“You should see his foster family’s house. His bedroom is bigger than my kitchen and living room combined.”
“So?”
“And they’ve bought him all this stuff. Clothes. Toys.”
“Kids don’t care about all that.”
“I know, but…” I can’t say the real fear that’s licking at my insides like some poisonous acid, corroding me. The fear that Dylan might prefer the Fieldings—might prefer Ally—to me, not because of the things they give him, but the security they offer. The love.
I love him, more than they ever could, of course. Way, way more. But now I wonder—maybe too much. Maybe in a way he doesn’t like, even if he couldn’t articulate it, in a way that’s not good for him. Is that even possible? Or am I just being paranoid?
I’m not ready to say any of that to Mike, though, so I just smile and nod. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Look, Beth.” Mike leans forward, endearingly earnest. There is ketchup on his fingers. “Maybe it seems a little awkward between you and Dylan right now, because he’s not living with you, but once you’re together, everything will go back to the way it was. It’ll just take a little time.”
“But things can’t go back to the way they were,” I remind him. “That’s the whole point. They’ve got to change. I’ve got to.”
“Well, yeah, but not too much,” Mike says as he wipes his fingers on a napkin, getting most but not all of the ketchup off. “I mean, DCF’s been jerking you around.”
“The system definitely sucks, but I don’t think they’ve been as bad as I thought they were. I know Susan means well. She’s trying to help me.”
“Well, still.” Mike doesn’t look convinced, but more and more, I am.
“They haven’t been jerking me around, Mike,” I say slowly. “I’m not saying the way things happened was good or even fair, but on some level, I needed this. I couldn’t go on the way I was. The way Dylan was. He needs to go to school, we both need to get out more, and I don’t think that ever would have happened unless…” I swallow hard. “Unless they intervened.” I hate saying that. I hate admitting I’ve been such a screw-up as a mother that I needed someone to take away my child.
But Mike doesn’t see it like that. His face softens and he reaches for my hand, ketchupy fingers and all. I don’t mind. “You can change, Beth,” he says, sincerity blazing in his face, out of every pore. “You already are. You want to be a good mom, that’s the main thing.”
And I try to smile even as I think, is it?
Another week passes—two more unsatisfactory visits with Dylan, where we go to our usual places and feel adrift. Things seem a bit better in the Fieldings’ household, although I never stay long enough to see how they all are. I don’t really want to know. The kitchen is clean, at least, and Emma drifts around sometimes, giving me a vague smile when she sees me.
Ally seems hassled, though, and her face looks older, the lines from nose to mouth deeper than they were even two months ago, when Dylan first came to her, but she tries.
“How are you doing, Beth?” she asks me on a Tuesday in mid-December. It’s well below freezing outside and her house smells of cinnamon. “It can’t be long until the court hearing, can it?”
“January twelfth.” The letter came in the mail yesterday, and the date writ in stark, black letters terrified and excited me in just about equal measures.
To my surprise, Ally grasps my hand. It’s a brief touch, no more than a few seconds, and she looks as surprised as I feel, removing her hand with a little apologetic smile. “I’m sure it will go well for you.”
I nod, not knowing how else to respond. This whole conversation feels weird, almost inappropriate.
“What about you?” I ask. “How is Emma?”
“Oh.” Her smile wobbles and then slides off her face. “She’s okay. She’s not going back to Harvard for the rest of the semester.” I’d already figured that much, but Ally says it as if it’s a death sentence. “She’ll have to redo the whole semester,” she explains at my blank look. “Because she won’t have taken her exams.” Based on what happened, I wonder if Emma should go back to Harvard at all, but I don’t say as much. “And how’s Josh?” I ask, thinking I’m lobbing her a softball, but Ally tenses right up, stiff as a poker.
“He’s fine.”
“Good.” Judging by her response, I think he’s probably not, and I wonder if one day I’ll have concerns and conversations like this about Dylan—a normal teen, struggling through high school and college, adolescence and then adulthood. Will I worry about what friends he makes, what grades he gets? Such concerns feel like a luxury, and yet, for the first time, not entirely out of reach.
“I meant to tell you—I’ve written it in the log I keep. Dylan has started speaking a little. Has he been speaking with you?”
I stare at her, trying to gauge her innocently interested expression, unsure if this is a parry-and-thrust for daring to ask about her children, or if she genuinely thinks he must have.
“Not really,” I say when what I mean is not at all. “What do you mean, he’s been speaking?”
“Oh, just words here and there. He said ‘again’ when I was playing with him, and he’s said a few other words since—yes, goodnight, things like that. His teacher has said the same.” She smiles at me, looking so genuine I have to believe she thinks this isn’t hurting me. “He’s made some other noises, as well—laughing, humming, that sort of thing. Isn’t that good news?”
My throat is so tight and aching it hurts to swallow. “Really good news.” I have to force the words out. It feels wrong of me to be angry and hurt, and yet I am. Why is he speaking with other people, and not with me?