7
Maddox
There are over a dozen people at our Thanksgiving dinner. It’s always weird to see how many other kids the Millers have fostered over the years, but it’s kind of cool too. They’re all basically strangers, but since we all had the same foster family, it’s like we’re all siblings in a way.
Axel is my biological brother, obviously. Clara, who is four years younger than we are, isn’t genetically related to us, but since she grew up with us in the Millers’ house, and lived here before we came and after we left, Axel and I consider her our sister too. We would do anything for her, the same as we would for each other. They say blood is thicker than water, but when it comes to Clara, or the Millers, for that matter, it’s not true. They are my family, just as if we were all bound by blood.
My parents died when Axel and I were eleven years old. They were junkies, and they both died of an overdose after a dealer sold them something that was cut with too many chemicals for their systems to handle. As you can imagine, Axel and I didn’t have the smoothest childhood before that anyway. Ever since I can remember, both of our parents had always been fucked up on some drug or another. It’s why neither Axel nor I will touch anything stronger than alcohol. It’s not so much a conscious decision, it’s more like an engrained aversion, thanks to the way we grew up.
Although it was normal and all Axel or I knew at the time, looking back I can see that we lived in squalor. All four of us lived in a cramped, one-bedroom apartment. My parents had the bedroom, where they would get high all day in between jobs. Axel and I shared the living room, where we had a trundle bed and would take turns sleeping on the top mattress.
Our parents often forgot or didn’t have enough money to go grocery shopping (although they always seemed to find a way to score drugs), so there were plenty of times that Axel and I went hungry. With no one to really look after our hygiene or wash our clothes or anything, we often went to school dirty, and other kids made fun of us. When our elementary school had a lice outbreak, everyone blamed us. “The smelly West boys gave us bugs! Don’t go near them or you’ll get their germs!” they would say. Needless to say, we weren’t exactly popular.
The teachers seemed to have an idea of what was going on, and some took pity on us. Our second-grade teacher, Mrs. Minnow, used to let us stay after school with her while she graded papers in the classroom. She would always give us a snack, usually too much for us to eat at once, so we would take the rest home. Sometimes, she brought us little treats like puzzles or new socks. She told us not to tell the other kids because then they would all want to stay after school and she would never get any work done, but she said since we were such good, quiet boys, we were allowed to stay. Even when we moved up to third and fourth grades, she let us stay after school with her. I realize now that Mrs. Minnow was an angel, sent to spare us from having to be around our junkie parents any longer than we had to be.
I will never forget her kindness. I even looked her up after Axel and I got the business up off the ground and started making a real income. I anonymously sent her some money—repayment, in my mind, for all the time she spent with us when she could’ve been home with her husband.
Others were not as kind as Mrs. Minnow. After our parents died, Axel and I went into the system and moved from foster family to foster family for a few years. Sometimes, we even had to be split up and sent to separate families; that was the hardest of all. A few of the families were nice, but couldn’t let us stay with them for too long. Others were terrible, abusive, and just signed up for foster care for the check. Some were addicts like my parents.
When Axel and I finally landed at the Millers’ house, we knew not to get too excited. Even though they were warm and friendly, and we had a cute little foster sister who assured us the Millers were nice (Clara was ten when we met her), we didn’t expect it to last long. Either they would show their true colors or we would get moved to another family when they decided they could no longer care for two teenage boys.
But slowly, we began to trust the Millers. I took a little longer than Axel, who warmed up to them quickly, despite my warnings not to get too attached in case we just had to leave again. But the Millers got us through our high school years and let us stay with them over the summers and breaks after college. For the first time, even before my parents had died, it felt like we had a real family.
And Clara just made our family that much more complete. It was cool having a little sister around. She has always been smart, spunky, and funny as hell. Clara, too, had been in and out of the homes of different foster families before ending up with the Millers. Some of her horror stories of the bad foster families she used to live with were even worse than ours.
The other people that come to Thanksgiving were all foster kids of the Millers at some point. The Millers have always kept foster kids for as long as possible, only relinquishing them when their parents were able to regain custody or they were adopted. Although Axel, Clara, and I were never legally adopted, the Millers made it clear that their home was ours and that we could stay, and come back, as long as we wanted.
Although one or two of the other former foster kids here were under the Millers’ roof at the same time as we were before getting adopted or returning to their parents, most of them were before or after our time. I guess it’s like having siblings who are significantly older or younger than you—you share the same parents and similar experiences but didn’t grow up together.
It’s cool, though, to see how many people our foster parents have helped over the years, and to connect with others who have this one huge thing in common with me.
Axel and I are deep in conversation with a man who had lived in the house before Axel and me, when in walks Clara with Madison trailing closely behind her.
Shit.
I had no idea Madison would be here, and I have no clue whether or not she told Clara about what had happened between us at the sex club.
We lock eyes across the room of people. I take care to make my face expressionless, even though I’m reeling on the inside.
Why is she here?
She’s never come to Thanksgiving dinner at our house before. I had no reason to think she would show up. Normally, at the Millers’ house, I’m relaxed and comfortable, even with all of the extended family and the other foster kids. With Madison here, I feel myself tensing up. I want to leave, but it would be too weird, not to mention rude and hurtful to Kay and Roger.
I try to read her face as we stare at each other, but I can’t tell what she’s thinking. Finally, I break our eye contact and return to the conversation with Axel, determined not to let Madison’s presence get the best of me.
We manage to stay far away from each other the entire afternoon. When she approaches Axel to say hello, I run off to help Kay in the kitchen. When I pull Clara into a bear hug, Madison walks into another room, pretending to check her phone.
It’s difficult to ignore someone when she’s all you can think about.
Even when I can’t see her, I can feel her. I can sense when she’s standing behind me, when she enters or exits the room, when her eyes are on me. Every time I hazard a glance at her, she’s staring at me, then looks away quickly.
She looks stunning, of course. She always does. Or, at least, she always has ever since she was a teenager. She’s in a green dress that, although it’s far less revealing than the one she had on the other night at the club, is still plenty sexy. Something about her being more covered up is even hotter somehow; it makes me want to rip her clothes off even more. And green is definitely her color. It makes her eyes sparkle like gemstones.