Three More Words

  “Night-night kiss?”

  I blew one from the door.

  “I had a better time than I expected,” Erick said as we drove back. I insisted on leaving before breakfast, blaming a ton of homework, which was true.

  “Really? I found most of what Lorraine said irritating. She pretended everything between us was normal—when it was bizarre.”

  Erick stopped and bought bagels to eat in the car. “Lorraine seemed to like me.”

  “Yeah, maybe too much,” I said, then laughed.

  Erick paused for a few seconds, then said, “She is more accepting than Phil or Gay.”

  I glanced at him, suddenly tense. “Why do you say that?”

  “They want you to date guys who are going to be doctors or engineers or dot-com millionaires,” he said. “Your mother didn’t ask me a single question about school or jobs or even where I lived. At the Courters, it’s like the Spanish Inquisition.”

  “It’s not that she didn’t ask you about your future—she didn’t care, because she only thinks of herself. If you listened, she was all ‘me, me, me.’ She had no interest in my courses, or my friends, either. I was just an ornament for her to show off.”

  “That’s harsh.”

  I felt a river of lava rushing through my veins. “She may look like mother of the year to my sister, but she was never there for me!” I exploded. “She left us in foster care because she’d rather hang out with drug dealers—or worse. How hard would it have been to get a job and an apartment, and take a free parenting class? Why couldn’t she stay off the streets and out of jail when she had two kids who needed her?”

  “Okay, okay.” He lifted both hands from the steering wheel in surrender. “But you have to admit she’s trying to do better for Autumn, and she’s reaching out to you.”

  “It’s way too late for that,” I seethed.

  Erick opened his mouth to respond, but I ended the discussion. “You can’t understand it, because you didn’t live it.”

  A few weeks later Lorraine called again. “Hey!” she began, as if I heard from her all the time. “Can you come for Thanksgiving? My brother Sammie will be in town.”

  I had first met my uncle and his family when I had attended a drama camp at Duke University and visited them on the way home. I liked them so much I invited them to my high school graduation, but I wasn’t about to miss the Courters’ feast and traditions.

  “Thanksgiving is a major deal at our house.”

  “Autumn keeps asking for you.”

  “I’ll get back to you.”

  Every few years my birthday falls on or near Thanksgiving, and we celebrate with cake and gifts while everyone is already gathered for the holiday meal. If I went with Lorraine, this would be the first Thanksgiving away from the Courters, and I would miss seeing the whole family. Impulsively I dialed Erick. He had called several times since the trip, but I hadn’t replied to his messages. Iris even asked me why I was avoiding him, and I told her to tell him that I’d been slammed. But now that I had a decision to make, I wanted his opinion. Was that using him? We had our deal, and I figured I was showing him that I respected his judgment. Okay, so I felt a little guilty because I sensed our feelings for each other were lopsided. But were they really? Maybe he was dating other people too. I had convinced myself that I wasn’t taking advantage of him by the time he said hello.

  “Sorry, I have several papers due and I’ve been studying for exams,” I said before telling him about my Thanksgiving dilemma. “I feel torn.”

  Erick hesitated before saying, “Why are you willing to bend over backward to please Lorraine, who was never there for you when you needed her most?”

  “I thought you liked her,” I said, surprised.

  “I simply said she wasn’t as bad as you made her out to be.”

  “When I asked Gay, she made it sound like she didn’t care if I went to Lorraine’s or not.”

  “That does sound like Gay to me,” Erick said with a chuckle. “She knows that if she pulls you in one direction, you’ll run in the other.”

  I laughed. Just because he stood by quietly didn’t mean he didn’t understand the undercurrents around him. “Gay’s just trying to support your choices,” Erick added. “You could compromise.”

  “How? I’m not King Solomon’s baby.”

  “You could have Thanksgiving with my family!” He laughed. “Just kidding.” He lowered his voice. “Why don’t you do what you want to do—not what you think you should do?”

  “Isn’t that selfish?”

  “Whose birthday is it?”

  Erick’s perceptive points cleared my head. I made my excuses to Lorraine.

  And when Lorraine’s inevitable Christmas invite came, I had a ready answer. There was no way I was going to miss decorating our huge tree, hanging with my friends and brothers on Christmas Eve, eating cinnamon rolls and bacon in the morning, having the fun of seeing everyone open the gifts I’d sweated over, and enjoying my haul of perfectly picked and handmade gifts.

  Erick agreed to come to our house after his family’s Christmas lunch. When Blake, Josh, and Phil started playing bluegrass, he picked up an extra guitar and joined in. To my delight they played harmoniously together.

  “Why don’t you play one of your band’s songs?” Phil suggested.

  “Can you plug this thing in?” Erick quipped.

  For the first time he seemed to fit into our family, and he seemed less tense. I was suffused with warm feelings and began imagining him at the house more and inviting him to events on campus. Then I felt my cell phone vibrate in my pocket and glanced at it. It was a text from Aiden. I flushed as I read: WHEN MOST I WINK, THEN DO MINE EYES BEST SEE. He had just taken a Shakespeare course—was that from a sonnet? With Aiden everything was a game, which was fine, except it left me unsure if he felt as drawn to me as I did to him. I looked over to where Erick was fixing the capo on the guitar. I adored the way a lock of hair fell over his eyes and his shy, sideways glances. I was never confused about how he felt about me. I realized it wouldn’t be fair to get more involved with Erick when I was so attracted to Aiden.

  Yet how could I be excited by this simple text when Erick was only a few feet away, and he had made the effort to actually be present with me? I’d also been intrigued by other guys during the first few weeks of the fall semester, although most didn’t have an iota of Erick’s integrity. I tried to take Gay’s advice and date the kinds of guys I thought would impress her and Phil. But none of them were as kind, doting, patient, or uncritical as Erick. Was I just too worried about what other people thought? Now Aiden . . . I could see myself with him way into the future, possibly moving to DC, each of us working on our own political causes. Like Gavin, Aiden also loved the spotlight. He would be one to run for political office rather than just support a candidate. Erick, on the other hand, preferred to let me shine.

  I felt warm and safe with Erick, yet I didn’t have the same zingy thrill that I’d had every time Gavin touched me; I also didn’t have the same churning anxiety as when Aiden was seen someplace and he hadn’t invited me along. I didn’t try to interpret Erick’s double meanings, because there were none. Erick’s words were simple and his affection as encompassing as his smile. Cleverness was Aiden’s calling card. He loved to leave people—particularly me—wondering exactly what he meant. Being with him was like walking the deck on a ship. You were never sure if you would find firm footing with the next step and had to keep reestablishing balance. That was exciting, but also unnerving, because when I was with Erick, I couldn’t shed a nagging feeling—imagined or created—that I should be with an altogether different “type” of person. Someone who wasn’t just kind and comfortable: someone who was immediately impressive. Trying to focus on the long tunnel that led to the future, I wondered whether a life with sure-and-steady Erick would become boring.

  4.

  my brother’s keeper

  There is a little boy inside the man who is my brother. . . .

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; Oh, how I hated that little boy.

  And how I love him too.

  –Anna Quindlen

  Some people fall in love almost instantly. The Courters knew they were meant for each other after only three days; my brother Josh saw his wife, Giulia, walking toward him across a warehouse, and they made an instant connection. With Erick, my love for him grew like a seed slowly sprouting underground, where I wasn’t even conscious of its first tender roots. It was more like the love Gay described to me after the adoption: one that wasn’t instantaneous, but would come with shared experiences, both good and bad.

  Erick was very family oriented. He and his brother Ian, who were two years apart, had grown up as best friends, then bandmates, and finally housemates. He’d never been separated from his brother for any real stretch of time until he was an adult, while I had lived on and off with mine throughout foster care until I was adopted.

  Most families cannot imagine splitting a brother and sister for a few weeks, let alone for a lifetime. There are even foster care laws against doing it, although there are all sorts of exceptions ranging from bed capacity to how the siblings get along. The first rift came the day our mother was arrested, when I was three and he was an infant. Luke and I were placed together six times and separated seven. There were “reasons” for each change, but you don’t have to be a psychologist to know any child would be wounded by having the bond between brother and sister so regularly disrupted.

  Luke, being younger, needed me far more than I did him. He clung to me the way Harlow’s infant monkeys held on to fake wire monkey mothers in his attachment experiments. I felt an obligation to protect my brother—from callous foster parents, from bullies, and from his own reckless ways. Our worst time together had been at the Moss home. There, he received the most sadistic punishments. Mrs. Moss slopped hot sauce down his throat and held him underwater in the bath—letting him breathe at the last second in her version of waterboarding.

  By the time Luke was seven, he was deeply disturbed and needed the therapeutic environment The Children’s Home provided. Our Guardian ad Litem, Mary Miller, insisted we be reunited there with the goal of being adopted together. However, families who wanted me were unwilling to take my brother. While the adoption counselors had approved of the Courters for me, my parents did not feel they had the energy or skills to take on Luke. Then a younger couple who lived in the same county became interested in Luke, and both families agreed to facilitate our relationship. I was relieved that we could have a connection without worrying that he would ensnare me in his troubles. Unfortunately, Luke was viciously mean to his pre-adoptive mother. When he tortured her miniature poodle, they realized they weren’t equipped to raise him.

  After Luke moved back to The Children’s Home, the Courters insisted we visit him at least once a month. “Do we have to?” I complained.

  “He is so lonely for you,” Gay said.

  “But he’s always clinging and jumping on me. When I lived at the cottage, he bit my arm and it bled!”

  My feelings about Luke were like foul-tasting soup. The basic broth was my love and deep affection, but every time I saw him he added some rotten ingredient that repelled me.

  “Luke hungers for someone to nurture him like a mother—but that’s not your job,” Gay said. “Don’t feel guilty. You’re not the one who let him down.”

  Five years after my adoption and after Luke had lived in Florida’s foster care system for fourteen out of his fifteen years, I learned that someone wanted to adopt Luke. Ed Kemper had served in the military and taught handicapped children—both seemed ideal training for Luke. By then I was driving and made the routine monthly visits, now to Ed’s, on my own. Luke was more obnoxious and more physical than ever. He pretended to playfully poke, punch, and squeeze me—but his jabs hurt; he was not a little kid anymore.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t continue to visit so much,” I said to Ed privately. “It’s a long trip, and I have a tough schedule at school this year.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Ed said. “We need more father-son bonding time.”

  Luke had a trust fund from our lawsuits against the Moss family and the State of Florida. While my passage through foster care had been horrible, his had been far worse, and he received a much larger settlement that could help pay for his special needs, especially to continue his psychological counseling. Ed enrolled Luke in a horseback-riding program that proved to be therapeutic. He showed off his ribbons for jumping and loved taking care of the big, majestic horses. “I’m getting my own horse, just like the king!” Luke announced when I visited after he came back from a summer birthday trip to England with Ed, where Luke turned seventeen.

  “England has a queen,” I corrected. “I can’t wait to see you ride.”

  The first time I went to the stables, Luke was wearing the traditional jodhpurs and riding cap. Sitting up straight in the saddle, he looked like he had been born to an aristocratic family in a grand home.

  “Watch this!” he called from the ring. He trotted to an outer circle, spurred his horse, and easily made it over a jump. I clapped enthusiastically, as he patted the horse’s neck. “My trustee said I can buy a horse,” Luke said.

  “He has to keep his grades up,” Ed added.

  When I left the stables to go home that day, Luke was too busy in the ring to even wave good-bye. For the first time since I had been adopted, I didn’t feel as though I was abandoning him.

  The summer after my sophomore year, I was headed to England for an extension of a Shakespeare class that I had taken that semester. Erick joined me in Scotland after my course, and he turned out to be the perfect travel companion. We were gone for almost a month and never became annoyed with each other—even under stressful circumstances when we were hungry, soaking wet, lost, or exhausted. When we returned, I was to start work at a Tampa television station for the rest of the summer. Erick and Ian had just moved into a small three-bedroom house only ten minutes away from my job, along with Ian’s puppy. Erick suggested I move in with them. We had gotten along so well on our trip; I’d agreed to try it until it was time to go back to the dorm.

  My relationship with Luke had dwindled to visits on his birthday in July and at Christmas, but it included random phone calls and texts from him, almost always complaining about Ed’s unfair rules, being dumped by a girl, or hating school.

  On the Fourth of July, Erick and Ian were busy, so Nikki and I drove up to Crystal River to be with our families.

  “I tried to get Ian to come up later for the fireworks, but apparently the Smith family picnic is some big-deal tradition,” Nikki said.

  I didn’t contradict her, although Erick had said something about going out with the band members that evening. I wasn’t worried about Erick, but Ian had a more flirtatious nature.

  Nikki began humming along to a rock song about romance on the radio. “Ashley, are you in love with Erick?”

  “Good question. I really can’t tell,” I said honestly.

  “How can you be so cold? Erick is so good to you.”

  “I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to love a guy the way you love Ian. Sometimes I think that the whole foster care thing damaged some crucial love circuit. I’ll probably never get married.”

  “Never say never,” Nikki said.

  Nikki and I had invited some of our friends to come to my house to swim in the pool, eat barbecue, and climb onto our roof to watch the display being blasted from the fireworks barges. The last of my guests left at midnight, and I was on my way to my room when my phone rang. It was another one of Luke’s late-night calls. I decided to ignore it. In a few seconds it rang again. “Why do you always call so—” I started to say, answering.

  Luke was screaming, “I’m gonna kill myself if you get any closer! No! Stop it! Don’t hit me! No!”

  I rushed downstairs. Phil was brushing his teeth, and Gay was sitting in their bed reading a book. I put the phone on speaker. “Luke, it’s me, Ashley. Luke! Do you hear me?”

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; “Yeah!” His breathing sounded like he was running.

  “What’s happening, Luke?”

  “He’s going to kill me!”

  “Who?”

  “Ed and me were fistfighting, and I grabbed a knife to get him to back off.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Down the street from my house.”

  I heard sirens. “Are there cops?” His next words were covered over by a crunching sound. “Luke! Where are you?”

  “Behind some bushes,” he whispered. “I can’t live like this. I’m going to slit my throat.”

  “No, Luke, that’s crazy talk.” I heard a whirring sound. “What’s that?”

  “Wow, a chopper!”

  Phil was standing by me and listening to what could have been the soundtrack for Law & Order. He gestured for me to keep talking.

  “Luke, listen to me, you know I love you, right?”

  “Then why don’t you ever visit me?”

  “I’ve been busy, but I’m coming for your birthday in a couple of weeks, or I could come sooner if you want.”

  Luke began sobbing.

  “What happened, Lukie?”

  “Ed sold my horse! He sold my friggin’ horse! I hate his guts.”

  I heard shouting coming closer. “Hold on, Luke. You’ll be eighteen in three weeks! Ed won’t be in control any longer.”

  “But my horse!”

  “Come out of the bushes, son!” The voice sounded like it came from a megaphone.

  “Luke, we’ll talk about that later, but you’ve got to do what the cop says.” Tears were running down my cheeks now. Phil handed me his handkerchief.

  Gay held up a notepad. She had printed: PUT HIS CELL PHONE ON SPEAKER!

  I said, “Lukie, put your cell phone on speaker.” He didn’t respond. “Please, Luke, please.” No response. I looked helplessly at Gay. She mimicked holding up two hands high in the air.

  “Luke, here’s what you are going to do. You’re going to put your cell phone on speaker and hold it up in the air. Okay?” I heard Luke panting. “Are your hands in the air?”