FOSTER

Part 2

Later that night, I just couldn't fall asleep. I kept tossing and turning from this unknown agonizing feeling. It was around 12:04 AM when I got off from bed to get some water for myself. I quietly shut the door behind me and walked towards the stairs. But something stopped me midway – in front of Cady's room, to be exact. I heard faint muffled whimpers coming from inside. Was she having nightmares? I moved closer to her door, planting my ear. Her whimpers grew slightly louder.

"Cady? Sweetie?" And the whimpering stopped. Almost abruptly.

I gave the door a knock before turning the knob and pushed it open. I jerked back when I saw Cady was staring at me under her blanket, with the exact same gaze that she threw at us on our first meeting. "Y-You... You're not sleeping yet?"

She shook her head.

"Are you having nightmares?"

She was about to shake her head one more time but she slowly turned it into a nod.

"Oh, sweetheart. It's alright. I know this place is strange to you." I was walking towards her when she visibly shifted back, distancing herself from me. I stopped. I couldn't tell if she was scared or cautious. Her eyes were steady and they were not asking for comfort. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She didn't respond. This time, I could see there's a subtle change in her eyes. She looked away for a while. When she looked back at me, she hugged her blanket tighter from the inside and mumbled, "Mommy".

"I am here, Cady. Mommy is here." I knew I was stupid for not understanding the obvious; I really wanted her to feel okay with me.

She shook her head. "Olivia."

Olivia Bunton was the name of Cady's birth mother. She was said to have left the house a few days before the arrest of Cady's father and she was nowhere to be found. That was how Cady ended up in a foster home. There was nobody that could – would – take care of her. The relatives wanted nothing to do.

"Oh... She's not here, sweetie. We don't know where she is."

There was that stare again. This time, it sent shivers down my spine so I looked somewhere else, rubbing my palms against my upper arms. I pressed my lips together and glanced at her. "Just close your eyes and think of happy memories. It'll get better."

I turned to the door and smiled at her before closing it. "Good night, Cady. I love you."

And yes, I completely forgot that I wanted a drink. I just headed back to bed to drown myself away from what happened. I needed to calm down. Something about Cady, especially from the way she looked at me, was unsettling. I felt on edge. Certainly, I did not know what to expect. At all.

***

The clock showed that it was 9:20 AM when I started to clean around the house. Earlier, Tom had brought Cady to school, which she had been going to since she got to the foster home, before leaving for work himself. As for me, I always took a week off from work whenever I was fostering a new child. I invested my time in watching over them and bonding with them, of course.

Cady's room was the last place I cleaned. I was surprised at how meticulous it was when I entered. The bed sheet was perfectly lined and she even returned back her books to where they belonged. The other kids, they would at least leave the books on the table so they could read them again right away.

Well. Leaving the room without cleaning it felt wrong to me, at least as a mother. I made my way around the room to clean up in any way I could. I went as far as sweeping the floor again and relined her bed sheet. I never saw a 7 year-old like her. She surprised me in a quite unusual way and again, I did not know how to feel about it. Her trash bin was even emptied out already.

It did make me wonder as to how her parents raised her... and why she had a nightmare about her mother. To be honest, I was not well-informed about it. I doubted that the father would know either because police testimony said that he claimed to "not know what the woman was even doing" at the time of the arrest.

I shrugged off the thought for now. The room had been re-cleaned. I felt better about myself.

I brought myself to the door but turned my back one more time to scan around the room.

Tidy. Something didn't feel right.