They allowed the boy to live with them until his eighteenth birthday. Wasn’t that kind of them? they asked. Besides, they said, no one else was rushing to look after him. Even his own sister didn’t want anything to do with him, the woman added with a self-satisfied smile.
He could only nod while looking down at the small suitcase at his feet. It contained every last one of his possessions, and still had room to spare.
‘I have to leave?’ he asked.
‘Time to stand on your own two feet,’ the man said.
‘The charity we told you about will make sure you’re okay,’ the woman said. They were holding hands, standing in front of him like a twin barrier. Matching expressions. Eyes empty of care.
He took a step towards them. Just a small one.
In unison they backed away.
The part of him that had watched and waited all these years felt the thrill of their reaction. He caused them worry. They were actually a little afraid of him.
Good.
But the part of him that had obeyed all these years shrank. He could feel his lower lip trembling. He was being discarded. They’d thrown out an old sofa the previous week with about as much emotion.
They’d taken him round to his new place a few weeks back. A large house split into what amounted to bed-sits. Space enough for a bed, a table, and a kitchen small enough to fit into a walk-in cupboard.
The windows were all barred. The doors were as heavy as if they were armour-plated.
‘Well, isn’t this cosy,’ the woman had said, the momentarily startled look in her eyes giving the lie to her statement.
He would have his independence there, he tried to tell himself.
But still, even though the couple had treated him harshly, their attention was all he knew.
There had been good times, once. Long before the couple.
But he barely remembered them.
A mum and a dad.
They were always fighting and drinking, and calling him nasty names, but still. They were his mum and dad. Then there was a big sister and bigger brother. Watching cartoons. Plates heaped with beans and toast, and eggy bread. And chips. And the occasional glass of Coke.
Then his big brother died.
Whispers swarmed around his head. Conversations ran into the brick wall of him entering a room. His sister was no help. She pretended to be in the know, but knew as little as he did.
His mother wore the same set of clothes for months, arms permanently crossed over her black cardigan as if that might contain the grief.
Desperate for information, for any detail at all, he began to creep around the house, pausing at doorways for long moments before entering, sure that he’d catch some snippet of information.
Then his father got lost in the bottle. Many, many bottles. Killed his mother and himself, in a twisted echo of his eldest son’s passing: drunk driving on the way to Danny’s graveside on the anniversary of his death.
That was then.
Now was more important.
His foster parents turned to leave. No hugs. They didn’t do contact. Of any kind.
No encouraging words.
But he had silent words for them.
Sleep well tonight, he thought. But sleep with one eye open.