Forever, or a Long, Long Time Read online

  Julian is screaming now. “The postcards!” he wails. “I want to talk about the postcards!”

  “Postcards?” Dr. Fredrick says.

  I start to shake. I don’t want to know about the postcards. I don’t want to hear that Person lied to me and stole from me. As long as she doesn’t admit it, I can pretend it’s not true.

  “Lower your voice,” Person says. “We can’t talk about anything if you’re screaming.”

  “What postcards?” Dr. Fredrick asks Person.

  Julian is still screaming “NO!” and “POSTCARDS” and “SHE STOLE THEM” and “GLORIA MISSES US!”

  Person is trying to shush him but he keeps screaming.

  I’m pretty sure I’m about to float away. I’m pretty sure my brain can’t handle this much screaming and anger between people I love and that my body will stay here but I’ll float at the ceiling and rejoin them at home.

  “What postcards?” Dr. Fredrick says again. I’m still in his office. But I’m sure I’ll float away soon if he doesn’t do something.

  I hope he does something. Dr. Fredrick does not like when I float away. He says that’s one of the reasons I have so much trouble remembering all of the things that happened to us and all of the places we lived.

  Person looks at him like he’s crazy to try to talk to her in such a normal voice while Julian is screaming his head off.

  “It’s OK for him to scream,” Dr. Fredrick says. “Sometimes we need to scream.”

  Person’s eyes are so huge. Her face is sweaty. I wonder if screaming is hurting the baby. I wonder if the baby has ears yet. I wonder if Person is more worried about the baby’s ears than Julian’s feelings.

  “Tell me about the postcards,” Dr. Fredrick says.

  Person’s eyes are so huge. She looks like David did when Ms. K caught him writing on his desk in permanent marker.

  Finally, I answer. “Julian found some postcards from kids in our old home and he thinks there are more and that Mom stole them.”

  Julian stops screaming. “Yeah,” he says.

  Person stutters. “You found them?” she says. “How?”

  Julian shrugs. “In the mailbox,” he says.

  “She’s still writing to you guys?” Person says. “I don’t understand. You’ve been with me for almost two years now.”

  “Do you guys like these postcards?” Dr. Fredrick asks. “The ones you’ve seen?”

  “Yeah,” Julian says. “Gloria says she misses us.”

  “Megan B. says they have a new baby,” I say.

  Person keep shaking her head.

  “Are your kids right?” Dr. Fredrick asks, looking at Person. “Are there some postcards you haven’t shown them yet?”

  She wipes her forehead. “Shouldn’t we have this conversation . . . confidentially?”

  I grip my chair. I don’t want to be sent into the hallway to wonder what they’re talking about.

  “Actually,” Dr. Fredrick says, “I think it’s important that they hear the entire conversation so they can be reassured there are no secrets.”

  “No secrets?” Person asks. She sounds angry. She sounds like she loves secrets.

  “It’s their story, Emily. You need to go home and give them the postcards.”

  “You’re saying it’s my fault?” she asks.

  “It’s the same thing we always talk about. Remember the roles?”

  Julian and Person and I all nod.

  “Everyone has a role when it comes to families,” Dr. Fredrick reminds us anyway. “Emily, it’s your job to be absolutely trustworthy. You need to give Julian and Flora every reason to trust you.”

  “I know,” Person says quietly.

  “And Julian, it’s your job to try to trust. To act like you trust and let the trust follow sometimes.”

  “To stop hiding food in my closet,” Julian fills in. “To tell the truth.”

  Dr. Fredrick looks at me.

  “And Flora, it’s also your job to act like you trust and to let the trust follow sometimes,” he repeats, like always.

  “It’s my job to talk when I have something to say,” I recite. “Even if it takes a long time.”

  We used to talk about these roles all the time. It makes me feel calm to be reminded of them. It means I don’t need to work on fixing the whole family: Person and Julian and Dad and me. I only need to talk, and to try to talk even when I don’t want to. That’s just one thing instead of a million.

  “You missed an opportunity to earn trust by hiding those postcards,” Dr. Fredrick says to Person. Julian smiles at me, a real smile. Only Dr. Fredrick can make us feel better while at the same time pointing out how Person isn’t perfect.

  “But . . .” Person’s quiet now. “Gloria let them go. And I’m their mom now. It’s . . . over. Right?”

  Dr. Fredrick shakes his head. “Their story is connected. The parts before they met you are connected to the parts now. Just like the parts of your story before you met Jon are connected to your relationship with him now. We all need our story.”

  “Our story?” I ask. “We have a story?”

  “Sure, you do,” Dr. Fredrick says. “Somewhere it’s recorded exactly where you lived and who you lived with. Emily, didn’t you see a file?”

  Person shrugs. “Their records were . . . abysmal. There were a ton of unfinished sentences and questions marks. I don’t know . . . everything. I only know. Well, I know about Gloria. And the family before . . . and, well, a little bit. I know only a little bit. I don’t know anything about their birth mom, except that they’re biological siblings.”

  “You need to tell them everything you know,” Dr. Fredrick says. “There’s going to be a baby in the family. They’ll watch this baby growing up and know everything about it. They need to know as much as they can about themselves.”

  “I . . . I’m sorry about the postcards,” Person says, but she’s still looking at Dr. Fredrick, not at us. “But I really don’t know too much.”

  “They need those postcards,” Dr. Fredrick says.

  Person is quiet for too long before she turns to us and takes our hands.

  “I’ll give you guys the postcards when we get home, OK?”

  It’s weird for my hand to be in hers when I’m feeling mad at her. There’s another weird feeling in my heart too, like a worm crawling around in the sadness and angry. I think I sort of feel sorry for Person.

  “But . . . It’s a sad story,” she says, turning back to Dr. Fredrick. “I thought . . . I thought I was doing the right thing.”

  Dr. Fredrick nods. “Flora,” he says. “Are you surprised that your story before you came to your mom’s house is a sad one?”

  “No,” I say. It’s the only thing I knew for sure. Sadness.

  “Julian, are you?”

  “No,” he says.

  “I know you want to protect them, Emily,” Dr. Fredrick says. She’s crying now. I never knew it was possible to be mad at someone and also love them this hard. I want to give her a hug and slap her in the face at the same time. “But you only denied them access to their life’s history. You didn’t protect them from the sadness. That sadness lives in them. They need to know where it came from.”

  Person moves our hands to her face so she can wipe her eyes. I feel a tear trickle onto my finger.

  “I don’t . . . I don’t know too much.”

  “Well, start with the postcards. Start with what you do know.”

  “Please,” Julian squeaks.

  “OK,” Person says.

  Dr. Fredrick smiles. “OK, so why don’t we all leave this office today with a renewed commitment to the roles of trust. Can we all do that? Can you commit to filling your role as much as possible and watching the trust follow?”

  “Yes,” Person says.

  “Yes,” Julian says. “If I get the postcards.”

  “Yes,” I say.

  We get up to leave, but Dr. Fredrick keeps talking.

  “And Emily? They may need more. If they ask t
o look for more, do it in an age-appropriate way. Do it in a way that fits into your life. But you’re pregnant now; I can’t imagine any of this getting any easier for these two until they get some answers.”

  Person nods. “OK,” she says. “We’ll see what we can do.”

  The next thing I know we’re all hugging. I’m not sure if I’m still mad at Person or not. I’m not sure at all.

  The rest of the week in school is the same. Person says there are a lot of postcards, it’s too much for one day, so she starts giving us one every night at dinner. In school, I’m thinking about postcards and babies and stories. I’m thinking about Gloria and Megan B. and the white house I lived in when I was very small and the person whose shoulders I rode at one point.

  I’m thinking about Person and how we made her life a whole lot harder right when there’s a new baby so we should be trying to be easy.

  I’m not thinking about school.

  I keep messing up. Calling out. Failing tests. Ms. K has conversations with me a few times, then she gives up.

  Inside my head I beg her not to call Person. Not to make Person upset too. Or worse: not to make Person give up like she did.

  I want to be a better daughter for Person, a better fourth grader for Ms. K. I just don’t know how to do better.

  Friday night, when I’m alone in my room again, I dream about Castillo the Mouse.

  I’m holding him in my palm, the cute slimy purple lump of him, even though Ms. K said we aren’t allowed to hold them yet. But that’s OK because I can’t get in trouble for things that happen in a dream.

  He’s there in my palm and then poof he’s gone.

  I wake up, and I’m already sitting. My heart is racing. He’s gone.

  But I know he’s not. I know he’s still in the tank in the classroom being nursed by Pringles. So why is this so scary?

  Then I think about Ms. K in the classroom. I hear her saying, “No names after a real person, Flora.”

  But Flora Castillo was a real person. Flora Castillo was me for most of my life.

  And I was allowed to name a mouse Castillo.

  Does that mean Flora Castillo isn’t a real person anymore?

  I get out of bed and sneak though the living room/kitchen to Julian’s room.

  When we first started living with Person, I would sneak to his room all of the nights. When she didn’t give us back after Christmas, I would sneak out about three-quarters of the nights. And then after the summer, when we’d been here a whole year, I got down to half the nights. After our second Christmas with Person, this past one, I got comfortable. I dug myself a spot in my bed like it would always be there. I started telling on Julian when he hid food. I thought I never believed Person about Forever. But now I think maybe I did. Maybe I believed her a little bit.

  I thought Forever meant No Changes Ever Again.

  Can Forever mean something else?

  I’ll probably start sneaking out all the nights again.

  I open Julian’s door and—too loudly since it’s the middle of the night—I say, “What happened to Flora Castillo?”

  Julian steps out of his closet. He has his hands over his mouth.

  “You mean you?” he says. “You’re right here.”

  “I mean Flora Castillo. Girl. Not mouse.”

  Julian rubs his face. “Are you sleepwalking, Florey?” he asks.

  “No,” I say. I cross the carpet until we’re almost nose to nose.

  Julian was in his closet.

  There’s a brown crumb on his chin. There’s another on his cheek. His skin almost camouflages them, but I see them there.

  His eyes are big, like he’s scared of me.

  “You!” I say.

  His eyes fall to his feet.

  “You said you would stop,” I say. We have to be normal kids now. We have to act like we trust Person even when it’s hard.

  The baby will always trust Person.

  “Sorry,” he says. He shrugs.

  “We have to be perfect now,” I say. “We have to be easy.”

  “I don’t have to be perfect, Florey,” Julian says.

  “There’s a baby coming,” I say. “We have to be perfect for Per—for Mom.”

  “That’s not normal. You shouldn’t have to be perfect for your mother.”

  My face is hot. I’m so angry. He doesn’t get it. “We’re already making her so uncomfortable with the postcards,” I say. We can’t ask for more than that. We have to take up less space in her life, not more.

  “You heard Dr. Fredrick. She owes us those postcards!” he says. He’s almost shouting. He’s the one turning this from discussion into fight.

  I walk over and grab at the brownie in his hand. It breaks so that I’m holding most of it, but he still has a chunk. “You don’t need this,” I say.

  “Give it,” he says. “Give it, Florey.”

  “Why do you need it if—”

  “Because what if the baby eats everything?” he asks all of a sudden, the words coming out too hard and fast. “What if another person means there’s not enough food? What if Mom comes up with a rule that says we can only have as much food as we can fit into one hand like that one mom that time. What if my hands start to shrink again and what if I’m always always hungry and never never have anything to eat?”

  “There wasn’t a mom with a food and hands thing,” I say.

  Julian nods. I’m just a year older than him but he’s still much shorter than me. His eyes are huge. Scared.

  “You heard Mom,” he says. “She doesn’t know anything about this baby. She doesn’t know where it’ll sleep. How does she know what it will eat? How does she know that she’ll love it the same as us? . . . She loves us, I think, usually, but . . . Love doesn’t matter to family. You know that.”

  “Why aren’t you saying this to Mom?” I ask. “You’re supposed to try to trust her.”

  “Me?” he says. “You’re the one who can’t say anything half the time.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “But at least when I talk it’s the truth.”

  He shuts his mouth.

  “Why do you fake that smile all the time?” I say.

  Julian looks at his toes.

  “You have to stop stealing and lying.”

  “I can’t,” Julian says.

  “You have to!” I say.

  “I can’t!”

  We are on the verge of being too loud. It’s midnight. We could get caught.

  “If you don’t stop . . .” I can’t finish.

  “What?” Julian says. “If I don’t start acting like I trust her all the time, Mom won’t love me anymore? Or she’ll love me less? Or something?”

  “Just try?” I say. “Try to stop?”

  “Maybe I don’t care!” Julian yells. “I don’t have to make her love me. Who cares if she loves me?”

  “Us,” I say.

  “Who cares if she loves us?” Julian says. Then he takes a huge bite of brownie and chews it right in my face. “She says we’re here forever, so that means it doesn’t matter what we do, right? So what if I smile when I don’t know what else to do? So what if I hide food and eat it at midnight? What do we need love for anyway?”

  He reaches out and takes the rest of the brownie from me, shoving most of it in his mouth.

  “Julian . . . ,” I say. “We have to . . . we’re supposed to . . . team.”

  “Sorry, Flora.” Julian polishes off the brownie and balls up the wrapper. “I just don’t care.”

  We are Onlys. I’m supposed to be scared when he’s scared. But right now I’m too angry to be scared.

  I march out of his room and down the hallways back to my own bed. Suddenly I don’t care about mice or Floras named Castillo.

  I don’t think Julian and I fought before we got here. I don’t think I was ever angry at him before.

  He’s going to mess up everything.

  Maybe I didn’t know how to be mad at him before, but now I do. Maybe that’s one thing Person gave me.
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  I think I like it.

  Eight

  FAMILIES ARE PEOPLE WHO LIVE TOGETHER

  THE NEXT DAY, SATURDAY, ELENA COMES over again. This time she’s coming for two nights since Monday is a holiday from school. Elena has come over almost every Saturday and Sunday since Dad moved into Person’s room. Elena also calls Dad Dad. But she calls Person Emily.

  She says I’m lucky my dad and my mom live in the same place.

  I say she’s lucky she’s known her dad and her mom her whole life except I never say that out loud because there are too many important words in that sentence. It’s the most important sentence ever and so the words would never get out in the right order so that Elena would understand them.

  Elena is Dad’s other daughter but she’s not really my sister or foster sister because she doesn’t live here.

  Elena is my friend. She says sister. I say friend but I only say it in my head the same way I only call my person Person in my head. I say friend because I’ve had a lot of sisters and they were all sort of broken like me. And Elena is nice and normal with pretty hair and sixth-grade friends with short skirts and I’ve never had a friend before.

  She calls Julian her brother but she’s more mine than Julian’s. When she comes over she sleeps on a pullout in my room. And she shares her things with me. And she always wants to play with me without Julian and I always say no, we have to play with Julian and it goes around and around like that.

  But today I’m mad at Julian and I don’t want to see him at all.

  Person has a shift at the hospital so it’s just me and Julian and Dad and Elena at lunch. Afterward Dad says, “Do you guys want to go to the park?”

  “I want to play alone with Elena,” I say.

  “You do?” Elena asks. Her eyes are bigger than usual. I’ve tried to play with her every Friday at recess for almost the whole school year, but I’ve never said it in those words.

  “I want to go to the park!” Julian says. He looks right at me. I’m still mad at him and I realize now that he might be mad at me too even though that seems like it shouldn’t be allowed. He’s the one who’s messing up. I’m the one trying.

  “You guys can go to the park,” Elena says. “I’ll stay and play with Flora.”

  Elena is one year older than me but she’s already in the sixth grade. And the park is right behind our house. Still, I’m shocked when Dad says, “OK.”