Chapter Two
On the tenth day the lady brought the foster family she'd
told me about, the ones I'd been thrown to. The Grants. They had a son in college
and two sets of twins; one set my age, fraternal, a boy and a girl. The
identical boys were fifteen. One of the parents wrote science fiction and the
other one taught philosophy at the university. I didn't catch which was which.
Couldn't keep anything straight.
They trooped into my room, a sea of khaki and tweed and
wool. The state lady came over, placed her hand on my bed, like we knew each
other or something. I frowned. She smiled at me. I wanted to sink into the
floor, a puddle of indigo.
"These are the Grants."
The kids looked everywhere but at me. I studied them,
around the state lady, felt like an exposed full body wound. I still couldn't
lean back with the burns on my back. I knew I looked like shit, paler than
normal, dark circles under my eyes. I wondered what they saw when they looked
at me.
Mrs. Grant came over first. "Hi, Violet. I'm
Anna." Does she pity me? How could she feel anything but pity? "It's
wonderful to meet you."
"Yes, I'm sure," I said, chastised myself. I
knew I had no choice but to live with these people. Be polite. "Nice
brood." Wondered if I could maybe cut out my tongue.
She half smiled, maybe as if she regretted the first
choice that led her here. Was it marrying him? Giving birth? Being born? Saying
yes to taking in some psycho bitch with burns on her back and arm? I fisted a
hand under the thin blanket and sheet.
Mr. Grant stepped forward, put his hand on the small of
her back. She visibly relaxed, without even looking at him.
I felt small and alien.
"This is Clay Grant," the state lady said.
He stuck out his hand. I blinked at it. His hand didn't
waver. I looked into his eyes. Knew that he could see my fear, so I took it.
And he just squeezed my hand, let it go. I could breathe again.
"Hello, Violet," he said. "I'd like you to
meet the other kids."
Wondered how long he'd stayed awake the night before
coming up with that one. He motioned them over. They shuffled in their spots.
Were they reluctant? Horrified? Disgusted? I told my brain to shut up, tried to
stop freaking myself out.
He pointed to the fraternal set. "Adam and
Leah."
Adam stepped over, took my hand, squeezed. He was tall,
rangy, good-looking in an Ezra Miller kind of way.
"Hey," he said. "Nice bed." Turned
bright red. Could he perhaps be a human being?
"Huh," I said.
Leah sort of smiled, let her focus slide to the floor. Long
honey hair, smooth porcelain skin, symmetrical features, wide green eyes.
Beautiful. One of the lucky few. God, I hated perfect girls.
Mr. Grant frowned at Leah, which she totally ignored,
then pointed at the other set. Adam nodded at me, stepped back. "And this
is Dixon Dixon
I could see no discernable difference between the two of
them. They hung back, taller than the rest of the family, skinny as young birch
trees.
"Hey. What happened to your hair?" Cohen asked.
“Cohen...” Mr. Grant said.
I brushed the eighth-of-an-inch stubble on my head.
“Nothing.”
"You play soccer?" Dixon
"Dixon
"No." Curious fellows, these guys. I allowed
myself to breathe. Not so bad, not so bad, not so bad. Shut up, brain.
Could I do this?
"Oh," they said together, nodded as if I'd just
admitted to never hearing Mumford and Sons.
"They call it football everywhere else, you
know," Cohen said. "In South America and Europe
and everywhere."
"Isn't that great?" Dixon
"Fab-o." I felt cut off, adrift as I looked at
their tidy ensemble, their obvious unit.
* * *
They took me to their house after two more weeks in the
hospital, loaded down with pain medication and creams and stuff. My things had
already been dropped off.
The state lady sat in the living room with Mr. and Mrs.
Grant and me. She talked about my weekly visit to see a therapist, monthly
visits from her. At which point I faded out.
The house seemed so still. Not quiet. Four kids do not a
quiet house make. Music filtered down from upstairs, some indie band I couldn't
quite place, and Dixon and Cohen argued in the kitchen over the last banana. On her
cell down the hall, Leah laughed. No, not quiet, but still. Like somewhere deep
within the foundation a stone maybe transmitted a beam that repeated over and
over, "This is okay. You're okay." I sat up straighter, ready to be
vigilant, ready to fight off its effects. I'm not okay. This was not okay.
That night I stayed awake, waited for something awful to
happen. I kept expecting one of them to maybe come down and do something
horrible to me.
The set-up should've been totally amazing. It took up
most of the basement and I had my own toilet and shower down the hall three
steps. I could turn my music way up and hang my paintings on the wall. A smooth
deal, right? All I had to do was go to school, do my homework, clean up after
myself. Just so long as I tried to be a good girl.
A good girl. I didn’t know what that amounted to, or how
to be that way. They said I could paint it however I liked. A challenge? A
test? Because I could show them paint. Black with red and gray splashes. But
I’d really rather do a scene from Santa
Fe
I looked around the room, studied the boxes and
furniture. I needed to fix it, right quick, and got to it. Mother gave me all
of the plants. She always killed them. And the teapot and cups and my vast
collection of loose leaf tea. A lot of
the dishes. My laptop. All my books, sketchbooks, art supplies. My scrolled iron
bed and bookcases, my iron and oak desk and night table and special hammock
chair Uncle Stephan had given me. Everything. I should've felt pleased but I
just felt empty. It was as if she had purged me from her life, like I'd never
existed at all. I never was.
I ran down the hall and into the bathroom and threw up. I
never was to her.
Was I really so bad? Hadn’t done much drinking. No drugs.
No sleeping around. I was a freaking virgin, for god's sake.
I put Liszt on, lay on my back on the floor, until I
couldn’t stand the pain from the burns. Stupid burns.
Mother and me had been making dinner. I was doing the rice,
she was doing the teriyaki chicken stir-fry. Mother's a professional chef so
she rarely cooked for me, but it was my seventeenth birthday. It was supposed
to be special. I always felt this stupid need to get her to see me, to get her
to love me. There could never be a more idiotic word than 'love.' What does it
mean, anyway? She'd never told me anything that was important to her.
We'd both had a glass of wine; we were mellow. At least,
I was. I let my guard down. I guess I'd maybe hoped she had too.
What I'd been wanting to ask her about was why she and
dad had split up. What I actually said was, "So why'd Dad leave? Greener
pastures?"
Which I had instantly regretted. Words can never be taken
back. They stung like flayed skin, but unlike skin they refused to heal. Just
got filed away.
Mother smacked me across the mouth. Which I'd deserved.
But I wasn't gonna let on that I thought that way.
"Yeah," I said. "So's I got my
answer." Which got me a harder smack and a shove.
Which ended me up in the hospital on account of the stove
I landed on. Doctors all said it could’ve been worse. Yeah. Well. I suppose it
could’ve been them. Least wise, it wasn't my hands. I needed my hands for my
painting.
The third day in the hospital the cop and the lady from
the state showed up, asking after my unusual circumstance. Nobody'd bought my
fish story. Nobody'd listened to my protests, my promises.
Now here I sat on the slate grey carpet in a room I was
supposed to feel comfortable in, surrounded by familiar things in a house that
was utterly foreign. And maybe in the morning I wouldn’t be afraid. Maybe I
could find a new life here, settled amongst these strangers.
Yeah, right.
