Page 4 of Roundabout

None of us need to point it out but I know we’re all thinking it: and shit. Goats shit everywhere.

After retrieving his phone, Beck frowns at it before tucking it back in his pocket.

Our niece probably responded, telling her uncle “no,” which isn’t exactly in Beck’s vocabulary.

It’s not really in any of ours.

“Too bad none of us have an indoor pool,” our blond friend says before bending down to help flatten the hand Jace is holding out so the goats won’t get a finger in addition to the pellets they’re practically inhaling off his palm.

“I got this one house I’m working on right now with an indoor pool,” I say, although mansion is probably a better word for it.

“When’s it supposed to be finished?” Marc asks.

“Next year.” If we’re lucky. Contractors that can’t complete their projects on time are the bane of my existence.

“You should put one in your house,” Beck suggests after standing, making me roll my eyes.

“Where? Where would I put an indoor pool?” My house isn’t that big. None of ours are. We all live nicely but not extravagantly. At least not in our houses. In our garages? Now, that’s a different story.

“You got two bedrooms on your main sitting empty, don’t you?”

“Neither are big enough.”

“The girls’ room is.”

The girls. The two sisters we lost last month. Brittni and Makya. It fucking hurts to think about them. It hurts even worse thinking their room will never be filled by them again. I’d never fill their room with anything permanent. Not that Angela would let me.

I jerk a single shake of my head. “It’s upstairs.”

Brittni and Makya came to us like most of the kids we’ve fostered over the years, as legal risk placements, but the home they were removed from had a lice infestation so bad the girls had the bugs living on their eyelashes. We never thought their mom would turn things around, and after a while, I think both Angela and I selfishly wished she wouldn’t. The girls were skittish, malnourished, and showed up on our doorstep without shoes on their feet. We offered them their own rooms but they only felt comfortable sleeping with each other, so I knocked down the wall separating two of the bedrooms upstairs and made them their own big space. I thought…I hoped it’d always be theirs.

But that’s the thing about fostering, you have to be prepared to lose the kids at any given time, sometimes without any notice at all. That’s how we lost Brittni and Makya. We didn’t even get to say goodbye.

Like a goodbye would’ve helped. I’d still miss them this much whether we had a proper send-off or not. I’d still miss sitting outside their room late into the night, listening to Brittni read out loud to her younger sister until she fell asleep. I’d still miss the overwhelming burst of fabric stiffener whenever Makya entered a room because she sprayed it on every one of her outfits pretending it was perfume. A goodbye wouldn’t have done shit to ease this pain.

When you sign up to be a foster parent, all you think about is how you’ll be changing the childrens’ lives. You never even consider the way the kids will change yours.

“We couldn’t fit a real pool in it, but…” Beck doesn’t finish, just gets that gleam in his eye that says he’s up to something.

I eye him back, the wheels starting to turn inside my own head, too.

“Find the longest hose you got,” is all I tell Marc before going over to pick up Jace and carrying him to my car in one arm as I walk backward. The kids turn to watch, sensing the building excitement.

“For?” he asks.

“For a bath,” Beck answers.

Blaze tugs on her dad’s joggers, then asks him, “Bath?”

Marc shrugs, repeating “Silly” again. We use that word a lot in reference to Funcle Beckett.

Putting Jace down, I say, “Meet at my house in an hour.”

CHAPTER 2

Angela

The dashboard goes black, blanketing me in darkness while I mentally prepare myself to go inside the house. The automatic overhead light in the garage already went out a minute or two back.