The Light at the End of the Tunnel by James W. Nelson Page A

but,
somehow, he knew, screaming and crying— this time —would not
help. He was done with this family and he knew it. They probably
wouldn’t even let him stay the night.
    He was right. The mother grabbed his arm,
glared at him, and jerked him toward her, “What kind of monster are you? How would you even think of such a
thing?”
    “He’s done it about ten times, Mom!”
    “Good Lord! Ten times?”
    “Yes! It made me so mad, and I always blamed
my real brother!”
    The mother then escorted Les Paul to the
boy’s room, “Son,” the mother said to her real son, “Watch this kid
and don’t let him leave your sight. I’m calling your father at
work.”
    A half hour later the father arrived. They
installed Les Paul into a car seat in the back of their Sport
Utility Vehicle, and the father instructed, “Watch him, son. When
we get there, you stay in the SUV.”
    A half hour still later they arrived at the
government office that dealt with foster children. The father
removed Les Paul from his seat, and took him by the hand as they
entered the building and walked straight to the correct office,
where a stern-looking woman sat at a desk, “May I help you,
sir?”
    For five minutes the father spoke, giving the
main reason, and others, that this child could no longer stay at
their home, and ended with, “Will we still get paid for this month?
We are over half, you know.”
    “Of course, sir.”
    So the families got paid for keeping him.
Good to know. Just one more card in his deck to use against all the
people who were being so mean to him.

     
    Chapter 22 Cassandra at
Four

    Cassandra had just passed her fourth year
too, and had lost track of how many foster homes she had been in.
Only her reasons for getting moved around were not
behavior-related. Though never coming anywhere near bonding with
any of her families, she was well -behaved. She never caused
trouble. If there was trouble with her foster siblings she would
back away, go to her own room if she had one, and if she didn’t she
would go to her own bed and crawl onto it and wait for further
instructions, or sometimes would just wait for night and bedtime.
Sometimes her foster sister, if she had one, older or younger
didn’t matter, would look at her with big sad eyes.
    So, yes, Cassandra was well-behaved but she
was not healthy. Physically healthy, yes, though slightly
underweight and under height for a girl her age, but, basically,
healthy. It was her mind that was not healthy. She wasn’t retarded
by any means. She was bright, but she kept everything inside. She
never spoke unless spoken to, and then just to answer. She kept to
herself and never reached out, so much so that nobody reached out
to her, either. The grownups and children in each family always
looked so sad whenever they looked at her, that Cassandra decided
that was just how it was. Life, as she understood it, was not
happy.
    She had one thing, though, that she really
liked, a Little Mommy Play All Day Doll. In her last foster home
her eight-year-old foster sister had given it to her. “It used to
talk, Cassie,” her foster sister had said, “It used to talk a lot,
but it doesn’t anymore. Would you like to have her?”
    Cassandra remembered holding her arms out.
She hadn’t planned to but her body had just responded on its own to
such a kind gesture, “Thank you,” she said, and brought the doll
against her as if a baby, and wrapped her arms around it, and the
doll—in lieu of a human person—began to warm her. Wherever she went
after that the doll went with her and rarely was out of her hands.
If she wasn’t holding it she at least tried to keep it in sight.
So, maybe she more than liked that doll, maybe she actually loved
it. It was good to feel that emotion, even though she did not
relegate her feelings to love. She yet had not heard the word ‘love,’ or, if she had, she had not linked the word to good
feelings.
    But it didn’t matter. What she felt with the
doll, felt