Bittersweet Hope Read online

Pictures fumbled through my mind, of my mother with a needle hanging out of her arm, or run over by a car as she crossed the street high. She used to do that all the time. I’d told her so often that she had to watch before walking across the road.

  Mrs. Anderson glanced at the cops, and Officer Cane nodded. Her eyes settled on Sierra and Sadie for a moment, then shifted away, towards me.

  “She was killed.”

  I frowned. “I know. I asked how.” There was no sense in them beating around the bush. With Mama’s history, nothing would really shock me, but maybe they didn’t realize that I’d pretty much been the mother for all three of us since I was in elementary school. Or then again, maybe they did and they were trying to act like real adults should.

  Officer Cane took a deep breath, then exhaled. “She was killed by someone else.”

  “Like, murdered?” I’d never heard Sierra’s voice so high pitched.

  “Yes. Strangled.”

  My blood turned to ice, tiny daggers of pain sticking into me from every angle. At least that’s what it felt like. Strangled. My mother. Likely at the hands of a man who had just paid her for sex. Or who didn’t want to pay her for sex, and didn’t care how he got out of it. That probably made more sense.

  My knees seemed to turn to jello again, and I closed my eyes, just for a moment. Sadie and Sierra breathed slowly behind me. I knew I had to try and be strong, for them. I set my mouth in a firm line and straightened my shoulders.

  “Where was she?” I asked.

  Officer Cane looked me in the eye when he answered. “In the alley, just behind your apartment.”

  Sadie cried out. “Oh my God! So, he could have been in here, he could know where we live! He could have even killed her in here and then taken her out there!”

  “He?” Officer Cane’s eyes stretched wide. “You know who might have done this?”

  “I—I—I . . .” Sadie stammered over the syllable.

  I spoke up. “She means one of Mama’s customers. That’s the ‘he’.” Acid burned in my throat even as I said the words.

  “Her customers.” Mrs. Anderson repeated.

  I tried to think of an easy way to answer, but my sister beat me to the punch.

  “Oh come on. Like you guys don’t know she was a prostitute.”

  I gasped and whirled around. “Sierra!”

  “What?”

  “Okay, girls, that’s enough.” Mrs. Anderson broke in before I had the chance to smack my sister. “You’ll have to come with me now. Gather your belongings and we’ll get going.”

  “What belongings?” Sierra asked under her breath.

  I elbowed her, which only caused her to stick her own bony arm into my ribcage in return.

  “Where are we going?” Sadie asked.

  “You’ll be put in a group home for a day, maybe two or three. Until we can find foster families for you.”

  “We don’t need to stay in any home.” I practically spat out. “We can take care of ourselves.” Sweat pooled on my upper lip. My eyes searched Mrs. Anderson’s face. She wasn’t buying it. Her lips were pursed and her arms thrown over each other across her chest. Still, I tried again.

  “I’ll be eighteen in like a month. Then I can be their guardian or something. Isn’t that how it works? They just have to have a guardian, and if I’m legal it can be me.” Okay, so my birthday was more than a month away. A little white lie never hurt anybody. Now if only my stupid eyebrow would quit twitching.

  Both of my sisters grabbed my hands, their cold, moist palms slippery in mine. Surprisingly, Sierra held on just as tightly as Sadie. If I had any strength in me, I hoped that they could feel it. That it could jump straight out of my body and into theirs.

  Mrs. Anderson’s lip curled up in disgust as she looked around the room she was standing in. The door to the kitchen dangled from the top hinge, and the walls were streaked brown from the leaks that came out of the ceiling sometimes. Mrs. Golden sure was a tip top landlady.

  “I’m afraid it’s not so easy, Audrey. You can apply for guardianship of your younger sisters once you turn eighteen, but it will have to be approved by the courts. It’s quite a lengthy process.” She looked at her clipboard. “And your birthday is four months away, not one. When you do legally turn into an adult, you’ll be released.” She nodded to Sadie and Sierra. “They’ll have to stay.”

  Air whooshed out of my lungs. This could not be happening. Why did all the shitty stuff always happen to us? We hadn’t done anything to deserve this. It wasn’t our fault we’d been born to a woman who couldn’t care less about being responsible, much less being an actual mother. She had ruined our lives when she was alive and now she was going to ruin them after she was dead. The walls started to close in on me, and my heart nearly pounded straight through my chest.

  “Please don’t do this.” I told Mrs. Anderson. “We’re all we have.” Begging was my last option. Even though it wasn’t going to work, either. It hadn’t worked with Mrs. Golden, so I knew it wouldn’t work with this woman. It made me feel sort of sick, too. I hated begging people, and I’d done it more in the last hour than I had in my whole life.

  I thought I saw Mrs. Anderson’s eyes watering, but she looked away from me. I must have been seeing things, anyway. “I’m sorry,” she said, “there’s nothing I can do.”

  “This is bullshit!” Sadie yelled. We all looked in her direction. She walked over to the window and stared outside at the lush green trees surrounding the apartment complex. Those trees were the only pretty things we ever had to look at. I’d taken comfort in them plenty of times. After a minute, she kicked the wall and sank down to her knees, holding her head in her hands. Sierra went to her, rubbing a thin hand over Sierra’s back.

  I stared at my sisters, the last few minutes replaying in my head. It was then that it dawned on me—what Mrs. Anderson had said in the beginning.

  “Wait. Did you say we would be going to foster homes soon?” I stressed the word homes. “As in plural? As in, separated?”

  Both Sadie and Sierra gasped. Like me, they must not have picked up on that little detail.

  Mrs. Anderson looked at me. “Yes.”

  The police officers behind her shuffled their feet as they stared at the ceiling.

  I felt like a knife had gone straight through my chest. The pain seared hot and deep throughout my body. Foster care would be bad enough, but different houses?

  “But . . . why?” My eyes burned for about the billionth time.

  Mrs. Anderson shook her head. “There aren’t many foster families who are willing to take on three teenaged girls. Zero, actually. It is hard enough to find a home for a single child, let alone a set.”

  “Family?” Sadie asked. Her voice sounded tiny. “We’re going to be outsiders in someone else’s family?” She swapped from twisting her right hand to her left.

  “It won’t be like that. They’ll take you in and feed you and put a roof over your heads until you find someone to adopt you.” She looked at me. “Or in your case, Audrey, until your birthday.”

  Until my birthday. When I’d be on my own. With no money and no hope. I cursed my mother again and immediately regretted it, wars of emotions waging inside me.

  “Yeah, they’ll feed us with the check they get from the state. They’ll probably give us crap for food and keep the money for themselves.” Sierra spoke up from the corner, her face a twisted mask of resentment. Usually I would correct my sister and tell her not to be rude. Right now I didn’t care.

  “You’re thinking of things you’ve heard, which is simply not true.” Mrs. Anderson said through clenched teeth. “Now, get your things.”

  “We don’t have things.” I stared. I didn’t look at anything in particular. My whole body felt numb. Even my eyes. The room seemed to dissolve into a dozen tiny blurs, and I couldn’t seem to focus on any one particular thing or person.

  She sighed. “You don’t have any other clothes?”

  “This is pretty much it.”

&n
bsp; “Toothbrushes?”

  Sierra glanced back toward the bathroom, cringing. “Not anything we’d really be excited to keep.”

  “Very well. Just leave them.” Mrs. Anderson turned toward the door.

  “Audrey?” Sadie asked from behind me. I looked back at my sisters, their faces coming into focus a little bit at a time. Maybe we should just run, just take off out the door. I doubted we’d get very far, but we could try.

  It wouldn’t be worth it, though. I might give them false hope, and we would just get dragged back to whatever place Mrs. Anderson was taking us. I’d learned the hard way that there just wasn’t any good in trying to run from the truth. Life dealt you a blow, and you got on with it. Moved to the next thing you had to do and hoped like hell it would be better someday. A day that couldn’t come quickly enough. Or maybe even ever.

  “Everything will be okay, you guys. I’ll fix this. We’ll have to do it for a little while, then I’ll get you out, I swear.” Looking at their faces, one streaked with angry tears, the other hardened against the whole world, I knew I would do anything necessary to be able to keep my promise. “I’ll get us back together if it’s the last thing I do.”

  I gazed around the barren apartment one last time, trying to figure out if any of us would miss it. Being apart from my sisters would be torture, but being away from this place wouldn’t be bad at all. If the three of us could only go to one house together I might even welcome foster care with open arms. Maybe.

  Mama’s face flashed before me when my eyes shot into the bedroom. I went in and got the photograph of me and my sisters. Then I went back and stood in front of them. “Let’s go, you guys.”

  I fell into step behind Mrs. Anderson and the two policemen and led Sadie and Sierra out the door.

  Chapter Three

  Three Days Later

  “Audrey? We’re here.”

  I looked out the car window, feeling so small in the empty backseat. My knuckles were white, but I couldn’t feel my hands. Even the pretty scenery we’d passed over the past half hour or so, hell I couldn’t even remember how long we’d been in the car, had done nothing to brighten my mood. How could it? There wasn’t a single thing that could fill the void, the big black hole gaping inside of me. I’d always been with my sisters. We’d always been a trio. I’d taken care of them, helped them with things, loved them so much that I’d hoped it would make up for our mother’s failures. And poof. They were just…gone.

  Now I had to go in and meet this family I would be staying with. These people who didn’t know me, or Sierra and Sadie, and wouldn’t understand. Oh joy.

  Mrs. Anderson said my name again. Her face wrinkled as she looked into mine. She knew I hadn’t done well in the group home. She was probably worried I would cause problems at my new home. I wouldn’t, though. I couldn’t just keep to myself and not be a bother. I’d had to do that enough times that it was automatic.

  “Audrey.” Mrs. Anderson repeated herself a third time.

  “What?” I asked, finally acknowledging I’d heard her.

  “I said we’re here. This is the Whitley’s house. This is where you’ll be living.” She smiled. Her bright white teeth made my head hurt.

  Where I would be living. For four measly months until I would be kicked out onto the streets all alone. Woo flipping hoo.

  I shrugged. “Okay.” It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered without Sadie and Sierra.

  I reached for the cold silver handle and pushed the van door open, the crisp March air hitting me in the face. The smell of flowers in bloom tickled my nose. Looking around, I noticed we had to be in the country, outside the city limits of our little town of Rocky Creek. There were no other houses around us, only bright green grass as far as the eye could see. The house in front of me had yellow siding and red shutters, a picture perfect structure that looked straight out of a magazine. Rocking chairs sat on the wide front porch and a swing hung from two chunky metal chairs. It was nicer than the modest brick home we’d dropped Sadie off at, but not nearly as stately as the plantation style house Sierra was in.

  I frowned. If I was in the country, would I be in the same school zone as Sierra and Sadie? Or Zach, for that matter? It figured. Finally a guy asks me out and now he would think I disappeared without a trace. He was probably wondering where I’d been the last few days already.

  This house was far enough out that I could pretty much bet on the fact that I’d be going to the county school, but I wasn’t sure about my sisters. I wanted to kick myself for not paying attention to how far we had driven after we dropped them off.

  Mrs. Anderson went up the porch steps, so I quit pouting and followed her. The door swung open almost instantly, and a woman stepped out, drying her hands on a bright pink apron tied around her tiny waist.

  “You’re here!” She smiled, showcasing perfectly straight teeth. Her frosted blonde hair was pulled back into a loose bun, with tendrils floating around her face. She was one of the prettiest people I’d ever seen.

  “Anna Whitley, this is Audrey Emerson.” Mrs. Anderson said, greeting the woman. She motioned for me to walk forward, so I did. At least part of me was still acting normal.

  “Hello, Audrey.” Mrs. Whitley took my hand in hers. Her grip was warm and firm. As she shook my hand, I noticed the way her eyes crinkled at the sides when she smiled.

  “Hi.” It was the only word I could think of. I had no idea how someone reacted to meeting their foster…mother?

  Mrs. Whitley looked like she expected more from me, but the surprise on her face was swept away within seconds. “Would you like to come in and see your new room? Caleb isn’t home right now, but he’ll be back from practice later.”

  “Is that your husband?” I asked.

  Mrs. Whitley looked at Mrs. Anderson in surprise, and my social worker closed her eyes for a brief moment.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Whitley. I completely forgot to tell her.”

  Tell me what? Great. Leave it to me to do something wrong already.

  “Oh, it’s okay.” Mrs. Whitley wiped her hands on her apron again, even though there wasn’t anything on them to wipe off. Her smile faltered a tiny bit.

  Mrs. Anderson turned to me. “Caleb is Mrs. Whitley’s son, Audrey. He’s the same age as you, seventeen. Her husband, Kyle, passed away last year.” She cleared her throat. “He had cancer.”

  “Oh.” I coughed and picked at invisible lint on my shirt. “I’m so sorry.” I stuffed my hands into my pockets and rocked back on my heel. I could feel warmth creeping up my neck and hoped my entire face wouldn’t turn red.

  The brightness returned to Mrs. Whitley’s face when she looked at me. She shook her head, and I wasn’t really surprised when not one single hair on her head moved out of place. “Don’t you worry about it, honey. We’ve been sad around here for far too long. That’s why we wanted you. You’re going to be our new bright spot.”

  I almost stumbled backwards. I was going to be their new bright spot? Shit.

  “Now, come on in and I’ll show you the house.” Mrs. Whitley said. “Mrs. Anderson, would you care for a cup of coffee? I just made a fresh pot.”

  Mrs. Anderson looked at me for a moment, then turned her attention to the other woman.

  “No, thank you. I have a lot of paperwork to do back at the office. You go ahead and get Audrey settled in. You’ve got all the information I left you?”

  Mrs. Whitley said that she did.

  “Okay then. Please call if you need anything.” Mrs. Anderson trained her blue eyes on me for a final time. “You too, Audrey. My number is in the packet I gave Mrs. Whitley. Don’t hesitate to use it if you need anything.”

  “Thank you.” I said. I watched her go down the porch steps and get into her van. She started the engine and drove off down the gravel driveway, leaving me standing there with a woman I had met five minutes earlier. A woman who had lost her husband and expected me to be her “new bright spot”. Scared was an understatement. Complete and utter panic was mo
re like it.

  “Well, Audrey. Ready?” Mrs. Whitley put her hand on the brass doorknob and pushed it open. I nodded, choosing not to test my voice right then. When we stepped inside the house, the immediate homey feeling almost took my breath away. Pleasant smells wafted from a room in front of me, probably the kitchen. Sun cascaded through the open windows, the sheer curtains covering them flowing effortlessly in the early spring breeze.

  I tried to find something to be annoyed by, but I couldn’t deny that it was a beautiful home. The floors were a honey colored wood, and the living room held plush, tan furniture. I did avoid looking at the photo filled walls. The last thing I wanted to see was a smiling, happy family.

  “Your room is this way.”

  Mrs. Whitley’s voice broke through my thoughts. My room. I had never had my own room. I’d never even had a room to share. I’d had a living room with a pile of blankets, or a couch if I was lucky.

  I followed her through the living room, stepping down into a country looking kitchen with apple decorations everywhere, and then up a staircase. The space above was lit with a warm glow, not bright like the downstairs of the house.

  Mrs. Whitley pointed at doors as we passed by them. “This is my bedroom, the study, Caleb’s room. You two will be sharing this bathroom, and this is your room.” She led me into a large room with walls a soft sage color, the shade of green you see at Easter. Pushed between two windows on the far side was a white four poster bed. A pretty pearl colored quilt rested on top of it, decorated with interloping patterns in all different shades—yellow, pink, purple, blue, and green. A nightstand stood beside the bed, and at the other end of the room was a dresser and desk. I pursed my lips to keep from gasping. I had never been in such a gorgeous space in all my life.

  Then I noticed the closet, straight across from where we were standing—a walk-in. It was empty. I blanched at the sight of all the hangers facing in the same direction, waiting on dresses and tops and pants I didn’t own. Things that normal kids have, but not me. I bit the inside of my mouth. Did this lady know I had nothing to my name? I tried to avoid her eyes, but everywhere I looked I saw something else reminding me of what I was. Plain trash, just like my mother.