Longing for Normal Read online

  “No big decisions right now then,” I said quickly. “And I’ll do better about helping. With everything. You’ll see.” I loved this old house, but that wasn’t as important as keeping the family together. I would gladly move if only Marj would stick it out.

  Marj rubbed her temples again.

  Quickly, I asked, “You need some headache medicine? A glass of iced tea?”

  “No, I’m fine. Just need to be a couch potato for a while.”

  “You want me to take this sourdough over to Alli?” Suddenly, I needed to talk to Alli.

  Marj nodded. “Explain it all to her again. And be back in an hour or so.” She stretched out on the couch and reached for the TV remote.

  I ran upstairs for shoes and was soon marching toward the Porter’s house. The Bread Project had just bought me twelve weeks to change Marj’s mind about putting me in foster care, three short months for us to learn how to be a family together.

  Step One: make dead sure Alli still supported the Bread Project and would help make it a smashing success.

  

  The evening was hot and sticky, the late summer still heating up into the 90s during the day, and not cooling off until midnight. I strode quickly to the Porter’s house, my flip-flops rhythmically slapping the sidewalk. The plastic jar with sourdough starter was lightweight, but rehearsing the arguments for the Bread Project, I felt heavy, dragged down. Alli already liked the idea of the Bread Project, though, so maybe this would be easy.

  Half a block away from the Porter’s house, the upstairs light went off, the only light in the house. I almost turned around and went home, thinking everyone had gone to bed early, and I’d have to deliver the sourdough starter tomorrow.

  Squee! The upstairs window opened with a loud protest. Probably hadn’t been opened in years. Following the sound, I spotted her. Alli was leaning out of the upstairs window.

  I hated the Porter’s house. First time I went there with Griff, Mr. Porter bragged, “This house is on the Historic Register. Oldest on our street, a modern-style house of the 1950s.”

  You ask me? It was ugly. Made of concrete that might have been white when it was built, but had turned a muddy gray. Besides, the whole thing was too square. Only one good thing about it. The trees and shrubs were so overgrown, they hid the actual house from view.

  Alli reached for a tree limb, grabbed hold, and then swung out.

  She was sneaking out?

  Her legs hung a minute before she pulled them up to wrap over the branch. She hitched herself closer to the trunk, till she could set her feet on a branch just below. Quickly, she dropped to the ground.

  Why was she doing this? She’d only been with the Porters for a couple days. You didn’t want to get in trouble that fast. Not without a very good reason.

  I could have said her name, made her stop. But curiosity won: where was she going?

  I stashed the plastic jar of sourdough in the bushes and followed.

  The Porter’s neighborhood was older, but richer than mine, the yards all picture perfect like in a magazine. It was a pleasant neighborhood for an evening walk.

  I kept a block away from Alli, tailing her like a P.I. on TV. It was a thought that made me smirk at myself.

  Alli turned two rights, heading toward a main street. Where was she going?

  She turned off into an alley and crossed the road into the parking lot of a grocery store. I debated what to do, but finally decided to wait outside.

  Waiting, I counted sixteen carts of bagged groceries, three bicyclists dropping coins in the machine outside the front door for Gatorade, five men coming out with a single bag–probably Hungry Man dinners–and one old lady who tottered along on too-high heels, and I ran to help her carry a watermelon to her car. She tipped me a whole dollar. Nice neighborhood.

  By then, I was bored. Time to find Alli.

  I walked into the store, blinking at the sudden bright lights. And there was Alli, just slipping under the security gates at the opposite door.

  Beep! Beep! Beep! The security alarm blared.

  A uniformed guard grabbed Alli’s arm. “Hey, kid. Where you going? What did you steal?”

  Alli’s eyes bulged large, scared. She held a small bag of chips. Just potato chips, plain, nothing special.

  Heart pounding, I reacted instinctively—knowing even as I did it that I’d regret it later. I ran toward Alli and the guard and stopped in front of them. “Sis, I said I’d be right in to pay.” I tried to sound angry.

  Alli just stared at me.

  “Sorry, officer, I was just trying to lock up our bikes, and then I was coming in to pay.” I pulled out the one-dollar tip I had just gotten. “See?”

  “Hmmm.” The guard wore three gold rings on the hand that held Alli, and he wore a thick gold chain. “You’re brother and sister?”

  Once you start lying, you have to keep on. I punched Alli’s thin shoulder. “We fight like brother and sister, believe me.”

  Still, the gold-rings-hand didn’t turn loose of Alli. He must work here, I thought, to pay for his bling. He didn’t really care about the store; I just needed to bluff him.

  “Different mothers,” I said, trying to think fast. Then, before the guard could say more, I pulled the chips from Alli’s hands, walked over to the self-serve station, swiped the bar codes, stashed the chips in a plastic bag, and fed my hard-earned money into the machine.

  Alli was still mute, a small miracle, but now, the guard had let her go. I marched past her, grabbed her arm myself, and dragged her out with me. She was smart enough not to resist—after all, I was saving her. Without looking back, we hit the open air and ran. Didn’t stop till we were two blocks away.

  I held up the grocery bag. “Okay, explain.”

  “Why should I to explain to you?”

  “Because I just saved you.”

  “I was hungry.”

  I groaned. Porter wasn’t feeding her? “You’re being stupid. Do what Porter asks and you’ll get fed.”

  Alli jerked the grocery bag away from me and hung it on her arm while she opened the chips bags and started stuffing it in. “You don’t understand. I don’t have any chores at all.” Through loud crunchy bites, she explained about the maid, the eating out and the laundry. “Got everything covered, except Mr. Porter misses his nephew, who went off to college this year on a golf scholarship. Thought he needed another kid. Except he’s not used to a kid who needs to eat.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “There’s no food in the house. Well. Six bottles of pomegranate juice and a jar of stuffed green olives. Well. Four bottles of pomegranate juice, now. And Miss Porter brought home 100 cream puffs from some fancy party.”

  “Ugh. I hate pomegranate juice, but cream puffs are good.”

  “Yeah, the first five or six are good. The next dozen can make you sick of them.”

  “Okay.” I reached in and took a chip. “But why steal? You get an allowance from the state. Right?”

  “The first check will come later this week. But Mr. Porter has already said I don’t get an allowance.”

  I studied her thin face. “How did you say you wound up in foster care? What happened to your dad?”

  “State couldn’t find him. Not after he got out of the army.”

  “Did you ever try to find him?” I asked. “Surely with the Internet, you could look for him. If he’s still alive.”

  “Me? No. He didn’t care enough to find me, so why should I look for him?”

  “To get out of this.”

  “He should look for me.” Her voice was hard now. She shook out the last of the chip crumbs and licked the salt from her hands. “I think Mr. Porter will buy groceries tomorrow. I hope.”

  “And after that, what else will he forget to do for you?” I was really, really, really going to regret this. And suddenly everything about Marj swept back over me. My parents had been unwed teenagers. They gave me up for adoption right away. There I was a nice new baby, and I should have
been adopted by a nice family who really wanted me. Instead, for some reason that no one told me, the first family didn’t adopt me. At age two, I had to move to a new house and a year later to another and two years later to another. I blinked hard, and took a deep breath. “I can help. But I want something in return.”

  Alli’s brow wrinkled. “You want me to mess up the Bread Project. Right?”

  “No.” I had to be careful what I said here. “I changed my mind. The Project is a good way to honor my dad. I need you to help make the Bread Project a success.”

  Now, she stared. “Yeah, right.”

  I started walking down the sidewalk, back toward the Porters, avoiding her doubt. “It’s true. I was just scared to try before.” I chewed my bottom lip, aware of how weak that sounded.

  “Really,” she said. “What happened?”

  Maybe she would understand. Maybe another foster kid was the only one who would understand. But I still couldn’t explain. “Look, Griff, my dad thought up this project. But he died this summer.” I tried to swallow, trying to bottle up my feelings. To get time with Marj, I had to make this project work. But I didn’t have to hang my feelings out for everyone to see. That part was for me alone and I would shove away anyone who tried to see inside. “Marj thinks this is a good way to honor him. We talked tonight and now I understand her better, and I agree. We need this project.”

  She stopped under a streetlight. “You wanna try that again. What really happened?” Then, her head snapped around to look directly at me, her eyes glittering in the streetlight. “Oh. You called her Marj, not Mom. You are a foster child, too.”

  Funny how foster kids recognize each other. Nothing on the outside to say I’d been a foster kid. But you can feel it. Maybe it’s something about the hunger on our faces when other kids talked about family.

  I clenched a fist to keep it from trembling. “No, I’m not a foster kid. Griff adopted me this year.”

  “And with Griff gone, Marj isn’t sure she wants to adopt you.”

  When Alli said it so bluntly like that, it sounded even worse. I ducked my head and shoved my hands in my shorts pocket and walked, the slap of my flip-flops echoing my bouncing emotions. Anger. Longing. Anger. Longing.

  Alli was matching my stride again, when she clutched her stomach, and I heard it growl. Suddenly, she burped. An innocent burp.

  We looked at each other and suddenly, we both laughed.

  “Look, Sis, it’s easy,” I finally said. “I make sure you get back-up in dealing with the Porters. Food. Whatever you need. And you help me make the Bread Project work.”

  “Done.” Alli stuck out her hand to shake. “I get help when I need it. You get help on the Bread Project.”

  My arms were frozen to my side. Could I trust her?

  Impatient, she said, “You think I don’t care about anything, but you’re wrong. Decent food is my goal today. And tomorrow. Just making it through one day at a time, that’s my goal.”

  If Alli had said she cared about my problems, I wouldn’t trust her. But making it through one day at a time was an honest thing. “Done,” I agreed and shook her hand.

  BREAD PROJECT: WEEK 1

  ELIOT

  I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t trying to please someone.

  Well, maybe with Griff—I didn’t have to try to keep him happy. Maybe if Griff was still here, I wouldn’t be trying so hard to please Marj. Because I was trying very, very, very hard to please her.

  That night, Friday night, I set my alarm for 6 a.m.

  For four hours before Marj got up, I worked in the yard. Quietly. Using Griff’s old push mower.

  “It’s slower,” Griff told me the first time we did yard work together, “but it cuts clean, and the grass grows better.” He spent an afternoon teaching me how to sharpen the blades.

  By 9 a.m., I had all the lawn cut, the shrubs trimmed, and the leaf litter from the flowerbeds bagged. I even cleared out the vines and mess at the back of the yard, something Griff had meant to do this summer. I picked up all the foliage and bagged it, too, while slapping at bugs and scratching where they bit. Finally, I stacked all the bags by the front curb and went in to shower.

  By 10 a.m., I smelled like soap. I scrambled eggs, toasted English muffins and made coffee. Then I put three rose buds–the last of the summer–and a length of vine in a vase and arranged it all on a tray. I tiptoed to Marj’s room and knocked.

  “Come in.” Then, leaning up on an elbow, Marj asked, “What’s this?”

  I used my most cheerful voice. “Saturday morning breakfast.” And I watched her carefully. Would this please her?

  “Well. Thank you.” Marj yawned, then rubbed her eyes, then rubbed her nose, like she was trying to rub off freckles. She stretched, stood, opened the window curtains, and sat on the window seat in her pajamas, blinking at the bright light. I put the breakfast tray on the nearby table and sat in the extra chair and watched.

  Marj sipped coffee, then looked outside. She glanced at me, and then back outside.

  “You do all that?” She waved at the tidy yard.

  “Yes.” Nervous, I waited for reaction.

  “Wow, it looks great. Thanks.”

  Her words weren’t much, but her face relaxed, and she smiled directly at me. It made me smile right back. Pleased that she was pleased.

  “When did you do it? Why didn’t I hear you? I would have come out and helped.”

  I explained about Griff’s push mower and the hand tools for cutting shrubs. “I can do the yard work myself.”

  Marj’s forehead wrinkled, but she said nothing.

  I wanted to press her right then, to get her to say that if I kept up the yard work, she’d try to make things work. But I had learned: never push an adult into a corner when they might say, “No.” Better to wait.

  I had done enough that morning.

  “Well, I’m going to watch cartoons. May I ask a couple friends to come over this afternoon and practice baking bread? For the Bread Project?”

  Marj blinked, still looking sleepy. “Not today. But tomorrow afternoon, after church. Whatever time you want.”

  ALLI

  Friday night, Mr. Porter abandoned me again. Left me at home watching TV while he went to the grocery store. Wouldn’t let me go and pick out things. At last, the refrigerator had milk, juice, and lunch meat. The cabinets had lots of cans and boxes, things I’d look at later when Mr. Porter wasn’t watching. Just hoped I’d find something I liked.

  Saturday morning, two things happened. First, Miss Brodie-Rock, the social worker, stopped by unexpectedly. Mr. Porter was lucky that he’d just bought groceries.

  Visits from the social worker were supposed to happen about once a month. But the old social worker, Mrs. Thatcher, trusted Ted and Mandy, so after the first year, she only came by three or four times a year. I liked her; she listened.

  Miss Brodie-Rock was large. Chubby-cheeked. But she dressed in a dark business suit and high heels. Professional, she said. She was pretty with perfect hair, perfect nails. But she didn’t listen.

  Mr. Porter had given her a tour of the house, and now we both sat on the kitchen bar stools while Mr. Porter sat at the kitchen table reading his newspaper and drinking coffee and barely listening to us.

  And Miss Brodie-Rock was getting down to business. “What’s this about you calling the Paynes?”

  “I only wanted to know if Mandy was okay,” I explained.

  “I can tell you, Mrs. Payne is fine.”

  “But after the fall, is Mandy okay? Is the baby okay?”

  “Everything is fine. Mrs. Payne is feeling fine.” Miss Brodie-Rock tapped her ink pen on her clipboard. “But you’re not. The Paynes asked you not to call. You called. So, now, this phone number—” She pointed to the house phone on the kitchen counter “—is blocked. The call won’t go through.”

  Ted worked for a telecom company and could easily do things like block phone numbers. He’d done it before for a man he had to fire. I shouldn�
��t be surprised he did it now. But just now, I longed to hear Mandy, hear her say anything. I would even have loved to hear Mandy scolding me because I hadn’t folded my clothes. Or, because I hadn’t put my milk glass in the dishwasher. Or, because I hadn’t brushed my teeth. Mandy was the only mother I knew. I had to know if she was really okay, if her baby was okay.

  But Miss Brodie-Rock had moved on, checking off her list. “Are you doing your chores here?”

  I started to say, “No,” because I didn’t have any. But—here’s the thing: Mr. Porter doesn’t do laundry and hasn’t let me near the washer and dryer that sit in the laundry room, lonely and unused. He bought me four school uniforms and has two cleaned each week, while I wear the other two. Okay, nothing wrong with that. But socks and underwear, I only had four pair of each. He never sent those out.

  When he explained this that first day, I had protested. “I can do my own laundry.”

  “I don’t want you making messes. It’s easier for me this way,” Mr. Porter said. “Just wash them out by hand and hang them in your bathroom.”

  But hand-washed socks never get really clean.

  “Well,” I said to Miss Brodie-Rock, “I know I need to learn to do my own laundry. Maybe Mr. Porter can show me how to use the washer and dryer right now.”

  Miss Brodie-Rock beamed, her chubby cheeks getting as round and fat as tennis balls. “Excellent. I’ll be able to observe you two working together.” She stood up, her heels making the same satisfying click that Miss Porter’s always did.

  Mr. Porter glanced up, then back at his newspaper.

  “Mr. Porter?” she asked. “Let’s do this now, please.”

  “Do what?”

  “You weren’t listening?”

  Mr. Porter looked up, apparently still engrossed in whatever he was reading. He did read the newspaper from cover to cover every morning.