"The Johnsons kept me for three days. Mrs. Johnson cried a lot like Mrs. Klein did. Mr. Johnson kept telling me that my forever family was waiting out there for me. But he never said why they weren't my forever family." Jude set the green car on the nightstand.
“After they sent me away, I ended up staying in the group home for a while. Things were actually a little bit easier there. With so many boys running around, no one really noticed when I forgot to pick up my shoes or if I lost my jacket or if I was struggling to keep up with my schoolwork. I guess I was around ten when my social worker showed up one day and said there was a family who wanted to adopt me." Jude shook his head toward the last car. "I actually begged her not to make me go. It wasn't like I made any friends in the home or anything like that. It was just…" He shook his head again, seemingly at a loss for words.
"You could just be you," I offered.
Jude looked at me in surprise and then slowly nodded. "Yeah, yeah, that's it exactly."
"Did they ever test you for ADHD, Jude?" I asked.
I knew my instincts were right when Jude began fiddling with the little car in his hands. He ultimately nodded his head. Everything fell into place as I considered his use of sticky notes and his inability to focus on multiple things at once.
"But it didn't happen for a couple more years. I ended up going to live with the Pearce family. They already had a couple of their own kids and wanted to adopt a couple more. I didn't give them a chance."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"As soon as I got there, they handed me the car," he said bitterly as he studied the car in his hands. “I just kind of lost it, I guess. I don't really remember how much damage I caused, but by the time my social worker got me back to the group home, she’d painted a picture of what my life was going to be. Loser, a degenerate… she was right."
"No, she wasn't," I automatically said. Jude actually smiled before he carefully placed the car on the nightstand.
“She was. I got it into my head that I’d be better off on my own. I started stealing from the people who worked at the home. A couple of the other boys told me how I could make a lot more money.” Jude laughed and said, “I guess they thought I had some kind of obsession with cars.”
It took me a minute to understand what he wasn’t saying. “They suggested you steal cars.”
Jude nodded. “They knew a guy who’d pay us cash for them. One of the kids showed me how to jack a car but when I tried to do it by myself, I couldn’t remember all the steps. Almost electrocuted myself when I put the wrong two wires together.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Got caught my first time out. The prosecutor wanted to try me as an adult which would have meant a lengthy prison sentence, but the judge disagreed. He gave me a chance to clean up my act. I could either go back to the group home and keep my nose clean or spend the next several years in juvie. It was a pretty easy decision. I managed to clean up my act. My plan had just been to skate by until I was eighteen and then get the hell out of there, but my case worker had different ideas. She was the one who’d figured out the ADHD thing. She also discovered I was dyslexic. She changed my life," Jude murmured as his eyes took in the neat little row of cars.
I was so overwhelmed by the amount of information Jude had shared with me that I didn’t know what to say, but I realized pretty quickly that silence wasn’t the best approach.
"You can go now, I'll be fine," Jude said out of the blue as he began to shift his weight on the bed. I recognized the move for what it was. He’d shared something incredibly personal with me and was either now regretting it or fearing what my response would be. In Jude’s mind, running was the logical next step. I wasn't surprised when Jude climbed unsteadily to his feet and said, "That guy will be out there by the door all night,