I remember thinking about jumping over the railing a few times. I didn’t think anyone would truly care if I was gone. Emma though? Emma is looking at me with her hand out and with a broad smile, like she’s trying to convince me to join them.
My back is turned to whoever took the picture, but my eyes are on her. She never gave up on me. She was always there when I needed her, even if I didn’t know it or appreciate it at the time. The guys all complained when she had it framed, but she looked at me, and I knew then that she was different. There was no fakeness about Emma.
Snapping out of my memories, I walk into the kitchen. She doesn’t turn to greet me as she unpacks bags, but she knows I’m here.
“I got cookies and cream ice cream, and some brownie pieces. I know it’s not the same as mine, but honestly, I don’t feel like making any this late. Oh, and there’s some whipped cream.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask and immediately regret it.
Emma freezes, and she slowly looks at me over her shoulder. Her dark eyes still scare me a bit, but not in an ‘she’s about to beat the shit out of me’way, but more of a‘I have no idea what she’s about to make me do, but I know it won’t be pleasant’sort of way.
The first time I got that look, I had broken a window. It was an accident, but I was still a shithead then. When she came out to see what had happened, I told her it wasn’t ‘my fucking fault the thing was flimsy.’
The guys all looked at me and stepped back. No one came to my aid. Her eyes flashed at me, and I thought she would beat my ass, but she didn’t. That was the thing about Emma.
She never raised her voice or hand to us. Not once. She didn’t have to. We knew she meant business just by the look we got. I learned that day exactly why. I shudder at the memory.
Emma sits on the floor outside the bathroom, watching as I clean Kash and Rhett’s mess, gagging the whole time. “This is disgusting and unfair. There’s gel stuck to the counter, and toothpaste globs all over the sink, and don’t even get me started on the toilet.”
She makes a face at me and smirks. “Yeah, but at least it’s not fucking flimsy, right?”
I level a glare at her, but don’t say anything.
“So, did you learn anything yet?” she asks me.
“Yeah. Kash and Rhett are pigs.”
Looking around the bathroom, she nods. “You aren’t wrong there.”
I also learned to watch myself after that. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. For her to yell at Kash for coming home past curfew, or for her to take away Seth’s access to the gym we turned the basement into when he messed up, but she never did.
One night, Rhett came home after getting into a fight at school. Someone made fun of him for being a foster kid, called him and the rest of us trailer trash. It got physical fast. A bunch of teachers had to pull them apart, but not before he broke the kid’s nose and got suspended.
Emma was quiet on the drive home. Rhett later admitted to us that the whole way home, he was expecting her to wig out. She kept muttering things like “Little motherfucker,” and “Won’t even see it coming,” and “Don’t even live in a trailer.”
She dropped him off, told him to wait in his room and that she’d be back. I took him an ice pack and kept him company. He just sat quietly on the floor next to his bed, staring at the wall. It was one of the few times I saw him look sad.
When she got back, Emma called us into the kitchen. She was sitting at the head of the table. There were pizzas and sodas waiting, sending us into a flurry of panic.
Emma didn’t usually buy takeout. It was reserved for whensomething was going on, and she was too stressed to cook. We braced ourselves for her to tell us she was sending Rhett back for fighting.
“I will say this one time, and one time only. Then we’re moving on,”Emma starts. “If anyone, and I mean anyone, ever says anything about you being in foster care, no one loving you or wanting you, I expect something from you.”
“You want us to walk away?” Kash asks in a quiet voice.
“No, I want you to beat their ass, unless it’s a girl, obviously don’t hit her; maybe put a stink bomb in her locker instead.”
We look at each other in shock. She is telling us to beat people up when she breaks up our fights all the time.
“But, Emma…” Seth starts.
“No buts, Seth. None of you are unloved. None of you are unwanted. If that were the case, you wouldn’t be in my house. Just because you came from families that didn’t take care of you or want you, does not mean that I don’t want you. That I don’t love you.” She takes a deep breath.
“I could never have kids of my own. You guys know that. My ex-husband didn’t feel like wasting his best years on someone like me, and that’s on him. When I found out I couldn’t have kids, I approached him about fostering or adopting.
“My ex-husband didn’t want someone else’s problems, as he called them.” She shakes her head, and I feel myself getting angry all over again.
First for Rhett, and now for Emma. We all knew she couldn’t have kids, and it was a big part of her reason for fostering, but I didn’t know about her piece-of-shit ex.
