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I hoped he had enough money to pay for a nice headstone too, instead of the numbered metal plate the social worker had described.
    â€œMama Tammy said it’s vulgar you picked out a red dress for your mom to be buried in.”
    My foster sister, Jess, sat at the end of my twin bed even though hers was just two feet away. At seven, she was just a myna bird, repeating everything anyone else said.
    â€œShe said your friend Maureen is a bad influence.” Jess picked her nose and wiped her finger on my bedspread without bothering to inspect it first. I made a mental note to throw the spread in the washing machine later.
    â€œMo didn’t choose the dress. I did.”
    â€œMama Tammy still doesn’t like it.”
    â€œShut up, okay?” I was dangerously close to knocking her off the bed or throwing her out into the hallway.
    â€œYou can’t tell me to shut up. You’re not my mother.” Her whine grated like fingers on a chalkboard.
    â€œYou don’t have a mother. That’s why you live with Tammy.”
    Jess was still in that honeymoon phase of foster care, where kids think their foster parents will adopt them and they’d all live happily ever after. She’d soon find out that no one really wants strays after they’re no longer cute and cuddly toddlers.
    Jess’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not a nice person.”
    I should’ve apologized—and would have if she’d started crying—but I couldn’t be bothered. I needed to dress. Not knowing how cold it’d be at the cemetery or how long a graveside service would last, I chose a slouchy sweater and scarf, and black jeans tucked into boots.
    â€œThat’s not very dressy,” she said.
    I ignored her and pulled my duffel bag from the closet. I hadn’t bothered to unpack it when I got placed in Tammy’s temporary care. Mom had taught me to keep few possessions and to always be prepared for a fast getaway. Besides, the foster home wasn’t home. Having two drawers in a dresser to call my own didn’t make it so, nor did sitting around a dinner table, holding hands and saying grace with other parentless children.
    â€œSo, you’re going to live with your uncle?”
    â€œAppears so.”
    â€œHope he’s as nice as Mama Tammy.”
    I really didn’t care. As long as he was nicer than Lloyd and as long as he could get me out of here.
    Greenmount Cemetery occupied a small mesa overlooking downtown Durango. The winding road, typically slick with ice and snow this time of year, was clear. The afternoon sun shone through the trees, casting long shadows. The one cemetery I’d seen in Albuquerque was a wide-open lawn with a grid of headstones and an occasional urn of fake flowers. Greenmount’s residents had thick-trunked cedars and pines to shield their graves. I liked the idea of Mom having these evergreen sentinels watching over her since I couldn’t anymore.
    Tammy and I weren’t the first to arrive. A man I assumed was the preacher stood by the grave site, a prayer book in his hands. A cemetery worker stood farther back, huddled against a tree. Carol, my case manager from social services, hadn’t arrived yet. And neither had my uncle, even though he’d assured Carol he’d be here.
    Mom’s casket and a large square of green artificial turf concealed the hole in the ground where she’d be placed. I don’t know why I’d expected a perfectly rectangular dirt pit like those on TV shows where the bad guys made some dude dig his own grave.
    â€œYou must be Arlie. I’m Reverend Knox from First Presbyterian. I’m sorry for your loss.” The lanky minister held out his gloved hand, so I shook it to be polite. His nose and ears were redder than Mom’s dress. No one told me how he’d been chosen to perform the service, but then again, I’d never asked. It didn’t matter. Mom hadn’t been religious. I