N O N F I C T I O N
Foster
DANIELLE GRAY
T
HE FIRST HALLOWEEN I remember, I was living with my mother again after a few years in foster care. I was four years old, three months into Headstart, and she bought me a witch’ s costume from the corner store that we walked to for her cigarettes. I wanted the lime green leggings that came in a separate package, but she said they were too expensive. Instead she bought me my favorite candy— watermelon Laffy Taffy— and her Quinto cards. I balanced on the curb as we walked back, nibbling all the black seeds off the candy while she scratched off losses.
Our block of government housing was a neat U across the street from the bus stop, all yellow houses with brick bottoms, matching doors and tiny windows. Inside, I knew, each one had an identical layout: living room and kitchen with a narrow utility hallway between, a staircase with a small landing at the bottom, and two bedrooms upstairs. The brown shag rugs in the living rooms were all the same, though caked with different things— ours had Amanda’ s melted crayons and the glass from that time Gary threw her into the TV, and Miss Caroline’ s next door had globs of cat fur. The secret of the houses, the real difference, was that each bathroom was a different hideous pastel. Ours was a ghastly green the color of Colgate toothpaste; Ricky two houses down had Pepto-Bismol pink. As we stopped at each house in the arch, making our way from the safe side of the street to where all the big kids lived, I imagined all the colors that might lie in those bathrooms upstairs: frosty blues and gentle lavenders, an orange the color of milky vomit.
My legs were cold when the sun went down, but I didn’ t want to tell her. The plastic pumpkin in my hand was light, only half full with candy, and Amanda was quiet in her arms. The foster mother had been a worrier, always calling
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