Three Little Words Read Online Free PDF

legal father,” the worker responded. “That means you have no legal basis to have your grandchildren.”
    “What about me?” Adele said in a timid voice.
    “The children were placed with a relative, and you’re no kin to them.”
    Grandpa left the room several times. Each time, Adele lowered her guard and cried. “He doesn’t care about the children the way I do. I’m the one who will suffer if they leave.”
    Ms. Willis shook her head. “Because Mr. Rhodes assumes no responsibility for his actions, we have no other choice but to send them back to Florida.”
    “Like hell she will!” Adele screamed as the caseworker drove away from the house, a trail of dusty fumes in her wake.
    I had never seen Adele so furious. She made a series of phone calls ending with one to Ms. Willis. “I’ve spoken to our attorney,” she said. “We will not relinquish the children without a court order.”
    Adele had gotten good advice, because the South Carolina Department of Social Services would have to get a Florida court order to force the issue. What she did not know—and I discovered many years later—was that someone in Florida had neglected to get the court’s permission for us to live with our relatives in the first place. Now they had to figure out how to ask for an order recalling us when no judge had approved sending us to South Carolina.
    Adele kept the appointment with the psychologist and took me along. I sat in the waiting room coloring, but then the therapist called me inside. After admiring my drawing, she asked, “What do you think of what’s been going on at your house?”
    I leaned back in my chair, propped my feet up on the coffee table, and sighed. “These social services people want to send me back to Florida, but I’m not much in the mood to go.”
    “What do you think about your mother and Dusty?”
    I refused to look directly at her when I replied, “I like them okay, but my mama did bad things, so social services had to take me away for my own good.”
    The psychologist gave me some tests and said, “You are doing far better than most children.” Then she showed me some pictures and asked me to make up a story about each one. My replies involved ghosts, witches eating people, and monsters swallowing parents alive. “She’s very bright,” she told Adele, who preened at the news. “Her level of verbal expression and her ability to grasp her total situation are way above her age level.” She then whispered something I could not quite hear about showing signs of being disturbed by all the upheavals in my life.
    There was no further talk of moving us, but the legal staff in Florida scurried around trying to figure out how to redo the paperwork so it would look like we had been sent to South Carolina legally. They filed a motion to send us to Grandpa as though we’d never left Florida. The judge signed this document five months after we were already in South Carolina.
    We had visits with Dusty in January and March. He brought toys, candy, and clothes to each visit. I loved the pile of pretty dresses, each wrapped in a plastic bag like the kind you get from the dry cleaner. I sat on his lap and sang songs with him, but Luke—who really had no memory of him—would not join in. We went to a scheduled third visit in April; but after waiting more than an hour, Adele, who had little patience with the Grover clan, took us home. I know Dusty showed up eventually because Ms. Willis brought our gifts to us a few days later.
    My South Carolina interlude has a dreamlike quality to it. I know it existed because I have more photos from that time than from any other placement in foster care. They depict Luke and me snug in new pajamas, splashing in a bubble bath, and hugging a hound dog whose head is twice as big as my brother’s. There are snapshots of us having a picnic in the park, posing in new outfits, and floating in a plastic kiddie pool. Despite the fact that this interval was doomed not to last, we