Summer on Blossom Street (Blossom Street #6)(36)

“She was.” Lydia sighed. “Now it might be longer.”

Alix didn’t ask her why. Lydia would explain if she wanted to. But Alix didn’t have any diff iculty f iguring out that the social worker hadn’t found another home for Casey. Alix wasn’t surprised, either; she’d been shuff led around enough to know what that was like.

“So, how’s it going with Casey?” she asked, although she had a fairly clear idea.

“About all I can say is that we’ve tolerated one another. When Casey comes home from day camp, she goes straight to her room and closes the door.” Lydia paused. “It’s the craziest thing…”

“What?”

“She hoards stuff.”

“Like what?”

Lydia looked mildly embarrassed. “Toilet paper. I came across six rolls in her bedroom. Last Monday I got groceries and then later couldn’t f ind the crackers. They were in Casey’s room, hidden under the bed. The end of the box was sticking out and when I knelt down to pick it up, I found a box of cereal, some cookies and the toilet paper. When I asked her about it, she said she might need them.”

“Did you take the stuff away from her?” Alix asked. Lydia shook her head. “I decided that if she felt more secure keeping those things in her room, it was okay with me.”

Alix suspected there’d been a time and a place when necessities like crackers, cereal and toilet paper had been withheld from Casey. During her years in foster care, Alix had developed some idiosyncrasies of her own.

“Dinners are the worst,” Lydia went on to say.

“How do you mean?”

Lydia’s expression was strained. “At least she eats, but she barely talks. I’ve done everything I can to draw her out. Nothing I say or do seems to reach her. From the looks she gives me, it’s as if she resents my showing any interest in her. Cody’s been great lately and Brad, too, but there just doesn’t seem to be any way to connect with her.”

Alix had been in enough foster homes to recognize the behavior. “She knows she’s going to be leaving soon, so she’s trying not to care about any of you.”

“But why? Brad and I have bent over backward to make her feel welcome.”

This was so hard for others to understand. “Listen,” Alix said, leaning toward her friend. “Let me put it like this. You’ve got a piece of tape and you stick it to something and it stays put. Okay?”

Lydia blinked. “Okay. Yes.”

“Peel it off and stick it again and what happens?”

“It still sticks,” she answered.

“Right. But what happens when you peel it away for the third or fourth time?”

Lydia shrugged. “Most of the stickiness is gone.”

“Well, it’s the same with kids. Casey’s protecting whatever stickiness she has left for the family who’ll keep her and care for her and love her. She can’t risk her heart on a family that’ll be part of her life for a couple of weeks.”

Lydia shook her head again as if she wanted to argue. “Brad and I do care about her.”

“Sure you do.” Alix didn’t mean to sound f lippant or cynical but she couldn’t help it. “You care about her now. Casey knows that six months down the road you’ll have trouble remembering her name, especially if you take in other foster kids in emergency situations.”

“Oh.” Lydia appeared to mull that over. “Would it be better if we didn’t care?”

“No. Give her all the attention and love you can. It’ll f ill her up. And that’s a good thing, especially when it comes time for her to change homes.”

Looking down, Lydia clasped and unclasped her hands. “She’s been with us for nine days now.”

“It seems longer than that, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah.” Lydia grinned. “She’s already tried to run away once.”

“Did she make it obvious?”

Her question surprised Lydia, who nodded.

“Typical.” Alix had tried it more than once herself. If Casey had really wanted to slip away unnoticed she would’ve managed to do so. It was a ploy to see if Lydia and Brad would stop her.

“What do you know about her family background?”

“Next to nothing,” Lydia told her. “Evelyn didn’t think it was necessary to tell us much, seeing that Casey was supposed to be with us for such a short while.”

“So now what?”

“Evelyn phoned yesterday afternoon and asked if there was any way Brad and I could keep Casey for another couple of weeks—

until her classes are f inished. Apparently the state will have to place her in a home in a different school district. Evelyn said there’s a real shortage of foster homes this summer.”

“What are you going to do?” Alix asked without emotion.

“I talked to Brad and Cody, and the three of us decided we’d be okay with having Casey stay longer. Only…only we don’t believe she wants to stay with us.”

“She does,” Alix told her confidently. “The problem is, she’s been moved around so much she’s afraid to let anyone know what she wants for fear it’ll be taken away from her.”

Lydia’s frown showed her dismay. “You mean…love? Security?”