YOU WANT TO LAUGH at them. Maybe even chortle, another word from Lit class.

Because none of them, not the skinny brown-haired one, or the plump white blond one with the crooked teeth, or even that sallow, horrible, tall woman named Georgia, believed you.

They thought you were going to be here forever, like them. Or some of forever, however it works in this foster system, where maybe forever doesn’t even exist anymore, because life is just one house after the next. One plastic cup of warm milk after another.

But there is Karen, stepping out of the State of Arizona car in the bright sunshine and walking purposefully to the heavily gated front door.

She’s like your best damn friend now.

Knocking. You can see her from Kendra’s window, through the bars, and you drag yourself, sick as you feel, but elated, from the narrow bed and throw all your clothes back in the pink suitcase without folding them. You toss a Poison T-shirt over to Kendra, who sleepily rubs her eyes.

The other one, Lisa, Blondie, is already dressed and making her bed. So neat and clean, that one. Hair smoothed flat over her ears, hands tucking the pale blanket under the slim mattress.

She looks up. “You were right,” she says.

She tries to smile, but she’s not happy about it, you can tell. She runs a hand over her bedspread.

And why should she be happy? She has more days, more nights, of bland, boiled food in the middle of nowhere. Black bars on the windows. Lists on walls.

And she thinks all that is good, which makes you shudder, thinking of where she must have been.

Georgia meets you in the hallway. “Well,” she says, gravely, towering over you. “Sometimes I get kids two or three times, you never know. We might meet again.”

She puts a large hand on your shoulder.

“I am very sorry about your mother, Grace.”

Your real name stings a little, mostly because it was reserved for your mother, for those moments when she was pissed, or when she was very, very dreamy and sweet.

You look down, because the ocean is swelling in you again, and you don’t want to believe Georgia means it, but you know she does, because you heard her long into the night last night, praying, and you know she believes some things very deeply.

You feel a little sorry for thinking bad things about her.

But then you remember she made you drink disgusting, overly warm milk, and the sorry feeling goes away.

You push past her, and don’t care that the wheels of your pink suitcase tumble over her white sneakers.

In the back of Karen’s car, as she says, “Ready?” you buckle yourself in and a little part of you wonders if your mother is watching all this, right now, like a movie ghost, but the thought hurts, and the girl-bug behind glass swats it away. You are carrying so many heavy feelings.

There just isn’t enough room for them all.