Feels Like Falling - Kristy Woodson Harvey Page 0,14

just because I was broke again. But because I had always dreamed that I would save up and get Phillip out of here. I checked out books on autism at the library, read articles on the computers there about his medicines, techniques to help him control his anger, exercises to help with his dexterity and his emotional responses. I knew he was in there. I had always known it. I would get him out one day. I would give him the life he deserved.

But, damn, how was I going to take care of him now?

Me and Charles, we’d talked about getting him out a couple of years ago. But Elizabeth, she’d come down from Indiana and said, “How are y’all possibly going to take care of him? We can barely take care of ourselves.”

Except, well, Elizabeth could. She was real lucky. Her very first foster family was a nice, rich one. They had one kid they’d adopted when he was a baby, and they hadn’t planned on having any more, but Elizabeth, sweet and smart and pretty and helpful as she was, she’d won them over right off.

They put her through private school and college. She’d married a guy who’s a lawyer, thank God, because, good as Charles grew up and nice as his wife and kids are, the boys—well, you can’t escape genetics. They’re always getting a drinking ticket or smoking a little pot in the park. Nothing dangerous, but they seem to need a lawyer more often than not, so it’s a good thing we’ve got one in the family.

I’ll always love Charles because, as soon as he turned eighteen, he got himself a job, and he went to court and tried to get me back, out of my latest foster home, bless his heart. He didn’t win, but I’ll tell you what, I’ll never forget that.

Phillip turned his head to look down at me, as he said slowly, “Hi, Diana.” Then the best thing in the world happened: he moved his hand on top of mine. Some days he wouldn’t look at me, wouldn’t talk to me, would back away if I tried to lay a finger on him. But not today. Today he put his hand, pale from years without the sun, on my tanned one, and I squeezed it quickly as he put it back in his lap. I looked up into his green eyes, just the same as mine. Irish twins. Irish eyes too. When I looked in his, I was looking into my own. I think that’s what got me most. But while my face was starting to line around the eyes and mouth from smoking and stress and too little sunscreen, his was as smooth and unlined as a child’s.

I cleared my throat and stood up and said, “Buddy, that hair looks like a squirrel tail on a windy day.” I got a comb out of my purse and fixed his thick chestnut hair for a few minutes longer than it took to get it straight because I thought it must feel good to have somebody take care of you. I knew it’d feel good if somebody’d take care of me. He didn’t try to stop me. Just like me, he had a few grays at the roots, but nothing to speak of, nothing noticeable enough to give away his real age.

I sat down in the chair beside my brother. “I’m never going to leave you, Phillip,” I said. “Not ever.” And then I said the thing I said every time I visited, the one I wondered if he knew, the one I wondered if he believed: “I’m going to get you out of here one day. And me and you, we’re going to be a family again. The way we were supposed to be.”

The promise made me happy, but it made me sad too. Because I’d had dreams, big ones. I’d known real love and had high hopes for a family of my own. But now, broke and alone and past my fortieth birthday, I had to face the fact that my brothers and sister were all the family I was ever going to have.

* * *

I can’t tell you why I drove from Cape Nursing to Gray Howard’s house. It’s not like me. I’m the kind of girl who stands real still in the background and doesn’t make too much noise so nobody’ll notice she’s there. But when I saw Gray’s address on the outside of that envelope at Meds