The End of the World (2 page)

I nod, because it’s what’s expected of me. It’s pointless to let him know I wish I could go anywhere except away from this house and the best family I’ve had in years. For a few months anyway, Todd and Shelly were almost like real parents. I was almost like their real kid. Except I’m not, and now that her stomach is the size of a small cantaloupe, it’s painfully obvious to everyone involved.

Blood runs thicker than water, and my water is stained brown from fourteen-year-old rust. Not exactly a selling point to convince them I belong here.

“Good,” he says. “Because I do, and if Shelly were healthier…” He looks out the window and I do too. There’s really nothing more to say, nothing that will make me feel better or him less guilty. And that’s the mood in this car; dread and guilt filling up so much space in the seats that there’s barely enough room for the two of us to sit. After a few minutes, Todd tries to speak around both emotions.

“You know, you’ll probably like these new people a heck of a lot more than us.” He nudges my knee in an effort to reassure me, but all I feel is sadness. I force a small smile to cover it up. His sigh of relief stabs me through my scrawny middle.

Todd backs the car out of the parking space and shifts the gear in drive. We sit in front of Mrs. Miller’s house for only a fraction of a second, but it’s long enough for me to recognize the crackling strains of “Hey Jude” coming from that old record player. Her way of saying goodbye without uttering the actual words. My heart gives a little thud of thanks at the parting gesture.

Mrs. Miller knows that “Hey Jude” is my favorite song, because my middle name is Jude. I can remember my mother singing it to me when I was younger.

It’s the only clear memory I have of her.

And even that one isn’t as strong as it used to be.

*

Shaye

We’re getting a
new kid. It’s the only thing I’ve heard about all morning, but not because everyone is excited. I mean, of course they’re excited…about the extra five-hundred dollars a month the kid will bring in. Everyone tells you age isn’t a number, but when you’re a fourteen-year-old foster kid, the only reason someone wants you is for the dollar signs in front of your name. Six grand a year is a nice round number. Of course, when you’re a nearly seventeen-year-old foster kid like me, you’re worth a little less because your time is running out. Consider me a carton of spoiled milk—impending expiration date stamped on my side, not worth drinking unless bought on sale, and ultimately better off poured down the drain.

But I don’t care. In just over a year I’m out of here—through with the system and on my own. I’ll be free to get an apartment, and a cat, and a stereo that plays too loud even after midnight. Maybe even a drum set, and I don’t play drums. That’s not the point. The point is no more rules for me, at least none that I don’t make myself. I’m counting the seconds like pennies thrown into a wishing well. In fifteen short months you’ll see nothing but stacked-up spheres of copper shining in a muted dome over the surface of earth-sunken muddy water.

But for now, Alan is crying and Maria is pulling on my leg and Pete hasn’t quit asking for a peanut butter sandwich since I gave him the last one less than an hour ago. And now we’re getting a new kid. A new kid for me to freaking take care of too, because my so-called foster parents are too busy being deadbeats—angry deadbeats who sleep all day, complain all night, make messes for me to clean up, and only get happy when it’s payday.

What teenage girl wouldn’t want to be me?

Still, someone has to take care of these kids. Someone has to teach them that the outside world isn’t necessarily as frightening as the world inside these walls, even though I might not be the best person to do it. But someone has to make sure they aren’t abandoned. Because abandonment is the worst feeling in the world. It’s itchy, like a wool sweater in a summer heat wave. I know this firsthand. For years now, that sweater has clung to me like a second skin I’ll never be able to remove.

I sigh and make myself focus.

“What’s the matter, Alan baby?” I remove the tray from the high chair and bring him to my hip, not taking the time to wipe a sticky glob of oatmeal from his hands even though it is guaranteed to wind up down the front of my t-shirt.

“More,” he says in his not quite two-year-old voice, opening and closing his hand as though he wants me to drop more cinnamon raisin oatmeal straight into it. My heart sinks just knowing that I can’t give him what he’s asking for.

“We don’t have any more, baby,” I say. And this is the part I hate: the disappointment that crosses the face of every kid who lives in this house when bad news is passed down, which happens often. Some kids get hugs or high-fives or at the very least a smile to let them know everything’s okay. Here, letdown and criticism are the only things handed out on a regular basis. On cue, Alan’s tiny face scrunches up and a piercing cry like shattered glass is released into the air. It doesn’t take long until my head is throbbing.

“Make that kid shut up.” I jump when Carl Bowden walks into the kitchen, then take a couple of steps away. His shirt is missing—the sight turns my stomach though I force my face not to show it. His gruff attitude is firmly in place as he shuffles toward the cabinet in search of a coffee mug, not hard to find since we own exactly three, and two are sitting in the sink still unwashed from yesterday. I need to clean these dishes before trouble hits, but having a baby on your hip and another hanging onto your leg isn’t exactly conducive to making headway on dirty dinner plates.

He slams a cabinet door. He slams another as I cautiously sneak a peek out of the corner of my eye to judge his mood. Some might consider him handsome in a ruggedly average sort of way with his dark hair and four-pack abs that are the direct result of daily sit-ups that somehow counter-balance regular beer consumption. I thought so when I first moved in three years ago.

It didn’t take long for my opinion of him to change.

Now, I spend most of my life holding my breath against the smell of his overpowering cologne, demeanor, and general presence.

“He wants more oatmeal, and we’re out,” I explain, knowing it’s a waste of good words.

“Well, tell him he can’t have any. It’s another three days before we get a check, and I’m not spending what I have left on stupid kid food.” He grabs a mug from the sink and rinses it with water.

I don’t say that he’ll spend the money on lottery tickets or dinner out with friends. Or that oatmeal is one of the healthiest things a person can eat. Or that he
needs
to spend it on kid food since we are, in fact, getting another kid within the hour. It wouldn’t accomplish anything except to set off his already tenuous temper. And that’s a risk I just can’t afford to take.

“I have told him. It didn’t work, hence the crying.” It’s the snappiest comeback I can muster, but it can’t be helped.

Carl holds the mug to his chest and takes a step toward me. I feel my breath catch when he reaches for a strand of my hair and holds it between his fingers. He was drinking last night; the leftover scent is still on his too-close lips.

“Like I said, make him shut up.” He looks me in the eyes until he’s satisfied I understand his meaning.

And I do. I wish to God I didn’t…but I do.

I set Alan on the floor next to a few scattered toys and brace myself for whatever might come next, but the only sound I hear from Mr. Bowden is the stream of hot coffee pouring into his dirty mug from the cloudy carafe. Then the source for his uncharacteristic silence walks in bringing a cloud of Marlboro’s with her, and I breathe a rare sigh of relief.

“I can’t ever sleep in anymore what with all this noise,” Tami Bowden says. She’s only thirty-two but looks fifteen years older. A wide girth, permanent scowl, and a hate-hate relationship with moisturizer and hair color will do that to a woman. Mrs. Bowden is overly wrinkled and almost entirely gray. Not too long ago I looked up the cause for such premature aging. The number one reason the website gave was chain-smoking; number two was a bad attitude. Check one, check two for her. Nice to know the Internet is correct at least occasionally.

“Shaye, keep those kids quiet. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you. Not that telling ever does me any good; you don’t listen, anyway.”

And this is how I start my mornings. Every single day, without fail. My own personal April Fool’s joke on repeat. The only thing that helps is the occasional trip to the grocery store, which always makes me feel guilty for leaving the youngest kids behind to fend for themselves, even for an hour. But until the check comes or Carl takes it upon himself to hand me some cash, there’s no escape.

“Alan was just hungry, but he’s better now.” I glance down to see the baby sitting next to an oscillating fan, shaking a string of brightly-colored plastic rings. Every time the fan makes a pass at his face, strands of wispy hair fly backwards and he sucks in a hard breath. I smile a little at the sight.

“He might be better, but that doesn’t help me get any more sleep,” Tami speaks up, effectively ruining the moment. “I’ll have you know that—”

The doorbell chooses that exact moment to ring, and everyone goes still. Then my feet start moving. Mr. Bowden sets down his mug and Alan blinks up at me and Pete asks for another sandwich and Mrs. Bowden lets out a labored sigh and says, “Hopefully this one comes with his own toothbrush.” That gives me pause, because of all the things she could have said, this seems the most random.

After all, we have toothbrushes. Tami buys them in bulk. I’ve always suspected it’s her way of preparing for more kids, but at the same time—other than this poor kid showing up today—I’m praying this is the last kid we ever get.

Cameron

I
t isn’t long
before the streets begin to change. The farther away from home we travel, the houses grow fewer and the grass stretches wider, until the only thing I can see for miles is hill after hill of green space.

Home. It’s going to take a while before I no longer think of Todd and Shelly’s place as home, which was really just a simple residence in between all the other simple residences I’ve lived in the past six years. Some nice, and some balanced on the corner of condemned and disintegrating. But whether it was the location or the furnishings or the good heart of the people, their place was by far the nicest.

We round a corner and pull into a drive, and I swallow bits of sandpaper at the sight in front of me. This house is nothing like theirs. Nothing at all. My throat is dry and my mouth hurts from biting the inside of my cheek.

“Are you sure this is it?” I ask Todd. My voice shakes on the last word, but he must not notice because he doesn’t respond. It isn’t until I turn my head and look at him that I see why.

This house is huge.

And he’s staring at it like he’s never seen anything this large before.

I know the feeling. Houses like this just don’t exist, at least not in real life. Not outside the two-dimensional confines of a forty-two-inch rectangle screen hanging on a living room wall.

“This is the address.”

He says this, but he doesn’t bother checking to see if his words match the numbers on the paper. I nod beside him as we continue to stare out the window. There’s so much to say, but like all the other moments just like this one that have lined up behind me, there’s nothing that makes speaking worth it. This is my home as soon as Todd drives away; there’s no sense in trying to deny it or stall for time to adapt. Shelly is still pregnant, the baby is still practically eating her, and thrusting myself into some strange land of limbo won’t change things. Still, prolonging the situation makes me feel a little more in control of my fate, even though my fate is almost always followed by a loud clang of doom in its wake. I turn my attention to the house again. I guess it’s time to climb out of the car.

It’s huge in a way that would make Beverly Hills the perfect backdrop but makes Chouteau, Oklahoma seem like an accidental landing spot. Like someone dreamed of a mansion but couldn’t afford one in a place that mattered, so they settled for this out-of-the-way location where size and status don’t mean anything. It’s a waste.

It’s enormous.

Except even to my untrained eye, more than a few things about this place are weird.

Mostly because a lot of things are missing.

And because, though the house looks new and barely lived in, it also looks like it was built a couple of decades ago and only recently moved into. And even that feels incomplete. A small trailer sits to the left of the mangled driveway, the kind that might be pulled behind a pickup for a weekend camping trip. It’s closed except for a crack in the door’s opening, and through it a mattress and a four-foot pile of bedding is visible. The blankets look old and worn, maybe bought from a secondhand store and left there until a reason for their existence comes to light. I look at the blankets, suddenly filled with an irrational fear that
I’m
the reason. That I’ll have to curl up under their dust-covered layers and fall asleep tonight. The thought of lying underneath someone else’s grime and dirt gives me nothing but nightmares, the kind you have when you’re wide awake and staring unseeing at nothing but your bleak, bleak future.