Manny is gone. I can’t think about it. Lola won’t stop crying. The police took him out the door, and there was another lady. No purple blouse, but a white shirt and the same firm/sorry expression. We’d never even seen her pull up. Somehow, they’d outflanked us. I feel betrayed, but I’m not sure why. Maybe I’m just disappointed in myself, because for all my hard work, I didn’t see this coming.
Pack, the pinch-faced lady told us. Pack what? Lola stared at me, so I pulled her away. We had our school backpacks; that was it. I took ours down from the hooks, refusing to look at Manny’s red Iron Man bag. He hadn’t even been allowed clothes. Or his favorite car. Why hadn’t he been allowed to take anything?
My pack is powder blue. It fit me when I was eight. Now, it’s tight in the shoulders, but still gets the job done. Lola has a hot-pink backpack. Newer. Manny’s dad, Hector, bought it for her before he left. He was always nice to Lola and me. He stayed with our mom for five years, which was five more years than we had with our own fathers.
Clothes. Laundry money ran out weeks ago. I’d been washing underwear and socks in the sink. They were still damp, draped over radiators, windowsills, anything I could find. Wordlessly, I handed Lola hers, then took mine. Lola had a stuffed blue dog. I found our toothbrushes.
At the last minute, I spotted a sock. Little, black. One of Manny’s, stuck beneath a closet door. I picked it up. It smelled of sweaty toddler feet. I stuck it in the front pocket of my backpack.
Then we left.
And now we’re here.
The foster woman is huge, nearly as wide as she is tall, with a double, double chin. A quadruple chin? She wears a blue housecoat, and her hair is a mass of black and gray Brillo around her rotund face. Standing behind her are four kids. Three boys, one girl. They all stare at me. Then, as one, they turn their attention to Lola.
The tallest boy smirks. He nudges the older girl, a blonde, in a way I don’t like. Beside them, a shorter, skinny boy is rocking and bouncing on his feet. He won’t meet my gaze, just jangles away.
“This is Roxanna,” the pinch-faced lady introduces, shaking my shoulder, “who is eleven. And her younger sister, Lola, who’s eight.”
“Call me Mother Del,” the massive woman instructs.
Lola and I nod slowly. The big lady holds out a hand. We shake it.
“This is Roberto.” She pulls the largest boy forward. “Thirteen. Anya, twelve. Sam, ten. And this one—” She pokes the skinny, bouncy boy. “He’s eleven, same age as you, Roxanna. We call him Mike.”
His gaze pops up, meets mine for a brief second. His body stills. Then his gaze slides away, and his bouncing resumes.
“We don’t have many girls, as you can tell. Roxanna—”
“Roxy.”
“Roxy, you can sleep on a cot in Anya’s room. Lola, being one of the younger ones, we’ll put you in with the babies.”
There are babies in this house?
Behind the woman, I can see the kid Mike moving again. He slowly but surely shakes his head.
“No, thank you,” I hear myself say. “I’ll stay with Lola in the babies’ room, as well. I’m a big help.”
“Nonsense. Not enough room. If you really want to help with the babies, then you can have that room and Lola will stay with Anya instead.”
The bouncy boy shakes his head harder. Spotting his actions, the bigger kid—Roberto—punches his shoulder.
“I’ll stay with my sister,” I say again.
“There’s not enough—”
“We’ll both sleep on the floor with the babies. And we’ll both help. We’re good at that. We have . . . had . . . a baby brother.”
The woman frowns at me, the folds of her face deepening. She doesn’t know what to do with me. On the other side of me, Lola is still trembling uncontrollably. She has a death grip on my hand. I can feel her fingernails digging in.
Briefly, I can see Manny again. Hear him crying. “Roxy, Roxy, Roxy! No . . .”
A ripple goes through my body. I catch it. Soldier on.
Lola and I don’t have dads. Just our mom, and she’s gone. But Manny has Hector. He loved Manny. Before that last fight, Hector’s fist smashing through the wall, before he went thundering out the door and didn’t come back . . .
If I can just figure out a way to reach him. Tell him about Manny. I know he’ll come for Manny. And maybe, if I ask really nice, he’ll take Lola and me, too. I’m a big help. I swear it. I can be such a big help.
“Let them stay with the babies for a little bit,” the pinch-faced lady is saying. She has finally relaxed her grip on my shoulder. “Until the girls get settled.”
“I guess.”
There’s not much to talk about after that. The pinch-faced lady leaves. Lola and I are escorted upstairs by the girl, Anya, who has long strawberry-blond hair and exotic greenish-gold eyes. She would be beautiful, except she has a way of smiling at us that’s not really smiling. She reminds me of a grinning cat, happy to have new toys to play with.
There are babies. Three. Wedged into a room barely big enough for a single nursery. I don’t see how Lola was ever going to fit on the floor given the three cribs. I definitely don’t know how both of us are going to do it. But we will. Because we can’t be alone. I’m starting to understand that. Whatever happens in this house, never get caught alone.
Anya’s room is across from the babies. She has a twin-sized mattress on the floor. There is room for one more, but I’m sticking with the nursery. Next to her room is a larger one. Three cots for the three boys.
Manny could’ve fit, I think. But suddenly, I’m grateful he’s not here.
Clanging downstairs.
“Dinner bell,” Anya says. That smirk again. She leads us back to the kitchen.
There are two tables. One for boys, one for girls. A new arrangement, just for us. We say grace and pass around a large bowl of pasta and red sauce. It’s plain, but it’s the first hot meal Lola and I have eaten in a bit. We start shoveling before catching ourselves. The others are staring, even Mother Del.
“One plate per child,” she says. “And you will eat what you take. There’s no wasting food in this house.”
Lola and I nod, try to eat slower. Later, I wash dishes with Anya. Lola and the boys dry. The bouncy boy Mike keeps drifting closer and closer to me. I feel something pressed against my thigh. A small butter knife.
“Tonight,” he murmurs ominously; then his hand transfers the knife to mine. He jangles away, stacking up freshly dried plates.
Lola and I each get one pillow and two blankets. In the nursery, the babies are crying. I show Lola how to change diapers. Mother Del sets us up with bottles. When there’s a break, we both brush our teeth. But mostly, we stay in the nursery. We hold the babies close.
Eight P.M. Lights out. We should change into our PJ’s, but we don’t. Instead, we move the cribs around, creating a small pocket of space. We have to lie on our sides on the tattered carpet in order to fit. We don’t mind. We’ve slept in smaller spaces.
Briefly, I let myself relax. I feel my sister’s breath on the back of my neck, as I have so many times before. The house is old. It creaks, it hums, but there’s no screaming, no crash of bottles, no slamming of fists into walls. If anything, it is too quiet for me.
The babies stir, make rumbling noises, sigh little baby sighs.
I start to drift off.
The door opens. Backlit from the glow in the hall, I can make out the form of the larger boy, Roberto, with golden Anya beside him. She’s giggling. It’s not a good sound.
“Hey, newbies,” the boy whispers. “Time to come out and play . . .”
Behind me, Lola whimpers.
I am the oldest. These things are my responsibility.
I finger the butter knife.
I climb to my feet.
I square off against them.
? ? ?
I know this: Perfect families don’t just happen. They have to be made. Mistakes. Regret. Repair. A mother drinks, the children are taken away. One child is separated, two must work to stay together. A younger sister is threatened, the older takes a stand.
Mistakes. Regret. Repair. This is my family’s story. And we’re not finished yet.
Chapter 13