Three Little Words Read Free Page A

fact that Mrs. Hines was packing only my possessions.
    When the worker arrived, Luke was napping. I was bundled into the car. “What about my brother?”
    “He has to take his nap,” the worker said. “You’ll see him later.”
    It took several days before I realized Luke was not coming to my new foster home, which was nowhere near my grandfather’s house. I wondered what was so horrible about me and why I had been rejected again. Then there was my perpetual question: What had I done that was so terrible that I had to be taken from my mother? I had no idea why she hadn’t been able to get me back. You would think someone would have explained it in words a child could understand. Yet nobody did. I believed they were keeping secrets from me—but supposedly, they thought they were protecting me.
    Now I know that—in the beginning at least—my mother never did anything seriously wrong. She never hurt us. She loved us and I adored her. Originally, the police had arrested my mother for writing a bad check; but Dusty admitted he had stolen the checks, and she was released six days later. When my mother returned home, she found our duplex padlocked. Three weeks after Dusty was let out of jail, they arrested him again for attempting to steal cigarettes from a food store. My mother moved to a new apartment but had lost most of our possessions. Although she submitted applications for food stamps and aid for dependent children, the welfare officials told her that she was ineligible because her children were no longer living with her. When she tried to get us back, the caseworker said she had to be able to provide food for us.
    Two months after we were placed in temporary shelter care, Judge Vincent E. Giglio officially ordered us into foster care. We were now state property. Our legal guardian was the executive branch of the Florida government, an entity that would rather pay strangers to care for us than offer any economic help to my mother to care for her own children.
    My fourth mother was Yolanda Schott. Other than running around in some orange groves, I have no memory of my time with her. I would still like to know why the Schotts took me in—and why they let me go after such a short time. Maybe it was a temporary placement until the state could find something better; or maybe the Schotts did not like me either. The blankness bothers me, as does the fact that there is not a single person who can fill in that part of my story.
    Next, I moved to the home of Julio and Rosa Ortiz and stayed with them for thirteen months. They lived in a Tampa neighborhood where the houses were only a few feet apart. Their small backyard included an aboveground pool as well as a chicken coop. The Ortizes had three teenage birth daughters and four adopted children, plus a constant stream of foster children. Some were there for only a few days; some came before me and stayed longer. At least twenty children cycled in and out of the home while I was with them. There were so many of us that we ate in shifts. It was hard to feel alone, but still I missed Luke.
    “Can you go get my brother?” I asked Mrs. Ortiz, who looked like a Hispanic Mrs. Claus, one day during dinner.
    “Okay,” she said to hush me.
    “When?” I demanded, and kicked the table leg.
    “Ashley, go to your room until you can calm down,” she said.
    I turned my back to her and stormed down the hallway to the bedrooms. As I got closer to the babies’ room, I smelled something putrid. Peering in, I could see that a toddler had smeared poop all over the wall. I slammed the door to the room, which caused the baby to wail.
    Hearing the baby’s piercing screams, Mrs. Ortiz came rushing. “Ashley, what did you do to the baby?”
    “I shut the door because he stinks.”
    Mrs. Ortiz opened it and rushed to comfort the child. Her shoe slipped on something soft, and she wheeled around and gave me an accusing look. “Ashley, how could you do something so disgusting?”
    “I