Look For Me (Detective D.D. Warren #9)(74)
No matter how strong I try to be for Lola’s sake, I’m just an overwhelmed kid, too.
I hate my mom. I know I shouldn’t. She has a disease. The social worker says so, the CASA volunteer agrees. Our poor mom, working so hard to get her life back together.
Well, don’t you think she should’ve thought of that before she had kids?
We still meet with her once a week. She chatters about her job, support group, how great she’s doing. Just a matter of time before we’ll all be a family again. Manny snuggles on her lap, head against her shoulder, as if no time has passed, nothing has changed. He can live in the moment. But Lola and I . . . We stare at Manny. We drink in the sight of our baby brother, whom we miss so much. While trying not to move too much or say too much that might give away our latest aches and pains.
“You are both so beautiful,” our mother coos at us. Which makes Lola and me wonder if she sees us at all.
Later, taking us home, the CASA lady, Mrs. Howe, will study us more closely. “How are you doing?” she’ll ask with her schoolteacher stare. “What do you need?” But Lola and I never say a word.
Ask any foster kid. The adults are the ones who got you into this mess.
I hate my dad. I don’t even know who he is. Just some white guy who gifted me with dull brown hair and hazel-green eyes. I don’t want his hair, his eyes, his lighter skin. My father gave me ugly genes. Then he went away so that my mom could drink herself into a hole and there’d be no one to save us.
Will it always hurt like this?
The babies cry, night after night. We pat their backs. We make soothing noises. We lie to them. We tell them they’re safe and the world is good and there’s nothing to cry about. Then we hope we get out of here before the babies grow old enough to know how much we’ve wronged them. Before they realize we’re nothing but bigger babies ourselves, and just as alone as they are.
Why do people have kids? Why bring us into the world if you don’t have at least a little bit of yourself to share? We don’t need much. Just love, shelter, a kind word every now and then. You’d be amazed how little would make us happy.
I look around at this awful place, and it’s misery everywhere. Forget the Island of Misfit Toys. Mother Del’s is the Dumping Ground of Unloved Kids. We’re all so lost. Even Roberto and Anya. I hear them both crying in the middle of the night. And sometimes, I spy Roberto in Anya’s room, both of them curled up together, clutching each other desperately. No more evil smiles or shifty glances. Just two sad kids. Anya never even knew her own parents. She’s always been alone.
From what I can tell, it’s one of the reasons she hates us.
Mike loves me. I can tell by the way he watches me. The small gifts he provides. Our shared moment in the catwalk before Roberto took the theater away. But I don’t love him back. I can’t. All of me belongs to Lola, to trying to figure out a way to get her through one more day, one more night.
It can’t always hurt like this. Can it?
Someday, I’m going to get out of here. I’ll study hard, go to college, get a good job, then find my own place that no one can ever take from me. I’ll never touch alcohol. Never latch on to some loser barfly. I’ll make a real family. With a husband who stays, and kids who can depend on me. And I’ll tuck my children into bed every night, telling them they are loved and safe and wanted.
My kids will never know about family court and foster homes. When they read books, they’ll actually believe in the happily-ever-after endings. While walking the school halls with new clothes, the right friends, and their backs straight.
This is my dream. The small piece of myself I keep to myself. When Anya laughs her terrible laugh, I hold it tighter. When Roberto walks into the babies’ room at two A.M. and demands what he’s going to demand, I bury it deeper. And afterward, when Lola cries, I whisper my promise into her ear.
Someday, we will get out of here.
Someday, we’ll make our very own perfect family.
Because it can’t always hurt like this. Can it?
Chapter 28
ROO. ROO, ROO. ROO, ROO, roooooooo . . .
Alex hadn’t been kidding. The new family member didn’t bark. She howled. Each time, every time, they put her in the crate. At two A.M., Alex gave up and carried the spotted wonder back to the sofa and let her sprawl on his stomach. At six A.M., when D.D. could hear the sound of Alex’s snores mixing with the unmistakable sound of chewing, she came out of the bedroom, took the roll of toilet paper away from the pup, and redirected Kiko to the backyard to do her business.
When D.D. returned, Alex had mysteriously risen from the sofa and made it to the bedroom, where the door was now firmly shut.
D.D. gazed down at Kiko, who was still eyeing the mangled toilet paper with clear longing.
“All right. You and me. Might as well get to know one another. What do you think? Tennis ball? Let’s go.”
She grabbed her cell phone and Alex’s down jacket and headed back outside, Kiko at her heels. The promise of play seemed to excite the Dalmatian mix, who pranced around D.D.’s ankles.
At this hour of the morning, the sky was just beginning to lighten. Enough traces of twilight to make out the fence line, but still too dark to, say, chase a ball. One of the joys of living in the burbs, however, was that you were never truly alone. Already people were rising for the day’s adventures, nearby kitchen and family rooms lighting up, patio lights snapping on. Flipping on D.D.’s back porch light simply caught her up with the rest of them.