By the time he finished his tea, we had it all planned out. He asked if I wanted to wait until after the graduation ceremony and I said no, that I didn’t care about wearing a hat and robe and walking with the other students. Okay, he said, then he would pick me up on Sunday and we would drive up together. He gave me a thin volume called Teaching School: A Handbook to Education on The Farm and asked me to read it. He said, “Mila, I have a good feeling about this. I think you’ll be a perfect fit with all of us.” And I told him I had a good feeling about it, too. And I told him that I felt lucky, and he said, “You are lucky. We all are.”

And then he left.

____________

Had we been telling the truth, he would have said, The place where I’m sending you—it looks beautiful, but it’s haunted.

Okay, I would have said.

It will bring everything back. All that you tried to bury.

I understand.

It’s going make you want to do bad things.

I have experience with that.

And how did it turn out?

Terribly. But I promise to do better this time.

We could have had that conversation—it would not have been impossible. I would not have told him everything about me, but I would have told him enough. I still would have taken that four-hour drive up the jagged coastline to be with Terry and Julia and Billy and Liz and Lee and the rest of the children. All I’m saying is it would have been easier had I known.

welcome

FROM MY UPSTAIRS BEDROOM WINDOW, I watched for Nick’s shiny black car. Once it appeared, I stood and set my cell phone on the windowsill. I didn’t expect Amy and Jonathan to keep paying the bill, and there was no service where I was headed anyway. I took one final look at the room from the doorway—drawers empty now, bed stripped—and then I went downstairs.

I said goodbye to Amy and Jonathan and promised to send letters as we loaded the little I owned into the trunk.

“I hope the baby is sweet,” I said to Amy. Her eyes darted away, but there was nothing for her to feel guilty over. They had let me live in their house for three of the four years I had been in the foster system. They’d given me a nice room and cooked me food and talked with me and bought me everything I needed. It was nobody’s fault that we didn’t fall in love. They were young and they wanted a baby.

“I mean it,” I said.