She knew better than that. Kids in care get our credit stolen and screwed with all the time. Birth parents, random CPS workers—they have our Social Security numbers, everything. I check mine twice a year on free websites at the library. Thankfully, still nothing.

“I don’t know.”

“Muiriel. Somewhere along the line your mother needed help. But instead of getting help, she was trapped into an impossible situation and made the only decision she knew to make. Now, if the government that we all pay taxes to had deemed helping your mother a priority, things may have turned out differently.”

God, she gets it. She knows.

“Okay. So that means I have to have a phone?”

“It means they’re pitifully reimbursing you on the back end. This money is the government saying, Sorry we didn’t help your mom take care of you in the first place, but here’s some money so someone else can do it, and part of being taken care of means you having a phone, so here you go. You kids get screwed around every which way, and a little money for a phone to keep you safe and let you text an emoji to your friends once in a while is a small consolation, but it’s all they’re ever going to offer, so I say take it.”

She was as angry as Joellen. Mad. Maybe as mad as me.

I could not stop the warm rush of affection that surged into my chest.

Still, the idea of the constant connection, this obligation, made me nervous.

“But everyone will have my number, and when I leave I’ll have to get a new one. That’s just confusing.”

“And that is you being ridiculous. Quit grasping at straws—it’s a phone, not a tracking device.”

“It kind of is. I’ve heard about Find My Friends.”

She got up and brought me a bowl of tomato soup and buttered toast.

“People can learn new numbers. I won’t make anything worse for you. I promise.”

Normally that word makes me preemptively furious. Promise.

It didn’t sound so bad when Kira said it.

Sounded okay from Francine, too.

In the bedroom I unlocked the phone and opened the photos.

Francine and me at the table. Then twenty-three close-ups of Terry Johnson napping.

—

The movie theater was small and old, near the water and walking distance from Francine’s, so we did. Sean and I. To go out. Not a date. He came to pick me up wearing jeans and a gray sweater. I was nervous in my new pink one, black leggings, and a skirt. Hair up. Eye makeup from Kira. Francine hugged him, asked how his mom was doing (Great, thanks), and put Terry Johnson in his arms.

“What time is the movie over?” Francine asked.

“Ten-thirty.”

“Okay, so home by eleven.”

“Yes,” I said. “Home by eleven.”