Chapter Three
James
I hate the end of the school year. While most people are looking forward to the time off, all I can think about is the way it messes with my schedule.
I lose the structure I depend on most of the year and must find other ways to fill my time.
I do teach a class each summer, but it’s only one and doesn’t keep me as engaged and fed as a fuller schedule, which leaves me antsy and like something is missing.
I look up when there’s a knock on my office door, grumbling to myself at the disruption.
It’s interesting how I can want to be busy with my responsibilities yet get frustrated when work comes knocking.
At least, I assume it’s someone who needs something from me. I straighten up in my chair. “Come in.”
The door opens, and Henry walks in. He’s a few years older than me and a professor in my department, with blondish-brown hair and a toothpaste-commercial smile. “Another year in the books.” He sits across my desk from me.
Henry is a nice guy, and I’ve known him for years, but the last thing I want right now is to talk with him.
He’s always asking me to do things, trying to get me to hang out or go to his house or meet up with other professors.
Not that I’ve never gone—I don’t want to come off as a total asshole—but group activities aren’t my thing.
I’m awkward around people, don’t really know how to connect, and most of the time, it’s easier not to try.
“I still have one class over the summer.”
“Of course you do.”
“I enjoy what I do.”
“So do I, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy time off as well.”
I sigh. “Did you come in here to remind me I’m a workaholic? Because there’s no need. I know. And I have work to do.”
Henry chuckles. “No, giving you shit is just a perk. You need it sometimes.”
I straighten some papers on my desk. “I assure you, I don’t.”
“Do you have any other plans for the summer?”
Henry asks me questions like that every holiday break, and every break my answer doesn’t change. What, am I going to go on a vacation by myself?
“Not really. You?” I ask, mostly because it’s the polite thing to do, not because I’m all that interested.
I realize I’m an asshole, but I have been for as long as I can remember, and I’m too old and set in my ways to change now.
I don’t understand why Henry tries so hard to be friends with me. It’s just not how I’m built.
“I have a trip planned to Greece in July. I’ve always wanted to go.
My forty-fifth birthday is this summer too.
If I invite you, will you come to my party?
” He gives me a flirty smile. He does that sometimes, seems to be flirting with me.
I don’t talk about my sexuality at work, not because I’m in the closet, but because I don’t date.
Everyone knows I’m not married and don’t have kids, and since I never have a boyfriend to talk about or a photo of someone on my desk for a colleague to ask about, it doesn’t come up.
Henry is bisexual, something that’s widely known on campus.
He was married to a woman for ten years and has dated both women and men since I’ve known him.
I never know if his flirting is serious.
In some ways, he reminds me of Colton, like he’s the kind of guy who simply enjoys being flirty without it meaning anything, and… why am I thinking about Colton?
It’s been a couple of weeks since we met.
We haven’t spoken again, and I don’t plan on it.
What’s the point? We’ve had our fun, and that’s the end of it.
I hate how…open I feel when I’m in a scene, hate that the man I’m with can see the real me, when I don’t want to ever let anyone that close.
The second time it felt like he saw even more of me than before.
Colton looks deeper than most people, doesn’t just take what’s on the surface, and I don’t have anything but surface to give.
“James?” Henry says my name, and I realize I never replied.
“I’m not a real party person.”
“I think you’re probably more fun than you realize.” He grins again. “Come on. It’ll be a good time.”
I shift uncomfortably. “When is it?”
“I haven’t planned the date yet, but I’ll keep you posted, and I’m holding you to your yes.”
I cock a brow at him. “I don’t believe I said yes.”
“You insinuated it.” Henry stands. “I’m going to get you to have some fun, Professor Valentine, even if I have to drag you kicking and screaming into it.”
“What’s fun?” I find myself joking.
“See? I like you.” My cell phone rings, and Henry says, “Okay, I’ll let you go. I’ll call you. Maybe we can go out sometime? Dinner or something?”
Before I can figure out what the hell is going on and if Henry just asked me out on a date, he slips out of my office, closing the door behind him.
What. The hell. Was that?
My phone rings again, and my heart speeds up the second I see the area code. 541. Oregon. My mouth goes dry, and for a second I consider not answering. Why would someone from my home state be calling me? I left at eighteen and haven’t been back, haven’t even spoken to anyone there since I left.
Another ring.
Answer it.
Don’t.
Answer it.
Don’t.
But I can’t. There can be only one reason someone would call. My mother.
“Hello. This is James,” I say, voice steady, emotions cut off.
“Hello. This is James Valentine? Originally from Rogue River Oregon?” asks a woman with a soft voice.
“This is he.”
“I’m Rebecca Johnson, a social worker for the Department of Children’s Services in Jackson County, Oregon.
I hate to be the one to tell you this, but your mother, Sandra Valentine, passed away a few weeks ago.
We have your siblings, Nash and Sadie, placed in a short-term foster home.
They didn’t know your phone number or where you live, but we were finally able to locate you and… ”
Her words continue, but I can’t hear any of them. There’s nothing but a muffled echo in my head.
Dead. She’s dead. I’m probably supposed to feel something hearing that, but I don’t.
My mother was never a mother to me. She was selfish and neglectful.
She never cared about me. But then I realize what else this woman said…
“Siblings?” I don’t have siblings. I am an only child—at least, I had been when I left.
“Oh,” she says gently, like it just dawned on her. “I thought you knew since they’re the ones who told us they have an older brother. Nash is fifteen, and Sadie is eleven. They said they never met you, but I didn’t consider that you didn’t know about them.”
Anger scorches across my skin, makes me feel like I’m burning alive.
So many of the things I lived through as a child come flooding back—the revolving men, the neglect, the days left alone, the filthy house, going hungry, the too small clothes, being made fun of at school, teachers pulling me aside to ask if I was okay, to tell me I stank, her telling me she didn’t want me, that I was useless, that I ruined her life.
And then after I left, she had two more kids?
Did she put them through the same hell she put me through? Did she make them feel like they were nothing but a burden? Did they have to be the adults in the house, even when they were young, because she didn’t know how to be?
They still are young.
“Mr. Valentine?” Rebecca asks. “At this time, we don’t have anywhere for your brother and sister to go long term.
We’re working to place them in long-term care, but we don’t have enough foster families or resources.
There’s no guarantee we can keep them together or that we’ll find a home for them at all.
They’ll likely be placed in separate group homes if we can’t find long-term placement. ”
My head spins. My heart feels like it’s going to punch through my body. My chest is tight, and I try to steady my breathing, try not to lose my shit because I’m in control, damn it. I control my life, not Sandra, not this social worker, nor anyone else.
“You’d like them to live with me?” I finally manage to say. It took me longer to get there than it should have. Obviously, that’s why she’s calling.
I don’t know the first thing about raising kids.
Hell, I’ve never wanted kids. I vowed that when I was probably ten years old.
I would never make someone suffer the way I did, and I would never bring children into this world because…
what if I was just like her? I’ve done everything in my power to be nothing like her, but what if I am?
“That would be the preference, yes. We prefer to try and place children with family if we can. Sadie’s father passed away, and Nash’s has been in and out of his life.
Nash’s father has been in some trouble with the law—nothing major, but we can’t find him or any other next of kin.
Can you come? To Oregon? And at least meet them and we can discuss what would happen from there?
There’s a process we’d have to go through, background checks and some other steps, but if you’re approved to take them, at least they would be together. ”
You don’t know how to raise children. You can’t even have functional friendships. How do you expect to do this?
I squeeze my eyes shut as if that will quiet the voices inside my head. “Yes. I’ll come.”
*
It’s hard to focus on anything Rebecca says to me as we stand in the hallway at the CPS building.
I don’t think my pulse has slowed down at all since the moment she called me the day before.
Words like home visits, temporary custody, and the process to move the children out of state are all a blur.
She says it’d be much easier if I moved to Oregon, but I can’t do that. My job is in Virginia. My life.
I got the first flight out of DC, and now here I am, back in Jackson County, a place I swore I would never see again, to meet siblings I didn’t know I have, and go through the process to see if I’m approved to take them home with me.