Page 2 of Fortuity
ChapterOne
Faith
Five YearsLater
Miss Stevens,the caseworker I met the day my mom died, tried her best to find family members who were willing to take me in, but there just wasn’t much information for her to work with. My mom hadn’t listed anyone as my father on my birth certificate, confirming what she’d told me growing up; she just didn’t know for sure. That left me with only one option...the grandparents I had never met because they kicked my mom out of their house when they found out she was pregnant with me. It wasn’t a surprise when they refused to take me into their home even though I had nowhere else to go. They’d washed their hands of me before I was born and had no desire to change their minds twelve yearslater.
I didn’t have high expectations of other people, and my outlook served me well in the foster system. The kids who were soft had it the hardest because the transition was rougher for them. The absolute worst were the ones whose entire world had changed in the blink of an eye. The parents who had loved them were gone, and nobody was left to take them in, so they were tossed into the system with us throw-away kids. They weren’t just soft, they were sad. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anyone around to give a damn or help them adjust to life without their family so they had to figure it out forthemselves.
The only constant in my life was Miss Stevens. Even when they tried to transfer me over to someone else, she insisted on keeping me as one of her “kids” as she liked to call us. She was always on my case about giving my foster parents a chance. “They’re good people who just want to help you,” she would say any time I got kicked out of one and sent to another, usually because I kept to myself so much it made people wonder if I had a personality disorder orsomething.
Maybe there really were good foster parents out there who did it for the love of kids, but I hadn’t been lucky enough to meet any of them yet. And honestly, as nice as she was, what did she know about it anyway? In my experience, foster parents put on a good show when one of our caseworkers did a visit, but it was just temporary. Once it was over, we were back to our regular programming of disinterest and sometimes flat-outneglect.
It was the latter of the two which landed me in the hospital. When I first got sick, I thought it was just a sore throat and didn’t worry much about it. By the time I could barely swallow and complained to my foster mother about it, herrealchild was sick too. Of course, she took him to the doctor right away and didn’t even think that maybe I should go along since I’d been the first to catch whatever was starting to spread through the house. The doctor diagnosed him with strep throat; a highly contagious disease that any reasonable person would guess to also be the cause of my illness since our symptoms were identical. But since I was the brat who had infected her precious boy, my foster mother wasn’t in a hurry to seek medical help for me. Almost a week later, when two of the other foster children got sick, she finally bothered to take me to an urgent care clinic. But the damage had alreadybeendone.
About a week later, I started having weird symptoms. It began with some swelling in my feet and I figured it was just from the insanely hot weather we were having. Then it moved to my belly, which could easily be blamed on my period since it was supposed to start soon. When my face started looking puffy, I finally wondered what might be wrong with me. An online search at the school library gave me a huge list of things that could be the cause of the swelling. Anything from my period to all the salty food my foster mother fed us. Deciding either of those were the most likely culprit, I told myself not to worry too muchaboutit.
When my fingers, wrists, and elbows started to ache, I figured it was from the swelling. Then my pee turned an odd color, but I thought it was probably from some of the candy I had eaten at lunch when a classmate shared it with me. But the next morning, when I found blood on the toilet paper after I went to the bathroom, I couldn’t explain it away. My period hadn’t started yet so it was enough to freak me the hell out. I didn’t trust my foster mother enough to take me to see a good doctor, and I was scared that maybe I was dying or something. So I called Miss Stevens to ask for her help. It was the first time I’d ever reached out to her, and I think she was too stunned to do anything but agree totakeme.
I met her at the curb when she came to pick me up because I didn’t want anyone to ask questions about what was going on. Offering her a weak smile, I climbed into the car and quickly buckled up so we could get out of there before one of the other kids saw me. “Thanks,” Iwhispered.
“You’re welcome,” she replied before an awkward silence filled the vehicle. She tried to strike up a conversation a few minutes later, but I was even more uncommunicative than usual. I was less than a year away from aging out of the system and didn’t know what would happen to me if I wasreallysick.
Although it was only half an hour later, I felt like I’d waited hours before I was sitting across from the doctor and he was doing the physical examination. “I’ll need to run some tests to make sure, but I think it’s post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis,” he said when he was finished. “It’s a kidney disorder that sometimes occurs after infection with certain strains of Streptococcusbacteria.”
“Like the strep throat I had a couple of weeks ago?” Iasked.
Instead of answering right away, he clicked the mouse on his laptop a couple times and peered at the monitor. “I don’t see anything in your chart about strep. Were you treated forithere?”
Sneaking a glance at Miss Stevens, I knew she was going to be angry I hadn’t talked to her about this sooner. “No, my foster mom took me to the urgent care clinic, along with a couple of the other kids who hadittoo.”
“I’ll give them a call to get your records transferred over here. It’s pretty rare for a case of strep that’s been treated in someone your age to cause post-strepGM.”
“Maybe we should have the other kids brought in to be checked over too,” Miss Stevens suggested. “Since all of you caught it at the same time, they might be atrisktoo.”
“I had it longer than everyone else,” Iwhispered.
“How much longer?” the doctorasked.
Miss Stevens leaned over and took my hand in hers when I hesitated. “Faith, when did yougetsick?”
“Maybe a week and a half before we went to the clinic,” I answeredsoftly.
She gasped at my response and turned to the doctor. “Could the delay in her care be responsible for her beingillnow?”
“Yes,” he confirmed. “Letting strep go untreated can lead to furthercomplications.”
“Oh, Faith,” she sighed. “I’m sosorry.”
“It’s okay,” I reassured her. “Youdidn’tknow.”
“But your foster mom did, didn’t she?” sheasked.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I got sick beforeAdamdid.”
“Did she get medical care for himrightaway?”
I looked down at my hands as I twisted them together in mylap. “Yes.”
