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willing to leave him if that’s what it takes to keep my kids. Sure, I’ll become a foster parent, but I can’t do that until Sam’s better. Besides, he can’t get in any trouble in the shape he’s in!” She slammed down the phone.
    It rang again about an hour later. “Lena who?” Adele asked. Apparently, a new Florida caseworker, Lena Jamison, had just taken over Dennis Benson’s job. Adele’s expression went from irate to crestfallen. “You’re coming when?”
    She hung up, went to her room, closed the door, and sobbed loudly. I put my head on the hound dog and snuffled into his salty fur.

4.
waiting for mama
    “I don’t want to go!” I wailed.
    “It’s just for a little while,” Adele promised. She told us we would be back in a few days and convinced me to leave behind my dolls and dresses.
    She packed only one small green suitcase for the both of us. “We’ll leave your school clothes here ’cause you’ll start kindergarten as soon as you get back.” She hugged me close. “Besides,” she added as an afterthought, “your mama’s in Florida. Won’t it be nice to see her?”
    At the airport we met Lena Jamison, a stocky woman with a no-nonsense voice. She shook my hand and then inspected Luke’s speckled arms. “What are those red marks?” she asked accusingly.
    He started to cry as though he had done something wrong. “They’re just mosquito bites.” I kneeled next to him. “Don’t worry, Lukie, we’re just going to visit Mama, and then we are coming back when Grandpa is better, right?” I looked up for some confirmation, but the worker avoided my eye.
    Fourteen hours later we swayed sleepily in a car that wound down a twisting road back to Seffner, where Ms. Jamison deposited us on Paula and Milton Pace’s doorstep.
    From the exterior, the ranch home did not appear large enough for the dozen or so residents, and I quickly learned that it wasn’t. Five of the children, including Luke and a set of fraternal twins, were three years old. In the boys’ room miniature bunk beds were stacked three high, while the girl twin and I shared a room with the biological daughter.
    If I counted living with my mother, this was my seventh home in a little more than two years and the worst place I had been—so far. A few years later, when I moved into the Mosses’ home, I would be reminded of the cramped quarters and zooey smells I first encountered here. In a few weeks four more children joined the fray, for a total of eleven foster children between the ages of two and six.
    At first I refused to unpack. “I’m going back tomorrow,” I insisted.
    After a few days I took out my toiletries but kept the rest of my belongings in the suitcase. I did not want to settle in, and I also did not want the rug rats messing with my few possessions. Mrs. Pace always seemed to be yelling at someone and often it was Luke. I was disgusted by the piles of dirty diapers, the snotty noses, and the screeches of children vying for any sort of attention. As I stared out the picture window that looked across a horse pasture, I wondered where Adele and Grandpa were and why I hadn’t seen my mother yet. Beyond where the waving grass met the sky was South Carolina, but how could I get back there?
    “Why are we here so long?” I asked Mrs. Pace when I had worn many times over all the clothes Adele had packed. She mumbled something that made no sense. “When can I see my mama?” I stamped my foot. “Adele said I would visit her, so where is she?” My demands resulted only in timeouts, where I anxiously bit my fingernails.
    Luke would not let me out of his sight. “Sissy!” he would shout if I was in another room. He even tried to follow me into the bathroom. “I wanna sleep in Ashley’s room,” he begged at bedtime.
    “Boys stay with boys, girls with girls,” Mrs. Pace said, as though that would satisfy him.
    Even at that age, I knew what he needed more than the professionals did. I was the one who comforted