The Foster Family (39 page)

I almost snickered, but there was a strange note in her voice that prompted me to hold it back. “Please don’t talk shit, Liss,” I said. “I mean it. I miss them like mad and I still don’t know what the hell I’m doing, and you making fun—”

“I’m not making fun, babe, I swear. He tries to make it look like he’s just setting them in place, but three, four times a day? He misses you.”

“What do I do?” I whined at her, because I knew I could and only be half kidding, and she would take in the distress and let it be okay that I was that lost.

She snorted, like I knew she would, and blew a raspberry over the phone. “Here’s the thing, Kerry. Are you going to have a life there? Find a job? Go to school? Open that landscaping company you always talked about?”

I thought about all those things, and Nash and David and Grey, and shrugged. “Don’t know.”

“Going to find a boyfriend there, Kerry?” she asked, more softly.

“No.”

“Not even a breath of hesitation on the boyfriend thing,” she pointed out. “Why is that?”

“I—”

“Rhetorical question, babe, but think about it.”

“Yeah.” There was silence while I struggled to put tools away without dropping the phone and managed to think about a hundred things other than
that
.

“Why did you call?” I asked her finally.

“To say hi. Tell you I love you. Make sure you’re okay.”

“Okay.”

“And, okay, Marcus is going to be pissed that I know anything about this, but I’ve been making Charlie keep me up-to-date, and he told me about the car thing. You know the blue one Malcolm thought he saw outside the house?”

“Yeah. What about it?”

“I’ve seen it, or one like what he described, anyway, outside the shop a few times. I think it’s a Mustang. Is that the one with the horse?”

“Yeah. Get to the point.”

“I told Charlie, and I think he probably told Mal, but I wasn’t sure if they did anything, and I’m scared about Charlie because he doesn’t always drive in. Sometimes Mal drops him off and he takes a bus, of all things, home, and I worry. And I know he would brush it off, but….”

“Have you called Officer Karl?”

“I don’t have his number, but you do, right?”

“Yeah. I’ll call him and see if he can come over to talk to you so you can tell him what you’ve seen. And ask him if he ever got my voice mail about Andrew’s girlfriend. I should have followed that up.”

“You’re not the cop, honey. He is.”

“Yeah, I know. Don’t worry. Make sure Marcus always comes to get you, or that Mal or Charlie drives you home. Be safe, honey.”

“Don’t—”

“I will worry. You be safe. I’m going to call them all and make sure they look after you.”

“My knight,” she simpered.

“Bitch.”

She laughed.

“Hey, Liss, will you do one other thing for me? I would but I can’t because the number I have is disconnected, but will you see if you can get in touch with Matt and make sure he’s okay? I mean, I don’t think there’s really anything to worry about, but just in case. I just want… well. I mean I lived with the guy for a year, and I don’t want anything worse than his thesis paper being ruined to happen, ya know?”

“I know. I will.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

More silence filled up the endless space between where she was and where I was, and I realized Charlie and Malcolm were not the only ones I missed like mad. When I said that, she laughed, but it was soft and a little sad. “So come home.”

“I—” I almost said I would. Soon. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t say it because I didn’t know if it would be truth. “I like it here,” I said instead.

“But your heart is here.”

“Nash is here. And David and Grey, and they’re family. Like, real family, Liss. Like they kept my room how I left it kind of family. I never thought I had that. I don’t know what to do.”

“Do you think if you come home they’ll decide to turn your room into a sex den now?”

I laughed, a little bit hysterically. “A rumpus room for Grey maybe.” But no. I didn’t really think that. It was plain in my tone of voice that I didn’t.

“So then your place there is never going to be in doubt, is it?”

“No.”

“But you can’t live at home forever, babe.”

“Why?” It felt like I was just remembering what it was like to be here. How it felt to have Nash look out for me. How it was to be the kid he loved enough to save.

“Because you’re not a kid anymore. I promise you, family doesn’t go away because you grow up, Kerry. I know maybe you have to just take my word for that, because it’s all you’ve got to go on, but you can trust me in this. If that place and those people are home like you say they’re home, then it never goes away no matter where you live or what you do. And honey, if you don’t believe I’m right, then it isn’t really home.”

I looked toward the house and the kitchen door, which was banging because Grey was pushing it a few inches open and letting it fall closed again. He was calling me, in his own way, telling me it was time to come in, probably because David had told him he couldn’t come out, because it was time to stay in the house for supper.

I believed her. “I haven’t even told them anything yet.”

“They haven’t asked?”

“Nope. Not exactly. Just told me it was okay if I wanted to tell them and okay if I didn’t. I could stay as long as I needed to.”

“And you don’t think it would help to talk to them? Ask them their advice?”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“David said the same thing.”

“Sounds like a smart man.”

“Yeah.”

“Listen, babe. We want you to come home. Marcus and me, and the boys, even if they’re being all closed-mouthed and stoic about it. But we do, and you should. When you’re ready. If for no other reason than to get your things from their house yourself and end things properly. Honestly.”

“Ouch.” I rubbed a hand against my heart. “Don’t say that.”

“Keeping all the options open.”

“Not that one.”

“Then Kerry….”

“I don’t
know
, Liss! I don’t.”

“You do. You’re scared, and that’s different than not knowing.”

“I’m dirty and I have to shower and it’s almost suppertime.”

“Coward.”

“Emphatically. Can I go now?”

“Call me soon.”

“I will.”

“Love you.”

“Yeah.” I smiled through the still-throbbing pain left over by the thought of endings. “Love you too, babe.” I hung up and pulled my little wooden cart with its slightly too-short handle toward the garage and the waiting light and chaos of my tiny family.

I completely hated that she was right. And at the same time, the clarity of those few answers she’d pried out of me made me love her for being the brutal way she was. After supper, I cowardly offered to bathe and dress Grey for bed, read him a long bedtime story, and let him cajole me, with an arm around my neck, to stay until he fell asleep.

When I emerged from his room, Nash and David were sitting on the couch, hot tea ready, and waiting, like they had some preternatural sense that I was ready to spill my guts all over their tasteful-but-kid-friendly carpet and practical pleather furniture.

“You’re not going to like a lot of this,” I warned them, picking up my mug they had fixed for me before curling into the huge armchair across from them.

Nash’s face got a tiny bit red, and he huffed. David rubbed a placating hand over his thigh. “Nash came out to get you for supper and overheard you talking on the phone,” he explained.

“You listened in?” I was incredulous, and a whole flood of memories of him dictating and ordering and being a goddamn pain in the ass came flooding back. “You listened to a private conversation without letting me know you were there?”

“Only because I heard you tell someone to call the police, and then to be careful and safe, and to call someone named Matt and make sure he was okay. Kerry, if police are involved, this is more than a broken heart. You have to tell us what’s going on.”

There was that old, belligerent, demanding Nash. The one who had monitored my teenage life, stood in the background of my activities with this same stern expression but said very little. How had I forgotten about him?

“Nash,” David said quietly, “let’s just take this one thing at a time, okay? He doesn’t have to do anything. He’s a grown man.”

“Grey is a baby. If I am going to entrust my child to someone who has issues with the law—”

“I’m not in trouble!” I practically shouted, leaning forward and slopping tea into my lap. “I was never that kind of kid, never in trouble like that! Why would you go there?” The idea he thought I was the one on the wrong side of the law bit deep.

“Not you,” David assured me. “Nash! Tell him what you mean!”

“Who is Matt?” Nash asked instead.

“Okay, you know what?” David got up, took my tea and Nash’s hand, and motioned for me to stand. “This is enough. Nash, back off. If you want to go all papa bear right now, then give the boy—”

“I’m not a child!”

“Give Kerry the benefit of the doubt—”

“I don’t doubt him.” Nash closed his eyes. “Kerry, I’m sorry. I—” He glanced from me to David, a plea in his dark eyes. “Babe?”

David nodded. “Sit. I’ve got this.” He lightly pushed, and Nash fell back onto the couch and buried his face in his hands.

“Understand,” David said to me, very softly, as if Nash wasn’t right there, and if he talked very quietly, he wouldn’t overhear. “The last year has been a nightmare of Lacy dying, Grey’s father and grandmother challenging the adoption, me getting sick, and no word from you in months. I know that sounded a lot like an accusation, but your father is very near the end of his rope, and we only want our family safe and happy, you understand?”

I nodded and looked over at the top of Nash’s head. My father’s head. “Papa Nash?”

After a snuffling breath, he looked up, meeting my eye with his, red-rimmed and apologetic.

I knelt in front of him and let him pull me into a bear hug we both desperately needed. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Sorry I stayed away so long. Sorry for everything that happened, about Lacy, and I wasn’t there for you. I’m so sorry.”

“Not your fault, boy.”

“I should have—”

“Picked up the phone?” He pushed me away to look into my eyes again. “So should I, and I didn’t, either.” He combed a hand through his hair and patted my shoulder. “Sit.”

I sat back in my chair again and looked across the great divide of the living room at the man who was suddenly a more real, live, vulnerable, and changeable person than he had ever been in my eyes.

“I’m sorry, Kerry,” he said. “For what I must have just sounded like. I promise you, I don’t think you are a danger to Grey, and I don’t care what happened. I just want to be able to help.”

I nodded and reached for my tea again, which David handed over before he sat and pulled Nash over to lean on him.

“You’re not going to like some parts of this,” I told them again. “But it happened, and mostly, the bad parts are over.”

S
O
I
told them. Everything, starting with Andrew’s very first visit to my dorm room and ending with the decision to come home. I didn’t even gloss over Charlie and Malcolm or the potential of what place I might have in that household. Nash’s eyes narrowed at the idea, but David’s hand on his thigh squeezed gently, and he didn’t interrupt.

“Why didn’t you come home?” he asked when my explanation had wound down, and I was silent for a few moments. “When someone tore apart your house, why didn’t you come home to where you’d be safe?”

“And tell you what, Papa Nash?” I said. “I was embarrassed.”

“About what? Because if what you think you want from those men shames you—”

“Not that,” I assured him hastily. “About Andrew. Believe me, I know how many times you went up against the establishment over how he treated me in school. How many times you came away furious because they wouldn’t touch their sweetheart football star over a kid who couldn’t take a joke. And then to turn around and do what I did—”

“Just another manifestation of his bullying behavior, Kerry. You were a victim—”

“No, Nash, I wasn’t.” I curled my fingers into tight fists on my thighs as I defended my stupidity. “I was never really under any illusions about what he wanted from me. He wanted someone to fuck who’d keep his mouth shut. Yes, I suppose I was intimidated, but I wasn’t blind. Stupid and ashamed and desperate, but I wasn’t scared of him.”

“And then he came and put you in the hospital emergency room, anyway. That’s domestic violence, Kerry. Abuse. And if he ever touched you when you didn’t want—”

“Don’t,” I warned him. “Do not go there, because it never happened.”

“Not wanting to admit it happened is not the same as it never happening,” he said gently.

And for that moment in time, I wanted to placate him and tell him what he wanted to hear. I wanted to say he was right, that he had a reason to go after Andrew and smash his face in, really go after him and make him pay for all the things he’d gotten away with over the years. But I couldn’t lie.

“Truth, Papa Nash,” I said, just as gently. “Tonight is all about truth, and the truth was, I never said no to him. I never stopped hoping it meant something to him, because I wanted it to mean something to me. I wanted it to
be
a relationship and it wasn’t. But it wasn’t violent, either. He had an itch and I scratched it for him. I humiliated myself doing it, but he never forced me to do it. And sure, I let him get demanding and rough, and there are probably all kinds of psychological reasons for that beyond the fact that I like someone else to be in control in bed, but it was never more than I could handle.” I picked at the loose threads of a seam on the hem of my sleep pants to have something to focus on that was not either of them. “It was never more than I wanted. That’s the truth. And that’s why I stopped calling you. Because I didn’t want that to be true and I knew when I talked to you, I wouldn’t be able to lie to myself about it anymore.”

The windows and doors of the entire house were open, and the night sounds of bullfrogs and crickets snuck sweetly in to cover the silence across the room from me.