She shook her short, tightly curled hair, and Red could smell powdery hair product under the sharp, cold scent of the wind. Anders’s gray blazer as she ran around to the driver’s side. Fat, angry raindrops left dark spots on Ms. Red hugged her knees to her chest, tucking the candy into her coat pocket. The Mom opened the screen door, leaned out. Affection for her caseworker flickered in her stomach. As always, there was a package of peach gummy candy on the seat for her. The fabric of her skirt was a snapping flag around her knees. Anders yanked open the rear door of her sedan. She didn’t acknowledge the gray-green clouds that had bruised the clear blue of the morning sky. Her caseworker let the screen door slam as she exited. Red hiked up her backpack and stepped from the house without looking back. Anders pursed her black-cherry lips, her fingers tightening on Red’s shoulder ever so slightly. She couldn’t let her wind out, no matter how much it boiled beneath her skin.Ī crash of thunder split the air and The Mom yelped. Across the room, the pages of an open magazine lifted, flapped, and fluttered. Sometimes things just aren’t a good fit.”Ī familiar ache started between Red’s ribs, but then anger, sharp and slick, snaked through her, burying the hurt. “It’s The Mom’s responsibility to protect her children. “We are so sorry about this, like I said before.” The Mom’s eyes were a little too close together, making her whole face look pinched. Still, a smelly backpack was better than the plastic bag she used to carry. All her belongings fit into an orange backpack that-thanks to The Mom’s three boys-smelled like peanut butter and dog vomit. Her voice was as taut and charged as an electric wire. Red released her breath a little, then pressed her trembling lips together. “It just isn’t a good time to bring a foster child into the family.” The Mom glanced out the window toward the thrashing trees. Outside, the storm swelled as Red held her breath. Red’s hair tickled her cheeks like tears, but her eyes were dry. Her fingernails were a bright slash of yellow. The Mom looked at Red, then at her own hands. The Mom said, “It’s not easy being The Mom to three boys, you know.” She did not look at the swollen-faced woman who constantly referred to herself as “The Mom.” In a small living room that smelled of air freshener and dirty socks, Red stood, her thoughts as deep and dark and full of holes as the pockets of her coat. Carved pumpkins rolled and bounced and shattered, their pulpy flesh smearing like paint against the sidewalks. The next minute, the air hissed and whistled, and every leaf was sucked up up up, twirling and spinning. Jack-o’-lanterns smiled from porch steps, their faces so freshly carved that their skin was not yet spongy or speckled with mold. One minute, leaves were crunching under the feet of schoolchildren. Though the day had started clear and crisp, the sky was now dark with rain clouds that churned above the quiet Denver neighborhood. The more she swallowed down her own storms, however, the angrier the sky above her became. Clouds that twisted between earth and sky like a wet rag being wrung out. Red’s mother shared air currents and chaos. Some moms pass along their freckles or their laugh or their flat feet.
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