before she was married. So I spent a lot of time during grade school going from foster home to foster home.” I smiled slightly. “I was kind of a dorky looking kid, ugly with a face full of freckles, and big glasses that never really fit my face right. And I was angry. God, I was so damn angry at the entire world. I was mad because nobody loved me, but I wasn’t exactly a loveable kid, either, and I tended to get in a lot of fights, which would usually end my stay in yet another foster home. I’d end up slugging another foster kid or one of my foster parents’ biological children because they teased me, so off I’d go to start all over again. By the time I was eleven, I was completely convinced that nobody could love me, and that I’d never have a home like most of my friends did.”
“What happened?” Hudson finally spoke in a raw voice. “Tell me.”
“I’d just gotten booted from my latest home, and I didn’t want to go back to foster care again, going from house to house,” I explained. “So I ran away. I did what I had to do to eat. I stole food, slept wherever I could, until one morning, I met Mac Tanaka. It was a weird, random thing that changed my entire life. I was sleeping on a bench, and he was just strolling through the park. He sat down and talked to me for hours, and then he took me home with him. Looking back on it, I think we were both lonely. He and his wife had never been able to have their own kids. When Mac’s wife died, I don’t think he knew what to do with himself. He used to say that I saved him, but he actually saved…me.”
“So you stayed with him?” Hudson asked, sounding relieved.
I nodded. “We were probably an odd pair, an eleven-year-old girl, and a guy in his seventies, but I don’t think either one of us cared. Eventually, I started to trust him, and he officially made me his foster daughter. He and his wife had fostered before, but he’d stopped once she passed away. Mac started teaching me chess and Tai Chi so I could learn to be at peace with my world, and I cooked and did the laundry because he was really bad at both of those things. I learned to love, and what it was like to be loved by a parent figure. Mac changed my life, and he changed me. When he died seven years ago, I felt like my entire world was falling apart.”
“Maybe it was,” Hudson said stoically. “It sounds like he was your entire world.”
“For a long time, he was,” I agreed. “He wanted me to go to Stanford when I was eighteen, but I wanted to stay with him because he’d just been diagnosed with cancer, so I got a full-time job as a cashier in a grocery store. I put my Stanford acceptance on hold because Mac needed me, and I needed to be with him. Treatment was unsuccessful, and he passed away.”
“I’m so sorry, Taylor,” Hudson said roughly. “The only things I really knew were how your parents had died, and that you were moved around from foster home to foster home. Words on a page. I knew you’d eventually gotten permanent placement, but I had no idea who that foster parent was. Now that I know exactly what happened, I can only imagine how devastated you must have been when Mac died.”
“I was. It tore me apart. It took me a year to get back to school, but I knew I’d be doing something Mac really wanted for me, and it was something I wanted, too. He left me everything he had, which wasn’t much by the time his life was over, but it helped me get through some of my college years.”
“Did he adopt you?” Hudson said curiously.
I smiled. “He wanted to, but that piece of paper didn’t matter to me. He was a parent figure to me in every way that really meant something.”
“Sounds like an incredible man,” Hudson said sincerely.
“He was. He was amazing. And wise. He may not be with me physically anymore, but I’ll carry his wisdom with me for the rest of my life,” I answered, my voice trembling with emotion.
“You loved him like a father,” Hudson stated.
“With all my heart,” I said, my voice catching. “Even after