First & Then(67)

I didn’t want to hang up the phone, and when I did, it was just me and the distant hum of machines, the squeak of shoes on linoleum floors. I wanted to call my mom back. The phone felt like a tin can with the string cut, perfectly useless, marooning me here alone. I squeezed my eyes shut and rested my head against the wall behind me.

When Foster got out of his CAT scan, the general consensus was that he would be fine. They told me they wanted to observe him overnight. As a minor, he couldn’t be released to anyone but an adult anyway.

They put us in a room that was teeny tiny—barely enough space for the bed, one plastic chair, and all that equipment you usually see on TV. They hooked Foster up to a machine that monitored his vitals. Then we were alone.

“Mom and Dad are coming,” I said after the nurse left. “They should be here soon.”

Foster nodded, and then it was quiet. When I looked at him next, his face was still gray. But not in that just-concussed way he had looked on the field. Jane would say that Foster looked drawn.

“You okay?”

“My dad died in a hospital,” he said after a pause.

I wasn’t expecting that. I just … sat. Stupidly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. And I had to go to one once, after that. I passed out at school and they took me to a hospital. They tried to call my mom, but no one could get a hold of her, and when they finally did, she never came to get me. That’s when I got a social worker.”

This was one of those times. Like in the kitchen after Sam Wells’s funeral. Foster was working through something.

“I could hear them calling,” he continued. “On the field? I heard them saying ‘son, son,’ but I didn’t know who they were talking about, because I’m not anyone’s son. Not until Ezra said my name … then I realized they were talking about me.”

Foster’s eyes were glossy, and his voice was small when he spoke next. “She never even came to get me from the hospital.”

I nodded.

“I know nobody says it, but she was never going to come for me here, either. I know that was never part of the plan.”

I looked at the machine, ticking off Foster’s heartbeats.

“I’m sorry,” I said after a long time, and I was sorry, but I was also uncomfortable, and unsure of what I could possibly say to make anything better. So I didn’t speak again, until Foster said, “You said it would be okay if we hated her.”

“It is.”

“Well, I do.”

A pause.

“I think she loved me, though. I think she wouldn’t have sent me away if she didn’t love me.” He looked at me earnestly. “Right?”

I wished very much that my mom and dad were here. They would know what to say to make him feel better. My mom would hug him, and my dad would say the right stuff. But I just let a few selfish tears slip out, not even capable of comprehending how he must feel, because I knew my parents were coming back.

“Right,” I said, and it was the first time I ever truly understood what it meant for him to live with us. I had always assumed that he didn’t really miss her. That he was happier here, because who wouldn’t be? We had food and clothes and my parents were nice, regular parents who asked you about your day and told you to do your homework. Wouldn’t it be a welcome change from someone who cared very little about your existence, and even less about her own?

But she was his mom, and that was his life. It was all he had known.

I looked at Foster. I had also never realized before that I loved him, but I did. And his pain was my pain, and it hurt, but it also felt good in a strange way, knowing that we could share in it together.

I hugged him, and he cried, and it was a long time before I realized that Ezra was standing in the doorway.

“Hi,” Foster said thickly as he pulled back from me.

“You want me to come back later?” Ezra said.

“No,” Foster wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “It’s okay. You can come in.”

Ezra stepped into the room.

“Did we win?” Foster asked.

“I don’t know,” Ezra said. “I left right after you did. They wouldn’t let me back here, though. I had to ninja my way in.” He paused. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Foster said. His mouth twisted and his eyes flooded again.

Ezra considered this for a moment and then said, “You know what you should do?”

“What?”

“Close your eyes, real tight, and then count to three hundred. That’s all you have to do. You just count to three hundred, and when you open your eyes, five minutes will have passed. And even if it hurts or things are shitty or you don’t know what to do, you just made it through five whole minutes. And when it feels like you can’t go on, you just close your eyes and do it again. That’s all you need. Just five minutes at a time.”

Foster’s eyes were red. He nodded weakly. “Okay.”

“Let’s do it.” Ezra sat down on the edge of Foster’s bed and glanced over at me. “We’ll all close our eyes.”

I closed my eyes, and we counted, “One … two … three…”

By fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty-six, Foster’s breathing became even. By one hundred seventy-eight, one hundred seventy-nine, I could hear him settling back against the pillows. At two hundred fifteen, two hundred sixteen, two hundred seventeen, I reached out across the blankets and found Ezra’s hand. I squeezed it hard.