded me that I’d planned for this summer to be different. Usually I taught three classes for both sessions of summer semester. This year, our classes were confined to the first session so we could spend more time with the kids this summer.
Two associate professors passed me on one of the paths through Darden. They smiled politely at me, which I was still getting used to. The time B.B. — Before Briony — maybe three professors would speak to me.
“Oh, hey, how’s Briony?” another professor, in accounting I think, gave me a standard greeting in the B.T. — Briony Timeline. They all had something to ask me now.
“Good, thanks,” I replied. I would ask about the woman’s husband, but I knew she wasn’t trying to start a conversation.
“Yo, Prof!” a student from the venture class greeted. His buddy beside him sang out, “Professor D!”
I smiled and waved. They were the reason I taught, put myself out there in a job that normally wouldn’t fit my demeanor. But I loved it and my students liked me even if my colleagues still thought I was a bit freaky.
Twenty minutes until my first class. I had enough time to duck into my office and drop my bag. With few professors left on campus for the summer, the second floor of the faculty building was as quiet as the house. I didn’t mind it as much here, but the quiet seemed to be taunting me today.
I placed my laptop bag on the desk, ruffling through to find today’s class notes. I didn’t really need them. I taught this core class every semester. It was pretty much branded into my brain.
“Hey, hon,” Briony said as she slipped into my office. Our offices were a floor and a few corridors apart, so we’d often meet in one or the other to save time before classes.
My ears tingled at the sound of her voice. I smiled before I turned around. Happiness was everywhere in my life now. Even in the face of loss, I still had Briony to hold onto.
She matched my smile and leaned forward to brush her lips against mine. She’d gone to bed before me last night and left before I got up this morning. We’d been out of sync with our schedules before, but it felt more significant this time.
“You look beautiful today.” My eyes drifted over her linen skirt and shapely blouse then back up to catch the quirk of her lips. She didn’t need to be told she looked beautiful. My eyes would tell her, but I still liked to say it. My heart fluttered every time she told me. I was pretty sure she felt the same way. “How’d the meeting go?”
“Like every meeting with the dean, worthless and endless.”
I chuckled with her. The dean of the grad school wasn’t exactly known for efficiency. He could drone on and on and be convinced it was all essential.
“Probably the last year for this class, though.”
My eyebrows rose a
s I nodded. That made sense. Funding was getting harder to justify. They’d likely want to discontinue a class that required significant startup capital from its investment pool.
“I’ll miss it.” A fond smile graced my lips. I had this class to thank for my life now. My full, rich life filled with love and laughter.
“Next summer, maybe we skip teaching. Take a long break,” Briony echoed my earlier thoughts.
“Whatever you want,” I agreed.
She shook her head and smiled. Then she let out a sigh and sadness crept into her beautiful gaze. “Don’t let me break down and get Caleb a dog.”
“Oh, Bri, I’m so sorry,” I said again because it was my fault. She never would have agreed to foster a child if I hadn’t talked her into it.
“Stop it, M.” Her hands came up to grip my face. “It’s not your fault. It’s sad and awful. I hate that I loved her and lost her and that you and Caleb had to go through it, but we had a wonderful family and we still do.”
I pushed back the tears I felt welling in my eyes and reached for a hug. Briony’s hugs could fend off all sorts of horrors.
“Don’t let Caleb guilt me into a dog,” she sighed and clutched me tighter.
“I’ll see if Willa will let us dog-sit for a while. That’ll make him happy.”
She pulled back and smiled, some of the sadness gone from her expression. “You always have good ideas.”
“Ladies,” Javier stepped into the doorway as he did on occasion, even when Briony wasn’t here. His office was six doors down, and he always made a point of greeting me each day. “How’s tricks?”
“Javi!” Briony’s tone showed her surprise. “What are you doing here?” Her eyes darted to me, checking as she always did on my comfort level. Other than students, I rarely let anyone into my office. But Javier and Alexa didn’t exactly do boundaries. It was that callous disregard that actually made me moderately comfortable with them.
“Stopped by to walk with your woman over to our classes. Didn’t expect to find you here.”
