![]() ![]() He looked like a man in the middle of something. His sandy hair was scrambled and his t-shirt was streaked with the black dust that found its way to the edges of furniture. Michael, underdressed in bare feet and jeans full of holes, came in from the bedroom. I’d photographed his effect on the house a hundred times, but now I got on my knees and captured those smudges as if they walked a red carpet. They were the last remnants of Brady, our first foster child, who had gone to a permanent home a week before. The back window that looked out on the valley was finger-smudged at knee-level, and crayon marks looped the length of the living room walls. The little guesthouse was bare down to the wood floors and the holes in the plaster. They never came back, but he did, always. Michael was a reminder of how they made me feel. I’d just forgotten it in the years I spent waiting for them. They taught me how to love, and that I was worthy of love. And most importantly, Sunshine and Rover had taught me the things I needed to know to get by. ![]() ![]() The Westlake parents had taught me to be self-sufficient. ![]() June Snowcone had taught me how to clean up after myself. Mister Yi had taught me the value of hard work. Maybe seeing all the things my foster parents had done wrong prepared me, but as the months wore on, I started to appreciate all the things they’d done right. Some days, I couldn’t believe I’d ever done anything else. I couldn’t believe I’d ever been nervous about this. ![]()
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