I get a family. A real one, the kind I've only seen on television and in other people's lives.
And I don't know what to do with it.
The first few months are the hardest, an agony of waiting for everything to crumble. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Rosalyn's smile to turn cold the way Mrs. Henderson's did, for Mitchell to come home drunk and angry the way Mr. Henderson always did.
I flinch when doors slam, my whole body going rigid with muscle memory. I eat too fast at dinner, shoveling food into my mouth even though there's always enough food. Rosalyn keeps telling me gently toslow down, that seconds and thirds are always available, that no one is going to take my plate or steal my food.
I hide food in my room, crackers and granola bars tucked into my dresser drawers even though the pantry is always full and I know that I don't have to be hungry in this house. But knowing something and believing it are two different things.
I still sleep with Jay's note under my pillow, the paper soft and fragile from years of handling. I still recite his information every night before I fall asleep, whispering the words into the darkness.
Rosalyn finds me once, about three months after I arrive. I'm sitting on my bed with the note in my hands, tracing the shaky letters with my fingertip. I didn't hear her knock, didn't hear the door open, and suddenly she's there in the doorway with a basket of clean laundry balanced on her hip and a sad expression on her face.
Whatever she sees on my face is enough to make her set down the laundry immediately.
I expect her to ask questions. I expect her to want explanations, to pry into the parts of my past I've never told anyone, to demand to know who wrote this note and why I'm sitting here seven years later still clinging to it like a lifeline. Instead, she crosses the room, sits next to me on the bed, and puts her arm around my shoulders without saying a word.
"You don't have to tell me. But I'm here if you ever want to. Whenever you're ready. I'm here, baby."
I don't tell her. Not then. I can't find the words to explain Jay, to explain what he was to me, to explain why I'm still searching for someone I haven't seen in seven years. But something shifts inside me anyway, some wall I've been holding up for years starts to crack, and I let myself lean into her warmth the way I used to lean into Jay's in the barn loft.
It almost feels like betrayal somehow, like I'm replacing him, like letting someone else care about me means I'm giving up on him. But it also feels like breathing after being underwater for too long, like surfacing after years of drowning.
The Reyes family knows I'm searching for someone. They don't know who or why, but they've seen me at the computer in the living room,hunched over the keyboard late at night, typing the same names into the same search engines month after month.
Rosalyn asked once, gently, if I wanted to talk about it, if there was anything they could do to help. I said no and she didn't push, didn't demand, just squeezed my shoulder and told me the offer stood whenever I was ready.
This is my search. My responsibility. I have to be the one to keep it. I have to be the one to find him.
I turn seventeen in the Reyes house. Birthdays are a big deal in this family, I've learned. Rosalyn makes a cake for every single one. She asks what flavor you want and she makes it from scratch, no box mixes, no store-bought frosting, spending hours in the kitchen the day before. Mine is chocolate with buttercream, and I don't remember telling her that's my favorite, but somehow she knew anyway, the way she seems to know everything about all of us without being told.
The whole family gathers around the table on the evening of September twenty-third, all the foster kids and even a few neighbors who've become extended family over the years. They sing happy birthday, loud and off-key and wonderful, and I sit there frozen, unable to process what's happening.
They give me presents wrapped in paper with bows—a new jacket from Rosalyn and Mitchell because my old one was getting too small, a book about electrical systems from Mitchell because I'd mentioned wanting to learn more, a card signed by all the kids with crayon drawings inside.
I've watched this happen for everyone else. I knew my turn was coming. But actually sitting there, surrounded by people who are treating me like I matter, like my birthday is worth celebrating, like my existence in the world is something to acknowledge with cake and candles and wrapped presents—it feels like watching it happen to someone else. It feels like a dream.
I say thank you because that's what you're supposed to say. I smile because that's what's expected. I blow out the candles and make a wish that I've been making for years now, the same wish every time, the only wish that matters.
Let me find him. Please, God, if you're there, if you're listening, let me find Jay. Let him be alive. Let him be okay. Let me find him.
I start thinking about the future around this time, which is something I've never really done before, something that never seemed possible. When you're a foster kid bouncing from placement to placement, the future is a luxury you can't afford to consider. You think about surviving the day, the week, maybe the month if you're lucky.
You don't think about what you want to be when you grow up because growing up seems like something that happens to other people, people who have families and stability and reasons to believe tomorrow will come.
But the Reyes family makes me think about it. They make me believe that maybe, just maybe, I have a future worth planning for.
Mitchell works in construction, has been doing it for thirty years, and he talks about his job with a pride I've never heard from an adult before. He builds things, he tells me. Houses, offices, schools. Tangible things that will outlast him, that will shelter people and serve communities long after he's gone. There's something beautiful about that concept, something that makes me want to build things too, to create something lasting in a life that's been nothing but temporary.
I start asking questions. Mitchell answers them patiently, thoroughly, the way he answers everything, never making me feel stupid or burdensome. He tells me about the different trades—plumbing, HVAC, carpentry, electrical. He tells me about apprenticeships and certifications and unions. He tells me about the satisfaction of working with your hands, of fixing things that are broken, of making things work that didn't work before. He doesn't push me toward anything specific, just lays out the options like a map and lets me find my own path.
I choose electrical work. I like the logic of it, the way circuits follow rules that never change, the way you can trace a problem back to its source and fix it if you understand the principles. I like that electricians are always needed, always working, always able to find a job no matter where they go.
I finish high school with decent grades, nothing spectacular but good enough. The Reyes family comes to my graduation—all of them,even the little ones who fidget through the ceremony and don't understand what's happening. Rosalyn takes so many pictures my face hurts from smiling, from holding the expression for so long. Mitchell shakes my hand afterward and tells me he's proud of me, and I have to look away because the words hit me somewhere deep and vulnerable.
I stand there in my cap and gown, holding a diploma that says I completed something for once in my life, and I think about Jay. I wonder if he finished high school. I wonder if anyone came to his graduation, or if he walked across a stage alone, or if he even had a graduation at all.
I wonder if he's alive.
