The first time Russell ever punished me was for hanging a picture in this room. I should have checked with him first, I know that now, but I didn’t think to do it at the time. In my old room I could hang pictures whenever I wanted. Russell’s punishment wasn’t all that severe, but that had never happened to me before, and it shocked me. After it was over, he asked if I would nail holes into a stranger’s wall.
Crying, I shook my head.
Then why would I think I could do it here? he asked. These weren’t my walls, just like this furniture wasn’t my furniture. “Is this how you behaved with your foster family? Is that why they finally put you out?”
The day I moved in, he’d told me I’d caused so many problems and was so spoiled that my foster mother and brother were done with me. The way he’d said spoiled wasn’t the way you’d talk about an overindulged child, but how you’d describe meat left out in the sun. Spoiled meant ruined. He’d warned me that if I pulled that in his house, he’d be done with me too.
“Yes,” I answered, because I had hung pictures in my foster brother’s room.
Russell nodded as if he wasn’t surprised. Then he told me something he’s told me a thousand times since: the problem with the world was that fathers weren’t raising their sons anymore, so boys never truly became men. If these fatherless boys ever had sons of their own, inevitably they would fail. Boys could not bring up other boys.
Some words stay in your head long after they’re spoken. Those words meant he thought little of my father, and that was because he thought so little of me.
Now my brain begins to fill with static until I can’t see my old blue walls anymore.
The dread resurges, more intense now. I roll over, refocusing my attention on the ceiling, and tell myself, Think good thoughts.
Spider-Man pops into my head, but I quickly push him out. Those movies always scared me.
Think good thoughts.
If I can just think good thoughts, I can fall asleep. Again I try, and now I can see it. Elian Mariner. Only he is me, and I’m standing on the deck of a ship in his crayon-colored world, and my ship can go anywhere.
I get home around ten and let myself in through the back door. The yellow kitchen’s semiclean by normal people standards, which means it’s immaculate by ours. Dishes done, garbage out, herbs in the windowsill all lined up. It also smells freakin amazing—freshly baked almond bread on the counter.
I don’t bother getting a plate, just grab at it with my bare hands like a starving animal. It still shocks me that my mom knows how to make bread now. Till about five years ago, we ate practically nothing but fast food.
I push through the swinging yellow doors into the living room. Mom’s still awake and sitting in the center of our yellow couch.
“She’s a monster!” This is Mom’s version of a greeting. I chuckle when I glance at the TV. The Bachelor.
“What’d she do this time?” I ask, dropping down beside her.
It turns out to be pretty much the exact same horrible thing she did last time—saying evil things to the other women but pretending to be a decent human being in front of the guy. I suffer through the Rose Ceremony, which would be a lot more entertaining if I were allowed to laugh, but I’m not.
When it’s finally over, Mom says gravely, “I swear to you, Adam, if he doesn’t send her home next week, I’m never watching this show again.” We both know this is an empty threat.
She turns off the television, then pulls Connect Four from under the coffee table. While we play, she asks who I was hanging out with.
“Charlie.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Same.”
She makes a mild noise of disapproval. She’s known Charlie since he was six, so she can’t outright dislike him—in her mind he’ll always be a kid—but he’s not her favorite person either. She thinks he’s way too grumpy. I’ve tried to explain to her that’s what makes him so entertaining.
“Emerald wasn’t there?” Mom’s tone is so casual that it doesn’t sound casual at all.
“Nope.” I drop a checker into the board with a grin. “Connect four.”
“How did I miss that?”
“I don’t know.” I slide the tray, spilling the checkers onto the table.
After I win again, Mom suggests she may have early-onset Alzheimer’s.
“You do not have Alzheimer’s,” I say. “You’re only thirty-seven!”
“Don’t remind me.”
Which is my cue to tell her, “But you look way younger.” Of course, this is partly because she’s extremely short—like only up to my shoulder. But there’s no need to mention that out loud.
“Well, something’s going on. I never used to lose!”
“Maybe I’m just getting better. You ever think of that? You could beat me when I was nine.”
“All right, Punky Brewster,” she says, which means she thinks I’m being a punk. It doesn’t make sense. I found that ’80s sitcom on YouTube, and despite the character’s name, she was a nice little girl.