“Come on. There has to be something you’re grateful for. Ice cream? Puppies? John Stamos?” Claire smiled at her, clearly teasing. She knew how much Brooke liked to watch Full House.
“I like ice cream . . . and puppies,” Brooke said, feeling her heart beating a little faster as she thought about what she wanted to say next. She looked at Claire, taking in her foster mother’s full, pink cheeks and sweet, loving smile, and suddenly, her eyes filled with tears. “But what I’m really grateful for right now is you.”
“Oh, sweetie, thank you,” Claire said, leaning down to hug Brooke. She pressed her mouth against Brooke’s ear, whispering the words “I’m grateful for you, too.”
After that conversation, Brooke felt like maybe the sad and lonely part of her life was over. Maybe Claire was the mother she was truly meant to have. Her foster mother worked as a medical transcriptionist for several different doctors, which meant she didn’t have to go to an office and was there every day when Brooke came home from school. They didn’t have a lot of money, but on Saturdays, they liked to take walks around Green Lake and feed the ducks bits of old bread; they spent their evenings playing Scrabble or watching shows like Who’s the Boss?, Growing Pains, and Cheers. Once in a while, Claire would surprise her with a copy of Tiger Beat magazine, and the two of them would spend a Friday night painting each other’s toenails and debating over who was cuter, Johnny Depp or Rob Lowe. Except for the time she’d spent with the lady who had made her clean the cat box, Brooke had always lived with at least one other kid, and she found that she liked being the only child in the house. She’d never had a grown-up’s undivided attention the way she had Claire’s. She absorbed it like a thirsty sponge. She’d learned from other kids at Hillcrest that most foster parents liked to have as many kids as they could because it meant the state gave them more money every month. Claire wasn’t like that. She was content having Brooke around, and never mentioned the possibility of taking on another child. She seemed happy.
There were times, though, when Brooke came home to find that Claire had never gotten out of bed. “I don’t feel well,” Claire told her when Brooke would sit on the side of the bed in her dark room.
“I’ll bring you some soup,” Brooke offered, but Claire refused it.
“I just need to sleep,” she said, and Brooke would leave her alone, spending the evening alone, warming up a frozen dinner, doing her homework and watching TV, worry aching in her gut. The morning after one of those days, Claire almost always was up and showered before Brooke, having made breakfast and packed Brooke a lunch, so Brooke told herself the episodes meant nothing. She told herself that everybody had bad days. Claire probably just hadn’t made a silver lining list for a while, and once she did, she’d feel better.
Brooke spent over a year with Claire, wondering when the older woman would tell her that she wanted to adopt her. “I love you,” Claire said each night when she’d tuck Brooke into bed. It took Brooke almost six months before she could tell Claire that she loved her, too. Brooke felt as though her future had been decided. She finally had the one thing she’d always wanted—a family.
Then one afternoon when Brooke was thirteen and returned to the apartment after school, excited to tell Claire that she’d gotten an A on her algebra test, she opened their front door to find the living room empty and dark, and instantly, she was concerned.
“Claire?” Brooke called out as she set down her backpack and took off her coat. The desk where Claire normally spent her days looked as though it hadn’t been touched. Brooke hurried down the hallway to Claire’s bedroom and threw open the door. The lights were off, and her foster mother was under the covers, not moving. There was a pungent, sour scent in the room, as though someone had recently been sick.
“Claire,” Brooke repeated as she took a few steps to the side of the bed. There was vomit on Claire’s pillow. “Hey,” Brooke said, reaching out her right hand to shake Claire’s shoulder. “Wake up!”
Claire didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t move. Her skin was white.
“Claire!” Brooke said, feeling her heartbeat thudding inside her head as she climbed into bed, kneeling next to the older woman. “Please! You have to wake up!” Again, Claire didn’t respond. “Claire!” Brooke shrieked, feeling the noise she made tearing at her vocal cords. “Help! Somebody . . . I need help!” She put both hands on her foster mother’s body and rolled her over onto her back. Claire’s jaw was slack, her mouth open, her tongue lolled partway out, a sight that made Brooke’s stomach turn.
Just then, their neighbor, Mrs. Connelly, an older woman whom Claire sometimes invited to join them for dinner, appeared in the bedroom doorway wearing one of her brightly colored housecoats and fuzzy pink slippers. “What in the world are you screaming about, child?” she said as she entered. Her eyes landed on the two of them in Claire’s bed. “Oh no. What happened?”