The Missing Ingredient

It wasn’t the first time I’d been to a barbeque. The church held one every year for us poor waifs and strays on the 4th of July. The limp boiled hot dogs and gristly burgers came with a side of sanctimonious piety and a lecture on gratitude. Still, it beat the food in the Home by a long shot.

I never expected to leave the Home for Wayward Youth. Leastways, not until I aged out of the system. I spoke with bravado to the younger kids, saying I couldn’t wait to take that $1,000 grant and flip them the bird on my way out the door. But in reality, it terrified me. At night I tossed and turned as I remembered Jennifer; how she had sat by my bedside that first week as I cried myself to sleep each night, calling for my Momma to come get me. How excited she’d been to walk through those heavy wooden doors for the last time and into freedom! Her plans for community college and a nursing career all laid out like a shining path ahead of her. I wish that was the last memory I had of her.

I saw Jen again a few months later, as I trudged back from school. I barely recognized her – she was so skinny her hip bones seemed to almost burst through her pale skin. She used to live in baggy tee-shirts and jeans at the Home. I’d never seen her in a crop top and shorts before – it was as unlikely as catching the Pastor in a drag show. She was shivering as she sat on a low wall outside a smoke shop, and she kept scratching at the scabs on her arms. I tried to talk to her, but she looked at me fiercely through red-rimmed eyes and shoved me so hard I nearly fell over.

“Go back to the Home, kid!” She snarled. “Don’t you dare judge me, you don’t know what it’s like out here.”

I went back there the next day with the $20 I’d won from the stupid poetry contest in 8th grade, but she wasn’t there. I never saw her again. If someone as brave and ambitious as Jennifer couldn’t make it, what hope was there for me?

The Pastor often told me I was heading towards a life of petty crime and jail, and without Jen to defy him I began to believe it.

So when the news came in that I was being fostered, I was as surprised as anyone. Me? 15 and scrawny, with a history of arson and a GPA that made my teachers weep… what could these people possibly want with me?

“I bet they’re pedos,” T.J jeered as he watched me shoving my things into a black trash bag. “Or they just want a slave to do all their cleaning and chores. Everyone knows kids die in foster homes. You’ll be begging the Pastor to take you back in a week.”

Secretly, I agreed with him. My $20 was hidden inside my sock, and I figured I’d use it to catch a greyhound to Florida if the Martins tried anything.

Mr. Martin was waiting outside the gates in a beat-up old Camry. ‘Great,’

I thought. ‘Not even rich weirdos. Probably just want me for the welfare checks.’

He was a tall man, maybe 6ft 4”, and younger than I’d expected. He introduced himself as David as he popped the trunk and took my sack, wrinkling his nose up in disgust.

“They really couldn’t even give you a proper bag for your stuff?” He muttered. “I’d hoped things might have improved since I left.”

“You used to live at the Home?” I asked, climbing into the front seat.

“Yeah, back when Pastor Alloysius ran the place. He was a mean old bastard, I can tell you.”

I was impressed. We’d all heard stories of Alloysius, and his proclivity for corporal punishment.

“Did he used to beat you?”

Mr. Martin glanced over at me as he pulled out into traffic. “Beat me? I looked like a bloody zebra by the time he was done with me!” He chuckled sourly. “But they’re not allowed to do that anymore, are they?”

I shook my head. “Nope. They still throw bibles at you, though, if you talk back.”

“Well, you won’t have to worry about that with us, kid. Suzie and I both grew up in the system, we know what it’s like.” He pulled into a Target parking lot and parked. “How about we go get some new gear for you, and a proper bag to put it in? That way if you decide you hate us and try to run away, you won’t have to use a black sack.” He smiled, but his eyes looked sad, and I wondered how many times he’d tried to run away himself.

Those first weeks were difficult. I was angry all the time, a total brat. I couldn’t accept the fact these people genuinely cared about me. What was in it for them? I fought against their rules, even though they weren’t particularly unreasonable. I stole cash from Suzie’s purse, squirrelling it away for my escape fund.

When David found out about the missing money, he drove me to a cash point. He stopped outside, handing me his card.

“The pin number’s 1876,” he told me. “Go ahead, take out whatever you think you need to feel safe.” He waited as I sat in the car, holding it in my hand numbly.

“Seriously, I want you to feel safe and comfortable with us,” he pushed his glasses further up his nose. “Obviously you’re still scared we’re going to hurt you. So keep hold of the card. You can give it back to me when you realize we aren’t going anywhere. And if you choose to run, I promise I won’t call the cops on you. I trust you, kid.”

I turned away and stared out of the window. I didn’t want him to see me cry.

Before I knew it the first month slipped by, and then the next, and the next. I stopped acting out as much, started to look forward to evenings in the crazy Martin house, with its Friday night board games and Star Wars marathons. Suzie took me thrift shopping and taught me how to customize my clothes on her old sewing machine. David taught me his secret recipe for chocolate chip cookies. I saw a therapist twice a week, and gradually my grades improved.

It was August when they threw the barbeque party. The twins giggled as they made a banner to hang over the door, and Suzie was singing old songs from the nineties as she made potato salads and mac and cheese. Outside, David and I stood by the grill, trying to get it to light.

“This is where I wish I’d become a chemist instead of a biologist,” he joked as yet another fire starter fizzled out. Eventually we got the coals going, and trays of kabobs and burger patties made their way out of the kitchen to be grilled.

At 4 pm the garden filled up with people. The tables were groaning under heaps of juicy chicken wings and street corn, the twins ran about in fairy wings, blowing bubbles with their cousins. I hung back in the kitchen, feeling awkward and out of place at this family gathering. An outsider, an interloper. How could I ever have thought I might belong here?

David came and put his arm round my shoulder, leading me outside. “Come on kid, don’t skulk about inside on a beautiful day like this,” he said with a grin.

I looked about the garden. My English teacher was chatting to a few of the neighbors, and I spotted my therapist over by the grill, flipping burgers. Lounging around the fire pit were all my friends from school, and they waved me over to join them.

“What IS this?” I gawped incredulously.

“It’s your gotcha party, kid,” David replied, as Suzie joined us and gave me a squeeze. “We wanted to officially welcome you to the family. That is, if you’ll have us?”

The twin’s banner said “The Martin Family” and had stick figures of each of us in crayon below.

I didn’t know what to say. The aroma of creamy mac and cheese and sweet barbeque sauce swirled around me, as comforting as the familiar faces of my new family. I thought back to those sad, gray barbeques at the church, and realized what was so different here. Not the taste of the burgers, or the seasoning on the coleslaw.

The missing ingredient was love.

“Welcome home, kid,” Suzie said, kissing the top of my head. “You’re one of us now.”