Page 51 of Paint the Town, Dove
“They don’t love you?”
It was such a pointed question that I was taken aback. For once, I didn’t know what to say – how to respond to something I…
To a question I didn’t know.
And could that not be the answer, then?
That myparentsdidn’t love me?
What even was love?
I knew it wasn’t lifting Sinead off the carpet, glass embedded in her foot, her hands.
I knew it wasn’t switching the stained yellow bedding from their room every night because there was vomit and tablets sewn into the duvet.
I… I did those things for them because they couldn’t do it themselves.
But maybe they could? Maybe they just asked me to because they knew I was more reliant? More mature?
Maybe they did love me?
[Maybe I loved them more.]
“Scarlett?”Emory whispered, nudging my shoulder.
Now it was me holding back the tears, pushing them away violently as they fell. “They have to love me.”
Theyhaveto.
It was an obligation. They had me.
They wanted me.
It wasn’t –
They have to.
Maybe Emory knew I was lying to myself. But she didn’t say anything.
I had to change the subject. “Who are you staying with now?”
She took my hand, without needing to express her pity. I didn’t want it. It’s as if she knew that. And she carried on.
I liked her.
“A nice family took me in a few years ago.” Her complexion brightened a little talking to me about them. She took their last name; before it was Diaz. The dad was a banker, the mom a nurse. And who would’ve thought? The mom was actually Filipino as well.
“No way!” I said, giggling. “What a coincidence.”
“Gosh, Scarlett. Alma makes the best chicken adobo,” she smiled.
“I’ve never had it,” I replied. I’d never even heard of it. But she described it so deliciously, I craved something I didn’t even knew existed.
“It’s better now, it is,” her smile was weak, “but sometimes I think about my time at foster care, think about who my real parents are – what we could have been and it makes me sad. It really,” she sighed, “it just sucks.”
I grabbed her hand. “Life sucks.”
“It does.”
