“Don’t write that.”
Christopher laughed and started writing again. Making him smile or laugh was better than winning the lottery, although she’d have a lot more time to make him laugh if she did win the lottery. She glanced over his shoulder as he wrote. His writing was getting really good. Even a few months ago he was misspelling about every other word he wrote. Now it was just every fourth or fifth word. His reading and math skills were improving too. That hadn’t been the case last year when he’d been shuffled between half a dozen foster homes. This year he had a steady living arrangement, great therapists, and Lucy tutoring him every weekday after school. His grades had been stellar ever since. If she could only do something about those bad dreams and his terror of ringing phones.
She knew what he needed, and it was the same thing she wanted for him—a mother. Not a foster mom with two sick babies who demanded every minute of her day. He needed a forever mom, and Lucy wanted to be that mom.
“Lucy, how much money do you have in your wish fund?” he asked while printing his name carefully at the bottom of his letter.
“Two thousand two hundred dollars,” she said. “Two-two-zero-zero.”
“Whoa…” He stared at her with wide eyes. “All scarf money?”
“Almost all of it.” Scarf money and any babysitting job she could get. Every day she thought about going back to waitressing, but that wouldmean never getting to see Christopher, and he needed her more than she needed money.
“How long did that take to make?”
“Two years,” she said.
“How much do you need?”
“Um…a little bit more.”
“How much?”
Lucy hesitated before answering.
“Maybe two thousand,” she said. “Maybe a little more.”
Christopher’s face fell. The kid was just too good at math.
“That’ll take you another two years,” he said. “I’ll be nine years old.”
“Maybe less? Who knows?”
Christopher dropped his head onto the letter he was writing to Carrie in Detroit. Lucy went over to him, lifted him out of his chair, and held him on her lap. He wrapped his arms around her neck.
“Squish,” she whispered, hugging him tightly. It would be two years until she was his mother the way things were going. At least two years.
“We’re gonna get there,” she said softly, rocking him. “One of these days, we’re gonna get there. You and me. I’m working on it every single day. And when we get there, it’ll be you and me forever. And you’re going to have your own room with boats painted on the wall.”
“And sharks?”
“Sharks all over the place. Sharks on the pillows. Sharks on the blankets. Sharks driving the boats. Maybe a shark shower curtain. And we’ll have pancakes for breakfast every morning. Not cold cereal.”
“And waffles?”
“Waffles with butter and syrup and whipped cream and bananas. Real bananas. Not paper bananas. Sound good?”
“Sounds good.”
“What else are we going to wish for while we’re wishing?” This was Lucy and Christopher’s favorite game—the wishing game. They wished for money so Lucy could buy a car. They wished for a two-bedroom apartment where they both had their own rooms.
“A new Clock Island book,” he said.
“Oh, that’s a good one,” she said. “I’m pretty sure Mr. Masterson is retired, but you never know. Maybe he’ll surprise us one of these days.”
“You’ll read to me every night when I get to live with you?”
“Every night,” she said. “You won’t even be able to stop me. You can put your hands over your ears and scream, ‘LA LA LA CAN’T HEAR YOU, LUCY,’ and I’ll keep on reading.”
