Fighting Words

by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Can you say God in a story? ’Cause I wasn’t taking His name in vain, right there. I really am thanking God, whatever God there is,

I forgot about sales tax, and in Tennessee that’s a lot.

You gotta be tough from the start.

I have no idea why Suki and me were there. Would have made a lot more sense to leave us at home. Probably the opportunity just came up sudden or something—I told you before, Mama had no more sense than a hamster.

and after a while, the social services people figured we were all fine, and quit poking around. That was a mistake.

“I was glad, you know, to read the book. To know it didn’t only happen to me.”

She looked worn out, but she smiled when she saw us, and she kissed Nevaeh. That was, like, real mom behavior. What you saw on TV.

Suki didn’t die even though she’d slashed an artery. Francine said she’d had amazingly bad luck, slicing it open so wide, but I thought she just had really good aim.

“I just wanted things to stop hurting. Just for one minute. I just couldn’t—but as soon as I did it I wished I hadn’t. I wanted to take it back.”

Eventually Francine said, “Want to take a walk?” “To where?” I said. Francine shrugged. “It’s a pretty fall day.” It was, sure, but I’d never walked just to walk before. But whatever. I put on my shoes.

Except. What if Suki had died? What would have happened to me then?

“I told you, nobody goes into foster care for good reasons. Foster care might be better than anything you’ve ever had in your life so far, and it will still never be as good as what you should have had. If the family you were born into was what it should have been.”

“A lot of kids blame themselves when bad things happen. It isn’t true. This wasn’t your fault.”

“None of this was your fault. None of it was Suki’s fault. Adults are supposed to take care of children. Neither of you should have been hurt like you were.” It sounded nice, but I couldn’t believe

Nobody else. “I never heard anything like that,” I said. “Nobody ever talks about it.” “I know,” she said. “Maybe more people should. Maybe if more people felt they could talk about it, it wouldn’t happen as often.”

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