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On the car ride to her new foster home, March couldn’t bring herself to appreciate the view of the harbour, nor the city that unfolded a jumble of worlds in one place. Up close, her eyes fixed to the sedan window, the images lurched forward, too blurry, too fast for her eyes to hold. She had passed through many places in the same way without leaving a trace, like a stranger cropped from the background of a photograph.
This house was an hour’s ride, past the bridge and into the suburbs. Jutting high-rises shrunk into cafes, shopfronts, and manicured lawns. The ride was March lying flat in the back seat, the radio turned up after fifteen minutes of small talk with her social worker had choked and withered. Strange, for her, when she loved talking. But she felt her heart clench as the sedan descended further and further away, eventually coming to a stop at a driveway at the end of a cul-de-sac. The distance, the unfamiliarity. She really wouldn’t be seeing anyone she knew here.
It wasn’t her first time leaving and starting anew. But this time, she told herself, it was good for her. Imagine all the new people she would meet, the things she could tell them: her name was March 7th, but you could call her March; her hobbies were drawing and writing in her diary, and when she grew up, she wished to be a photographer. Her name came from her birth date: March the 7th, so there was no excuse to forget her birthday. Although, as she wrestled herself and her duffel bag out from the car and stood on the front porch, listening to the squeals of kids inside, the clench in her heart resurfaced. Maybe she should tone her energy down. She didn’t want to be too much.
A few knocks from her social worker, and the door swung open. A middle-aged woman took March’s hand in hers.
“Hello, you must be March 7th. I’m Grace. It’s so nice to meet y-“ Behind her quickened the patter of footsteps like applause, and three other children, around 8 years old, if March had to guess, darted to Grace’s side. Then, they were clamouring: who was this new girl? Was she the new sister moving in? Would she play with them?
An older boy, who must have been minding them, sighed as he approached.
“You rascals. Let her settle in.” Grace ruffled the hair of a young boy, and March felt her heart clench again. Just a few days ago, there had been a similar hand smoothing the locks from her hair. Grace turned to her. “Why don’t you follow Dan Heng to your room?”
A nod, a signal for her to follow, before Dan Heng hefted March’s duffel bag and headed up the stairs. Peering at him from the steps below, every part of him – his dark hair, shoulders, spine - hung stiff and tempered. Like he had a secret. She could roll with that: be thoughtful and give him space. Still, it felt rude not to introduce herself.
“Hi! You can call me March,” she beamed, then remembered to tone the energy down, muffling the fullness of her smile until she was sure her face was twitching from the effort.
His eyes flickered over, while his face remained still. He surely thought she was an idiot. “I’m Dan Heng.”
He didn’t say anything more as he led her to a bedroom, setting down her duffel bag on the carpet beside a bunk.
“You can swap with me and take the top bunk. I don’t mind.”
“Um. Thanks. But I’m okay with the bottom too.” She stroked her hand through the blanket. It was soft, cotton – the expensive stuff. She tried not to think of a single bed that had once been hers, with a matching pink blanket and pillowcase, filled with stuffed animals. The animals were still in her duffel bag, heavy with useless things she couldn’t bear to throw away.
Dan Heng placed a pile of folded clothes on her bed. “Your uniform. See if it fits you. It belonged to an older girl who aged out not too long ago, so it should be in good condition. If it needs fixing, let me know. Wake up is 7. School’s at 8:50.”
Right, a new school in the middle of the term. At least, the colours of this uniform were a maroon - not tacky.
The trick with going to school as a foster kid was to stay in the periphery. Always smile, ask open-ended questions, and redirect questions about family or home. That way, she could avoid sitting alone and avoid being asked who her “real” parents were, what she stole to get sent away, or why she wasn’t adopted yet. Not that it was easy for her to make friends now. As a little girl, she’d dreamed of the slumber parties in movies: teenage girls braiding each other’s hair and prying open compacts, smoothing nail polish and makeup on glistening skin. They would pose for smartphone cameras, laugh at silly filters…
Now, she would be lucky if a foster parent bought one of those school photo packs for her.
Dan Heng was in year 8, the year above her. Often solitary, except for the times when he was joined by a boy with long dark hair. March wanted to wave whenever she saw Dan Heng, but she knew he might not want to reciprocate. So, when he hinted she could join him for lunch, always nodding to her when they crossed each other in hallways, she felt her smile inflate until it crinkled the corners of her eyes.
***
On Fridays after school, Grace let Dan Heng take the kids to play on the Island. They called it the Island, but Dan Heng and Veritas, a reserved and bookish kid, said it was technically a peninsula, connected to the mainland by a wide grassed causeway. There was a playground and a small beach split by choppy waves.
It was on the third Friday of her time here when March spotted a familiar long dark-haired boy at the entrance. He was leaning against a eucalyptus, looking into the expanse of silver and blue.
“Yingxing. What are you doing here?” Dan Heng called out, and Yingxing turned around.
March watched the two stare at each other, Yingxing’s grin growing wide and rough. Gross. She elbowed Dan Heng.
“You had a date?”
Dan Heng flushed. “It’s not like that.” It was the first time she had seen him make an expression that wasn’t stoic. Although, March had learnt stoic didn’t mean cold and unfeeling.
“Uh huh.” She shoved him forward. She could be a good sister too. “I’ll take over. You two go and do whatever.” She puckered her lips and made obnoxious kissy noises until Dan Heng was dragging a laughing Yingxing away, disappearing into the peninsula bushland ahead.
The babysitting started well. If the younger ones were rowdy, then March was boisterous, shoving them on swings and chasing them on slides and climbers with the experience of four foster homes until they were winded and lying on the grass, watching the winter sun pale into a purple, smoky haze.
It was time to round the kids up. She counted: one, two, three, four? She swivelled her head around, scanning the picnic benches for Veritas, reading his book.
He was missing.
“Veritas?” she called. There was only the sound of the wind rattling the treetops. Immediately, her mind began to seethe with sounds and images, like a defective camera that couldn’t stop churning film out its take-up spool. She saw the sudden lurching drop into the rockface and the pools of darkness below. A wooden fence, low and chipped. The familiar scream of sirens. A boy unconscious, his skin blue, bloated. Except this time, the face was Veritas’s.
It was happening again. And it was her fault, again.
“Veritas!” she yelled, her voice frayed. “Where are you?” The other kids started to call out too, giggling. Once, she had that same unblemished cheer.
Maybe he was further up the peninsula, but she couldn’t look for him, not when the three other kids couldn’t be left alone.
“Veritas!” she called one last time. She could feel herself shaking now, feel her chest tighten, sudden and searing. The Island was empty, but there were a few houses nearby. Maybe she could bang on a stranger’s door, beg to use their phone, call the ambulance, the fire service, anyone. It would cause a big fuss. Veritas would be injured, might be dead. Grace would find out, and she would sit March down on the kitchen table and tell her to leave and March would have a few hours to shove everything into her duffel, a few hours to sear the details of her fifth home into her brain until her social worker’s sedan pulled up and took her away.
From the peninsula, its jagged formation silhouetted against the evening, a few figures emerged as one dark mass.
“Dan Heng!” March waved at the shadowy figures, trying to keep the tears from her voice. “Veritas is missing. I’m going to call for help. Could you mind the others?”
“He’s right here, March.” She heard Dan Heng’s voice in the distance. As they came closer, March saw the shadow separate into Dan Heng, Yingxing, and little Veritas walking alongside them. She should’ve been relieved, but still, her body shook, her mind seethed.
“He was picking up rocks on the shoreline.” Dan Heng stared at Veritas. “Veritas. Don’t run off like that. Apologise to March.” Veritas grumbled an apology, Dan Heng continued opening and closing his mouth, but it sounded strange to her ears. Garbled, as though she was underwater.
Then, there was a warm hand on her back, and she was spluttering, rising. She could hear again.
“It’s okay, March. Take a deep breath.”
Dan Heng was patting her back with a touch light and uncertain, as if she was a cross between a dog and a vase. It was so clumsy yet kind that she laughed, snorting and chortling, the sound humming in her chest and filling her up.
***
“In the last home I was in, I was about to be adopted.” The words tumbled out of her, like a tap that had been tweaked open after several years of disuse. They were sitting side by side on her bunk. She sipped at the chamomile tea Dan Heng had brewed for her.
“I was with them for two years, since I was eleven. But I messed up.” She hadn’t told the story before, but with Dan Heng’s soft look, the honeyed taste of the tea, it felt right.
“What happened?” Dan Heng asked. March could hear the space in his tone, that she could stop anytime she wished to.
“The family was a bio son, and few other foster kids, including me. And it was, uh, the bio son’s name was Nathan, and it was his birthday. I talked all the kids at home and his friends into going down the creek.” If she focused enough, she could summon their faces, watch them flit past her into the distance. One day, she wouldn’t be able to remember them anymore. Likewise, nobody would remember her.
“I wanted to make the day special, and it was, at first. We got food, music, swimming. Except we weren’t allowed down there. You can guess what happened.” March closed her eyes, hanging her head with shame. “He almost died. It was my fault.”
“It wasn’t.” If Dan Heng, unwavering, wise, mature Dan Heng, believed it, could she as well?
“How do you know that?”
“You were a child, March. And so was everyone else. It’s hardly a crime, not like…” He averted his eyes. March watched him swallow, the words shrivelling in his throat.
“Sorry, don’t want to talk about it.”
“That’s okay.” She pulled Dan Heng into an embrace, feeling him stiffen, then slowly wrap his arms around her shoulders. She thought about how lonely it had been carrying a secret, when one was unable to be seen or understood.
“I was meant to be comforting you.”
“I’m feeling plenty comforted~”
For a long time, they didn’t let each other go.