Alone in the top bunk at night without the sleeping sounds of other kids, I tossed for hours. I dragged a blanket from the bed and made a nest on the hallway floor outside the open door to their big bedroom, and that worked, until the morning the dad tripped and fell over me, banging his shoulder into the wall so loud he cursed. I stayed in the bunk after that, glad when other kids were in the house for a few days, sometimes a week or two. Joellen asked again and again if I was happy, and I told her I was. Because it was true.

At the park one afternoon two boys beside me on the swings saw me wave to the mom, sitting on a bench with some other moms, and she waved back. She did not look like me, and one said, “Is that your nanny?”

“She’s my foster mom.”

The kid frowned. “What is that?”

“It’s when you steal something, your parents send you to someone else,” the other boy said, swinging high with authority, and turned to me. “What did you steal?”

“I didn’t,” I said. I wished Joellen was there. The swing chain was rusty, my hands were turning orange.

The first boy jumped from his swing and landed hard in the sand. “What do you call her?” he asked.

“I call her Linda.”

“Right. So she’s not your mom.”

“She didn’t have me from her body,” I recited. “I live with her, and she takes care of me.”

“Oh.” The kid nodded. “She’s pretending to be your mom.”

“Sort of,” I said. Wasn’t she?

I dragged my toes in the dirt to slow myself and got off the swing.

More weeks passed in their house, which smelled perfectly neutral and was always a comfortable temperature. Other kids stopped coming, and one Saturday the mom and dad moved the bunk beds out of the bedroom and brought in one big bed, just for me. Brand-new white sheets and a comforter printed with flowers and leaves, with a pillowcase to match. I helped them make the bed, and we stood together, admiring our work.

“Are you going to adopt me?” I asked.

“Yes,” the mom said. “That’s the plan.”

I jumped on the bed like a trampoline, and they didn’t get mad.