Pieces of You(59)

I should have taken Linda Coldwater’s advice.

I think back to the conversation I had with my professor yesterday and I can’t believe I allowed myself to get so emotional in front of someone who holds such a large piece of my academic career in her hands. I’m a complete emotional wreck lately. Linda insisted that she didn’t quit her job as a caseworker because she didn’t enjoy it. She insisted that she loved the job, and the children she worked with, too much.

“It’s no secret that it’s a tough job. You can see that from watching any damn movie about orphans,” she said as she leaned back in her desk chair. “What you don’t see in movies and what most people who’ve worked in this job won’t tell you is that there is very little you can do for these children other than placing them in decent homes and performing thorough inspections. What happens the moment you leave a foster home or when they leave your office is not up to you.”

That’s about where I lost it. Then Linda handed me her business card with the name and number of a campus therapist scrawled on the back.

If I had had someone there to watch over me during the eight years I was shuffled through the system, I might have found a forever home sooner. I think back to all the homes I came through to get here, to Jackie and Chris.

When I was eight years old, I was placed with an artist, his wife, and their two young sons who were toddlers. They had a nice home in a quaint suburb where he painted mock-ups for large-scale murals. I was fascinated by these paintings, until he picked me up to set me on a stool, to watch him paint, and he accidentally touched my butt. I punched him and kicked down the stool and threw a hellish tantrum until they called my caseworker.

Eight years of these episodes. It’s no wonder my caseworkers hated me, and any wonder how Chris and Jackie got through to me.

Jackie sits at the table in the breakfast nook going over some paperwork, probably bills or something for the bakery. She looks up at me over her reading glasses and I feel like a child about to be chastised, full of shame and guilt over my indiscretions.

“Sit,” she says, pulling out the white wooden chair next to her.

I sit down and resist the urge to launch into a long apology. Jackie hates excuses and she doesn’t want to hear that.

“Jackie, I know you don’t hate me, but I can’t bear the idea of you being disappointed in me.”

She pulls her eyeglasses off and looks me in the eye. “I’m not disappointed in you. I’m hurt that you didn’t feel you could come to me.” Her eyes begin to water and my chest tightens. “Even if you and Chris aren’t together, you will always be like a daughter to me. You’re the little girl I always wanted but couldn’t have.” I make no effort to stop the tears once hers begin to fall. “After Chris was born, I had three miscarriages and it tore my marriage to his father apart. When Michael left, I gave up on finding unconditional love in a man, so I decided I would give unconditional love to those who needed it most.” She grabs my hand and my body shakes as I attempt to keep from sobbing. “I’m not angry with you. I love you, unconditionally.”

She stands from her chair and beckons me into her arms. I rise and we hug for a while as she strokes my hair and rubs my back.

“So are you ever going to bring this boyfriend of yours here to meet us?” she asks and I freeze.

“Boyfriend?”

She lets go of me and looks me in the eye. “You don’t have to pretend, honey. Rachel and Chris already told me you have a boyfriend. I want to meet him.”

Shit.

“I don’t have a boyfriend. Chris just assumed we were still together, but we’re not. He’s in Hawaii right now for business, anyway, so he wouldn’t have been able to come.”

“For business? How old is he?”

“Twenty-two.” It dawns on me that Adam’s birthday is coming in just a few days. October 10th. He’s going to be twenty-three.

She narrows her eyes at me. “So you don’t have a boyfriend?”

If I were being honest I would tell her that I don’t have a boyfriend, but that I desperately still want Adam to be my boyfriend. I miss everything about him. My heart and body ache for his voice, his jokes, his touch.

“He’s not my boyfriend anymore, but I miss him. His name is Adam.” I want to say that he brought me back to life, but I don’t want to drop too many bombshells on Jackie today. “I think you’d really like him.”

The look of sympathy in her eyes makes my heart squeeze in my chest. “Well, I hope for your sake that you two can work out your differences.”

I nod as Chris shuffles in on his crutches. I don’t tell her that Adam and I don’t have differences, we have distance—too much distance.