Jessica cringed and cried out, letting go of her hold on Brooke’s wrist, then pressed a hand over the spot where Brooke had scratched her arm. Brooke looked at her fingernails and saw that she had drawn blood. Jessica lifted her hand and saw this, too, and as she stared at Brooke, her jaw dropped.
Brooke trembled, wanting to cry. She wanted to tell Jessica and Lily that she didn’t know what was wrong with her—that she was sorry for all the bad things she’d done. But instead, she crawled back into bed, creating a tent with the covers, where she stayed as Lily got dressed and left for school. Not long after she was gone, through the thin walls, Brooke heard Jessica talking on the phone, but she couldn’t really hear what was being said or to whom she was speaking. After she hung up, Jessica came back into the bedroom. “Are you hungry?” she asked, but Brooke stayed silent. She felt the mattress sink as Jessica sat down and attempted to pull the blankets off.
“Just leave me alone!” Brooke screamed, holding the covers down around her head. “Stop touching me! I don’t want you to touch me!” Her skin hurt, worse than the times Scott had spanked her.
Jessica didn’t say another word. Instead, she simply left the room. Brooke felt bad for being so rude. Jessica was way better than some of the foster mothers Brooke had heard stories about from the other children at Hillcrest—mothers who put locks on the refrigerator and cupboards so the kids wouldn’t eat too much food. She was better than the single woman Brooke had lived with for six months the previous year, who told Brooke that it was her job to clean the cat box and do all the laundry as part of her “rent”; better than the older couple who’d taken her in right after Natalie was adopted and ended up sending her back to Hillcrest after only a few weeks, saying that they’d made a mistake in taking on another foster child when they already had three. Jessica might have punished her, Scott might have spanked her, but hadn’t she deserved it, every time?
If Brooke was honest with herself, there were moments when she liked living with Jessica and Scott. She liked playing Uno with them on Friday nights and having chocolate chip pancakes every Sunday morning. She even liked lounging on the couch and watching Scooby-Doo or Bugs Bunny with Lily after they got home from school. But as soon as she found herself feeling the tiniest bit content, she was overwhelmed with guilt. She worried it would make her mother feel bad if she knew that Brooke was happy living with other people.
Still, Brooke stayed in her room that entire morning, rising only when she had to use the bathroom. She didn’t eat, she didn’t say another word to Jessica, who again had been talking on the phone in a low voice. The only thing Brooke heard her say was “She’s a total hellion!” and she knew that Jessica could only be talking about her.
Scott came home from work early, around noon, and a couple of hours after that, before Lily got back from school, Gina arrived and told Brooke in a quiet tone that it was time to pack her things. Brooke thought about Lily discovering that she was gone, and she wondered if the older girl might miss her. Probably not, with how horrible Brooke had been to her most of the time. She wondered if Jessica and Scott would find another little girl to foster and maybe adopt—a girl who didn’t scream and yell and hurt other people.
“What are we going to do with you?” Gina said as they drove away from Jessica and Scott’s house. She looked in the rearview mirror at Brooke, who was staring out the window. “Did you hear me, honey? What can I do to help you?”
Brooke shrugged, not looking at Gina, too afraid if she did, she might start to cry. She’d gotten what she wanted—she was going back to Hillcrest—so why did she feel so awful? She bit the inside of her cheek, and tasted pennies.
“She’s never coming back,” Brooke finally whispered. “Is she?” She kept her eyes on the side of the road as she spoke, counting each of the trees as they drove along. Her mother was out there somewhere in the world, living her own life, pretending that Brooke and Natalie didn’t exist.
“No,” Gina said quietly, knowing without having to ask who Brooke meant. “She’s not.”
When Brooke remained silent, Gina spoke again. “It’ll be okay. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow. But eventually, I promise, you’re going to be fine.”
Brooke nodded, knowing that her social worker was just doing her job, telling Brooke what she needed to hear. She knew that adults made promises they couldn’t keep all the time—the kinds of promises that simply never came true.