who to be… I’ve lost my way, and you’re not here to help me find it. Mom is mad, and I understand. She’s done so much for me and this path… the one I’m on… isn’t one she would have chosen for me. I just… I…” The tears are flowing freely now, and my throat is burning. I rummage in my purse for a Kleenex and pat my face, trying not to smudge my make-up.
“This baby is coming, and I’m lost. I can’t ask Mom to take care of two of us. It’s not fair, and it isn’t what I want. I need to be out of that house to have a chance at mending our relationship. And the boys, your foster sons, they want to be there for me, but I don’t know what you’d think of that. In your letter, you told me that they’d always be there to take care of me and that they’d made that promise to you. You told me they were good men and that I can trust them, but I’m not sure. Trust is something that doesn’t come easily to me, and that’s something you’ve left behind. They want to take care of the baby and me, but they want more too. I know you knew about Danna, and maybe that’s what you thought when you wrote those things, but you weren’t explicit, and now I have to try and guess if me being in a relationship with eleven men would be something that you’d want for me. It seems like a crazy thing to even think and to be honest, I’m not sure I deserve them. How can I be enough for eleven men when I wasn’t enough to be your daughter? I ruin everything I touch, and I… I couldn’t bear to ruin things with my foster brothers. They want me to help keep them together, but there’s a big chance that I could do the opposite. There’s a big chance that my mouth will run away with me, and I’ll fracture my relationship with them and their relationships with each other. And the baby… the baby will love them, and I’ll be hurting the baby too. Don’t they deserve better? Don’t they deserve to go off and live their lives? To find a chance to fulfill their potential… the potential that you helped to nurture. They don’t need to be saddled with or forced to walk the path that I’m on. They didn’t ask to be daddies or for all the responsibility that comes with it.”
I sob into the tissue, my whole body shaking. “Just… you have to tell me what to do, Dad. You need to give me a sign, any kind of sign that this is my future. Is this whole thing just a temptation I should reject, or is this a test before I reach my prize? Please… just tell me.”
A breeze starts to blow, rustling the leaves on the trees that edge the cemetery. Overhead, a bird calls. A more faithful person than me might take those as signs, but I don’t have faith. It was squashed out of me when I was at a tender age, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get it back.
Behind me, someone clears their throat, and I almost jump out of my skin. When I whip my head around to see who it is, I find Gordon and coming up behind him, the rest of my foster brothers.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, swiping at my wet cheeks and scrambling to my feet. It’s mortifying that they’re seeing me like this.
“Walter told us you were here. We wanted to see you… we need to talk.”
“I… I can’t, okay. This isn’t a good time.”
“This is a perfect time, Maggie. I heard what you said. You think that you’re going to be a burden to us and that we somehow feel indebted to your dad. You think that we’re asking you to be with us because we pity you, and that isn’t right.”
Trey steps forward, his eyes meeting mine with more warmth than I deserve. “This isn’t about pity, Maggie. We’re not asking for you to be with us because we feel obligated. Yes, Dad wanted us to look after you, and we want that too, but don’t you understand that we’re being selfish? We want you for ourselves, and we’re not willing to let you go and make some other lucky guy happy. We want that happiness for