That made me even angrier.
“Then find somebody else.”
“They can.”
I blinked.
“He never made acceptance mandatory,” David said.
“Then where’s the trap?”
He looked toward the window.
“That you see the program.”
I laughed without humor.
“So he thought he’d put sad foster kids in front of me and guilt me into staying?”
David didn’t answer.
Then Caroline appeared in the doorway.
“Then leave.”
I turned toward her.
She looked exhausted.
“Walk out. Go home. Hate him forever if you need to.”
She took a breath.
“But don’t spend your whole life knowing nothing about what was behind this house.”
Then she walked away.
I hated that it worked.
Caroline led me through a side gate toward a building I’d always assumed was staff housing.
Inside, I found something I never expected.
A teenager was arguing about a phone charger.
Someone had burned toast.
Two young adults were doing homework at a scarred kitchen table.
Then I saw a girl trying to glue the sole of her sneaker.
My body stopped before my mind did.
“What is this place?”
Caroline looked at me.
“Where I met Thomas.”
I turned slowly.
“What?”
“I’m not his biological daughter.”
I looked back toward the room we’d just walked through.
Caroline continued.
“I entered foster care when I was nine. Thomas fostered me at fourteen. Later, he became my guardian.”
My hands curled.
“He left me in foster care.”
“I know.”
“And then he started taking foster kids into his house?”
“Yes.”
I laughed once.
It wasn’t a happy sound.
“So that’s it?”
Caroline waited.
“He practiced being a father to somebody else’s children?”
“No.”
“Then explain it.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“He failed you first.”
I stared at her.
“He started funding programs years later. Then volunteering. Then fostering.”
“He saved you,” I whispered.
She nodded.
“Why didn’t he save me?”
Caroline looked like I’d struck her.
Finally, she said, “Because failing you was what finally taught him how not to fail someone else.”
I looked away.
