Three Little Words

At age 2, Ashley lives in a caravan with her mother, Lorraine, and her mother’s twin sister, Leanne, who “dropped out of school to help support me” (1). The sisters work “different shifts and [take] turns caring for [Ashley]” (2). Ashley’s mother was only 17 when Ashley was born. She has “a carefree attitude” and is “too self-absorbed to fuss about my safety” (2).

When Lorraine’s partner, Dusty, moves in, “the whole mood in the house shift[s] and Aunt Leanne [isn’t] around as much” (3). Dusty is “like an ocean that change[s] unexpectedly” from “placid” to “choppy waves” (3). When her mother and Dusty fight, Ashley hides under her blanket, “hoping it [will] protect me from their nasty words or physical brawls” (3). After Lorraine catches Leanne and Dusty “tickling and laughing” on the sofa, they argue, and Leanne is soon “gone for weeks” (3) at a time.

Lorraine gives birth to a son, Tommy, who dies within two months. Nine months later, another boy, Luke, is born prematurely. Lorraine tells Dusty, “‘It’s all your fault because you hit me!’” (4). They visit Luke in the hospital regularly, and he is allowed home seven months later. Leanne comes over to help look after him and calls regularly to check in on them. One time, Ashley tells her that Lorraine is in “the kitchen cookin’ dope” (5).

Lorraine convinces Dusty to move to Florida and tells Ashley, “‘We’re moving to the Sunshine State to live happily ever after’” (7). As soon as they arrive, Dusty is arrested “for not having a license plate on the car or a valid driver’s license” (7). Three days later, more police officers arrive at the family’s apartment, and Lorraine is arrested. At the police station, Loraine promises, “‘I’ll get you soon’” (9), but Ashley will never live with her again. 

Ashley recalls that “[w]hen they ripped me from my family, nobody told me anything” (10). She acknowledges that “I might have been too young for an explanation, but years would pass without anyone answering any of my questions” (10). When she and Luke temporarily stay with Mr. and Mrs. Hines, Ashley keeps “asking for my mother, but nobody explain[s] why she [does] not come for me” (11).

Eventually, Ashely and Luke go to see their mother at the Department of Children and Families building. Ashley asks her mother to take her home, but Lorraine replies, “‘Sunshine, not today, but soon’” (12). The next time Ashley and Luke go to meet Lorraine, she does not turn up. Ashley tries to stay in the building, insisting that her mother is only late, but eventually she is taken back to the foster home. Despite this, her foster parents cannot “keep me from thinking about my mother all the time” (13).

Ashley gets in trouble for acting out and overhears Mrs. Hines reporting that “this child is hyper. She breaks all her toys, is really mean to the little ones—even her brother” (14). She has begun wetting the bed and showing off in front of the other children.

After four months, Ashley is moved to a new foster home without Luke. She wonders “what [is] so horrible about me and why I [have] been rejected again” and ruminates on “my perpetual question: What had I done that was so terrible that I had to be taken from my mother?” (15). Again, no one explains what is happening or why, and Ashley believes that “they [are] keeping secrets from me” (15).

Ashley is at the new foster home for “such a short time” (16) before being moved to yet another home, this time with Julio and Rosa Ortiz. Again, Ashley repeatedly gets in trouble, both for things she does and things she does not actually do. There are happier moments, though, especially when the Ortiz daughters help her choose new outfits that suit her. She is also allowed to start kindergarten early because Mrs. Ortiz observes that she is “the brainiest kid I ever had” (19). 

Ashley asks about her mother, but Mrs. Ortiz dodges the question, probably, Ashley reflects, because she knows that “my mother had been charged with possession of cocaine […] as well as offering to commit prostitution” (19). Despite this, Lorraine does visit one day, and Ashely asks about her brother Tommy who died when he was only two months old. Lorraine says that Ashley must not talk about it because “[t]hey might put me in jail” (21). However, Ashley later tells Mrs. Ortiz.

Ashley has no more visits from her mother, although Dusty does come to visit and express an interest in them. He reports that Lorraine is back in jail, and the children’s caseworker reveals that they are going to stay with their grandfather. 

Ashley and Luke are met at the South Carolina airport terminal by their grandfather and his partner, Adele. The transfer is made “with reservations” because “Grandpa had never provided a stable home for his own children” and “had been in and out of jail for crimes he committed while intoxicated” (27). He is quiet but occasionally drunk and abusive to Adele.

Adele is “a registered nurse and also [has] a degree in commercial art” that she draws on to decorate “the mobile home with her paintings” (26). She loves the children like her own and cares for them deeply. Soon, Ashley’s and Luke’s lives fall “into a routine that—for once—usually center[s] on [them]” (26) and is enjoyable and supportive. Their grandfather builds a two-story playhouse for them, and Adele makes them Halloween costumes.

Although she had “concerns about this placement,” their caseworker, Ms. Willis, is “delighted at how well everything is going” (27). However, when Ashley’s grandpa is arrested for drunk driving, with Luke in the car, their security looks more precarious. Adele blames herself, saying she “should have been more protective” (29), and fights hard to keep the children. However, Ashley’s grandpa is arrested again shortly after Christmas for not paying child support, and Ms. Willis says that she has “no other choice but to send them back to Florida” (32).

Adele again fights the authorities, promising them that “‘[w]e will not relinquish the children without a court order’” (32), and due to complications around legal proceedings, she is successful, for the moment. Later, speaking to Ms. Willis, Adele admits that “Grandpa sometimes [speaks] to her cruelly” (34) and that she has thought “‘about leaving him, but since I’m not kin, I’d lose the children’” (35). Ms. Willis suggests that she apply for a foster parent license.

Again, it looks like Adele may be able to keep the children, but a week later, everything changes when Ashley’s grandpa is shot in an argument over a car sale. Despite being shot four times, twice in the head, he survives, and Adele nurses him at home. However, the incident has colored the state’s view of the placement, and despite Adele’s best efforts, the children’s new caseworker, Lena Jamison, believes that placement is no longer safe.

Along with Luke, Ashley is moved into the Paces’ home, her “seventh home in little more than two years and the worst place [she has] been—so far” (39). Overcrowded with eleven foster children, the house offers “cramped quarters and zooey smells” (39). Ashley refuses to unpack, believing that she is “going back tomorrow” (39). Ashley receives a letter from Adele in which Adele says, “I miss you both something awful, but I know you are well and taken care of,” and closes with “I love you both so much…always and always, Love, Mama” (41).

Ashley’s biological mother is “in the women’s state prison and Dusty [is] in another jail in Florida” (42). Adele receives her foster care license on Ashley’s sixth birthday, and the documents are processed in time for Ashley and Luke to spend Christmas with her. Adele promises that “‘I’ll never let you go again’” (44). However, a few months later, the children are removed from her care, and Ashley has “never been able to find any official reason why we were returned to Florida a second time” (46).

Ashley and Luke are separated, with Ashley going on “to be the only child in the home of Boris and Doreen Potts” (47). After some time, she asks Mrs. Potts why Luke cannot come live with them, too, but Mrs. Potts says, “‘That’s not my decision’” and “close[s] off all further discussion on the matter” (49). Ashley enjoys not having to share the television with other children but is disturbed when she presses play on the video player and ends up watching a violent, Nazi-themed pornographic film in which a female Nazi “torture[s] women sexually and drunken German men [douse] women with beer and then [rape] them” (49). She will later learn that Mr. Potts “had been accused of molesting children” (50).

Ashley is moved to live with her “eighth so-called mother in three and a half years,” Mrs. Hagen (51). Ashley sees her biological mother for the first time in over two years. She is nervous, and “[t]he closer we [get] to the downtown office, the shorter my already-stubby nails [become]” (55). They are joyfully and tearfully reunited.

Lorraine complains that “‘They kept me away from you for so long!’” and, with narrowed eyes, asks, “‘You’re not calling anyone else “Mama,” are you?’” (55). She explains that Dusty is going to get custody of Luke so they will no longer be brother and sister. She also asks if Ashley wants to live with her once she has found “a nicer place to live,” which will not take long because “‘I’m getting my act together’” (56). She tells Ashley, “‘You’re my sunshine. I’ll see you soon’” (56).

Ashley is delighted at the prospect of living with her mother and has not yet begun to “question anything she said,” ignoring “her broken promises and pretend[ing] to be unaware of elapsed time” (57). When the Hagens close down their foster home, Ashley is surprised that she is not moving to live with her mother but to another foster home, with Luke. She remains convinced that her “mother is coming to get me. So it [does] not matter where I [live] for the next few weeks” (58).