Foster

’

I stand there and stare at the fire, trying not to cry. It is a long time since I have done this and, in doing it, remember that it is the worst thing you can possibly do. I don’t so much hear as feel Kinsella leaving the room.

‘Don’t upset yourself,’ the woman says. ‘Come over here.’

She shows me pages with knitted jumpers and asks me which pattern I like best, but all the patterns seem to blur together and I just point to one, a blue one, which looks like it might be easy.

‘Well, you would pick the hardest one in the book,’ she says.

7

Now that I know I must go home, I almost want to go, to get it over with. I wake earlier than usual and look out at the wet fields, the dripping trees, the hills, which seem greener than they did when I came. I think back to this time and it seems so long ago, when I used to wet the bed and worry about breaking things. Kinsella hangs around all day doing things but not really finishing anything.

We are out looking at the calves, who are feeding. With warm water, Kinsella has made up their milk replacement which they suck from long, rubber teats until the teats run dry. It’s an odd system, taking the calves off the cows and giving them milk replacement so Kinsella can milk their mothers and sell the milk, but they look content.

‘Could ye leave me back this evening?’

‘This evening?’ Kinsella says.

I nod.

‘Any evening suits me,’ he says. ‘I’ll take you whenever you want, Petal.’"

"I look at the day. The day is like any other, with a flat grey sky hanging over the yard and the wet hound on watch outside the front door.

‘Well, I had better milk early, so,’ he says. ‘Right,’ and goes on down the yard past me as though I have already gone.

The woman gives me a brown leather bag. ‘You can keep this old thing,’ she says. ‘I never have use for it.’

We fold my clothes and place them inside, along with the books we bought at Webb’s in Gorey: Heidi, What Katy Did Next, The Snow Queen. At first, I struggled with some of the bigger words but Kinsella kept his fingernail under each, patiently, until I guessed it and then I did this by myself until I no longer needed to guess, and read on.