Three Little Words

Ashley is transferred to the Children’s Home of Tampa, her “thirteenth move in the seven years [she has] been in foster care” (138). The home has “six coed cottages, each housing twelve children” (140). She and Luke are placed in different cottages because of their ages. Her new primary caregiver is extremely supportive, and Ashley wonders if she is “always this nice, or [is] this just how they [treat] a new kid?” (143).

Ashley is reluctant to see the therapist, but Mary Fernandez is kind and reassures her that “‘It’s normal to miss your mother’” (144). Due to the abuse they have endured, all of the residents have “hidden terrors that [lurk] like sea monsters in the murky bottom of an unfathomable lagoon” (146). Occasionally, “a creature’s tail, fin, or snout [will] surface as some peculiar behavior” (146).

One of the children points out some adults to Ashley and calls them “‘[s]hoppers,’” explaining that “‘[t]hey’re a family looking for a kid’” (148). Ashley studies “the mating dance of adoption” (148) as children are selected and, in some cases, “[drive] off into the sunset with their ‘forever families’—or so they thought. Many came back” (149).

Ashley attends a local school and learns to entertain the other children with stories of her life in foster care.