Page 98 of Coast

“The arrows are just for the babies. There were dozens of other kids that came and went. Older kids. Teens. Most of them were pros at foster homes, so they mostly took care of themselves. But I did hang with them. I did hear their stories. I did write down names to look into when I was older.”

“Why? I mean, I get that what these people did was awful, but why did you feel like you had to be the one to do something?”

“Because who the fuck else was going to? That boyfriend who’d been touching the girls? He was a cop. And the other copsdidn’t want to believe their comrade could be capable of that. It went nowhere.

“Other parents nearly starved their kids to death, but got to get custody back.

“There were addicts who were so busy getting high that they didn’t know their baby had diaper rash that made their skin peel.

“There was one case where there was a newborn and a two-year-old in the house. While the baby was in the NICU, they took off on a bender, leaving the toddler in the house to dehydrate to death.”

“Oh, my God,” Zoe whimpered, pressing a hand to her chest.

“Yeah. They went to prison. We got the newborn when it left the NICU. But both parents got out when the baby was twelve.”

“What? Shouldn’t they have been doing life?”

“The lawyer got the sentence down from aggravated homicide to negligent. Lighter sentence. My sentence wasn’t quite so lenient when I finally tracked them down and found them up to their old tricks.”

“So, all the tallies, they’re for people who abused kids that you took care of?”

“Not all of them, no. Most of them, though.”

“Honestly, I get that. I ran over that man last night. Sort of. I think. I would have done worse. I was practically feral with the desire to protect my daughter. And, in a way, those foster kids, those wereyourkids. Even if just for a little while.”

I never really thought of it that way.

In the thick of it, yeah, I mean, I was doing all the care tasks: feeding, changing, playing, treating sickness, bathing, putting everyone to bed, doing the cleaning and the laundry.

Then, almost as soon as one child or group went to new foster homes or back to their families, another child or group appeared.

There was no downtime to really think about the whole situation.

Looking back, though, yeah, she was right. Those were my kids. I didn’t just do the tasks because I had to—though I did—but because I cared. You couldn’t take care of someone day in and day out and not become attached. I slept on the floor near their beds or cribs when they were sick. I stressed when they were struggling with school. I worried about their happiness and my capabilities.

And, yeah, it felt like a little piece got chiseled off my heart each time one of those kids left.

“How did it eventually end?”

“It went on for years. I dropped out at seventeen. Took jobs here or there when I could because the kids needed shit that their checks weren’t paying for.

“Getting out more, exposed me to the shit I was missing, to how fucked up the situation was. Around that time, my dad’s affairs were getting outta control. And my ma was getting more and more outta control. I thought she was just boozing more than ever. Until I found a meth pipe in her drawer.”

“Each time I think it can’t possibly get worse,” Zoe interrupted.

“This is the home stretch. At the time, the house had seven foster kids. Which was fucking insane. The limit for kids in the house—including biological kids—was eight. So we were maxed out. And at the time, the oldest was eight. There was a set of twin three-month-olds, toddlers. It was too much. I’d had enough.

“So I did the only thing I could to finally end it. I contacted DCF with an anonymous tip about my mother’s drug use. And empty cabinets. Then I spent the next few days making sure there was nothing left in any of the cabinets. Got rid of all the evidence of food after each meal.

“Sure enough, the knock came one day. Random check. The lady had been pissed about the cabinets for sure. But then she went upstairs with me following behind, holding both babies, to find my mom so fucking high that there was no denying she was on something.

“The kids were immediately removed.”

I remembered the guilt of that night, the way one of the toddlers clutched my pant leg, the way another’s lower lip had wobbled. How the babies immediately went fussy in the arms of DCF workers.

“You did what you thought was best for them,” Zoe said, giving my leg a squeeze again.

“Did I?” I asked, glancing over at her. “Or did I just do what was best for me?”

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