I'll Always Miss You

fit.

CHAPTER ONE

IT’S NOT like we’re a small family, so I don’t know why they’d decided they wanted to adopt. One day, at dinner, Mom said it was happening, so it was happening. After that, every night, Mom and Dad sat at our kitchen table and pored over photographs and case files. It was like they were adopting a puppy instead of a kid.

Mom would say, Oh! What a beautiful little girl.

Or Dad would say, This one has such sad eyes.

She looks tough.

I wonder what his story is.

God, he breaks my heart.

The whole thing was freaking annoying.

They’d been trying to make the adoption thing happen for almost a year. We’d had all these strangers come to our apartment and judge our home. They interviewed us all, as a family, and separately. Lots of questions, lots of tests, lots and lots of paperwork. And even though they tried to hide it, I knew there was money involved. So the night Mom and Dad put away the photos of the kids, I was pretty surprised. I mean, sure, part of me always figured they’d change their minds right at the last second, but it was bizarre when they actually did.

Where’s the charity-case kids? I asked and she shot me a look. It was a Thursday. Who makes big decisions on a Thursday? I had Algebra II homework I was half doing and half ignoring. I’d walked into the kitchen to get a Barq’s, and Mom said, Isa, sit down. I need to talk to you.

Oh God. What? What horrible thing was happening?

I didn’t want to talk about horrible things; I wanted a root beer.

What’s going on? I asked.

First off, I want to say this is going to be a lot of fun. Which meant it wasn’t going to be fun, like, at all. Do you remember Keith Cormack?

I didn’t.

You probably wouldn’t. The last time you saw Keith, I think you were seven.

I nodded at her, trying to decide if this was more exciting than doing my math homework.

He’s got a son, a little older than you.

Mom, what’s going on? I asked. She was taking way too long to explain everything, and my mind was drifting. My mother frowned, her dark eyes narrowing.

We’re going to be having a house guest for a while.

Cool. Whatever. I wanted my root beer.

I’m glad you’re so amenable to all of this, she told me. I shrugged. If she and Dad wanted to have friends over for the weekend, whatever.

Okay.

Thank you, Isa. She smiled. I appreciate your flexibility.

If that’s all it took to be flexible, I thought I could probably manage it all the time. I got my root beer and went back to my room.

ONE WEEK later they moved an extra bed into my room while I was at school. Didn’t even ask me where I wanted it, they just shoved my dresser and my fish, Chester, into the corner and set up a whole other bed.

What’s this? I called out into the hall. Someone needed to answer for the invasion of my Fortress of Solitude.

Talia popped her head out of her room with an evil cat-grin on her face. You’re getting a roommate! she sneered. And then Layla’s head appeared around the corner as well (was I suddenly in an episode of Scooby Doo?), and she smiled, bright as the sun.

We’re getting a new housemate, Itha! she said with her missing-tooth lisp.

Uh, what the crap?

Housemate?

I stormed into the kitchen, my sisters following close behind.

What the— Just barely caught myself before I dropped the swear word. "—heck, Mom?"

She looked up from the grocery list she was making.

What are you guys yelling about? she asked firmly.

I told Itha he’th getting a new roommate, Layla said, smiling proudly.

There’s a bed in my room. My voice was dark. Someone moved a whole other bed into my room.

Talia, bored already, rolled her eyes and disappeared, but Layla nodded enthusiastically.

You guyth can be friendth and play all the time!

A friend to play with?

I had Matt and Seth, but crap, we didn’t call it playing. We weren’t eight. We hung out. There was this switch when we were kids. One day we were playing and the next, playing became uncool. We didn’t even talk about it. We just started asking each other, Hey, you want to hang out at my house today? And even though we technically played video games while we hung out, we were still hella careful with our verbs.

Isa, we discussed this, Mom said reasonably. I told you that Keith Cormack’s son was coming to stay with us.

Wait.

No.

What?

Keith Cormack’s son. I remembered Mom said that Dad’s friend from when I was a kid was going to come visit. For a weekend or something like that. No one said anything at all about his son.

How long? I asked sullenly.

A while.

Long enough to need a bed, at least.

It’ll be fun! Layla insisted playfully.

Is this why you guys aren’t looking at adopting anymore? I demanded. "This… this roommate? Are you adopting him now instead?"

Of course not, Mom said. Their family’s situation is… difficult to explain. But the important part is that Keith has been deployed, and Macklin is staying with us until he gets back.

"Staying with me, you mean."

MOM CAME to check on me later when I was feeding Chester. Or maybe she just wanted to look at the empty bed, and I happened to be there.

I was still annoyed with her. I watched the little pellets float at the top of the water for a moment before my fish gobbled them down.

If I had to have a friend taking up space in my room, I’d have put his bed along the back wall. Now I was going to have to walk past him every time I got up to use the bathroom.

Isa, she said plainly. Don’t act like this is all some huge surprise. I did tell you last week.

You didn’t tell me he was going to share my room!

Honey, where did you think he was going to sleep?

I don’t know, I grumbled. The living room? The bathroom? I hadn’t really thought about it. I thought some guy was coming to see Dad. I didn’t even consider a kid. What’s he like, anyway?

I kept my face stony, but I thought about it. What if he was kind of cool? Then being roommates would sort of be like a sleepover that never ended. Assuming he was chill and didn’t drink all the freakin’ Barq’s—on purpose—or always want to set the difficulty on Expert to show off, like Seth. Nothing like dying a thousand times to kill a good afternoon.

He’s… well, he’s a good boy. A little quiet.

I rolled my eyes and changed tactics. How old is he?

Fifteen.

Fifteen? I cried. "C’mon, Mom, if he’s fifteen, then he can stay home by himself and—"

Isa Zaman, stop fighting me on this.

I thought you guys wanted to adopt, I prodded. And now he’s ruining your dreams and everything.

Honey, he’s not ‘ruining our dreams.’ There’s always going to be kids that need adopting. Macklin… needs us. He was in foster care until recently.

Wait, what? That didn’t make sense at all.

His parents are divorced. His mother had custody, and Keith was deployed overseas.

Okay, and?

And his mother couldn’t take care of him.

So they stuck him in foster care?

Yes, Mom agreed.

"But now his dad has him? Then why are we taking care of him?"

As a favor, Isa. I knew I was testing her patience, but part of me wanted to push her. Keith… isn’t sure how to be a dad, and with his next assignment taking him out of the country again—

Drama.

That’s all this was. A bunch of dumb Cormack drama that had nothing to do with me or my family or my room.

If you just try, I know you’ll get along. He likes reading and the outdoors. She paced around my violated sanctum as she spoke.

He’s excited to meet you and Talia and Layla.

You’ve talked to him? I asked suspiciously.

Of course we have. We’ve spent quite a bit of time with Macklin. We think he will fit very well in our family.

I hate this.

I’m sorry.

She didn’t sound sorry. She sounded like her mind was made up. I sat down hard on my bed. I thought we’d settled all of this! I’d told her how I felt, told her I didn’t want him in my room, but even though we were supposed to be a family unit, what I wanted never seemed to matter. And now there was going to be some friggin’ foster kid castoff in my room, without my permission.

I don’t see why you have to do this, I grumbled into my fist. "Why do you need another kid?"

We don’t.

She sat next to me and put her arm around my shoulders, which made me cringe. I tried to pull away from her.

"We don’t need him, Isa. We have room in our hearts for one more. He needs someone—just for a while. I wish you could see how much fun this could be."

Fun? I asked, giving up escaping as a lost cause. Her skinny arm was like an iron vise, and she pulled me against her shoulder.

Isa, you’ve been stuck in the middle of a pack of sisters your whole life, she reminded me. If you give him a chance, you two could turn out to be best friends. Think about that. A new friend? This could be the best thing that ever happened to you.

I didn’t think so. And she didn’t want to hear it. But I stopped arguing because I knew when I was beat. She kissed my hair and told me:

He’ll be here tonight.

Of course he would.

CHAPTER TWO

LAYLA LOVED him immediately. She insisted on sitting right next to him at dinner, even though it meant squeezing her seat between his and Dad’s. She asked him lots of questions about himself, about what he liked, about what he thought about his new home, about where he came from. And he answered in this stupidly quiet voice. I didn’t even want to know what he was saying, but it pissed me off that I couldn’t hear him.

Dinner is served! Mom called, setting the pizza from Martine’s on the table. It was my favorite, Pepperoni Explosion, with three kinds of pepperoni. She bought an extra-extra-large. We used to make do with a large, but I figured she wanted to stuff Macklin full.

So…, I said finally, cutting into another of Layla’s endless questions. Is he going to become a Zaman or something?

Mom gave me a warning look, even though I wasn’t being (too) sarcastic.

I mean, are you guys his guardians or what? Does he have to change his name?

Dad smiled and said, We’re Macklin’s temporary guardians, but he’s still a Cormack.

Something wrong with my last name? I wanted to pick a fight. I knew we weren’t adopting him, but I was grumpy and wanted someone to argue with. Even I thought I sounded like a total brat saying it.

Please ignore Isa, Mom said and shot me one of her dirtiest looks.

I glared at Macklin, who looked down at his pizza.

Can I call you Mackie? Layla asked through a huge mouthful of pizza.

Layla, don’t talk with your mouth full.

Mackie, Talia chimed in. So far she’d seemed pretty uninterested in the sudden intruder in our midst, but she shrugged at him. I think it suits him.

Girls, Dad said. Don’t try to change the boy’s name.

No, Mr. Zaman. It’s okay. Macklin’s lips twitched. My grandmother used to call me Mackie.

Yay! Layla cheered and then clapped her hands over her still-full mouth at Mom’s warning look.

I watched my sisters and my parents and their new kid, chatting back and forth, and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t get my head around it. How was everyone so casual about this? I was supposed to call him Mackie and pretend, what? That this strange white kid fit in with my family?

May I be excused? I asked. I’d only eaten one piece of pizza, but I couldn’t stand it anymore, sitting there while my family buzzed about a stranger. Even Talia? Talia hated everyone and everything all the time. Mackie. I think it suits him? What was with that? I needed to escape to my room. Which was now his room too? God.

Go, Mom said darkly.

She was pissed off at my attitude, but I was pissed too. Couldn’t she see how stupid he looked sitting at our table? It was so obvious he didn’t belong.

I lay on my bed for a long time. I could still hear their voices, carrying into the hallway.

I hadn’t wanted them to adopt, but if the alternative to adopting was hosting Mackie, a little kid seemed a whole lot better. A little kid wouldn’t have been taking up space in my room. If you could wander into a family, could you also step out of one? They’d all made their decision without me, like I didn’t even get a vote. So if they wanted Mackie to take my place…. Fine. Maybe I’d go into foster care and get some other family to take me.

CHAPTER THREE

DAD TOOK us all to school the next day. The girls usually rode the bus, and I would either walk or bum a ride with Jason, if his mom caught me looking mopey enough when they drove by.

I sat in the backseat of Dad’s car glaring out the window; Layla was in the middle, and Talia was on the other side. Mackie was up front with Dad, even though I’d clearly and loudly called shotgun. Guess they don’t call shotgun in foster care.

Hey guys, my father announced in a warm voice, guess what?

I tried to ignore him and watched the fast food restaurants pass us by. Burgers, Mexican, chicken, chicken, more burgers. Since we had to take the girls to school first, we’d probably get to Union West High School right on time—which was late for me. I liked to go down to the cookie table and buy a warm cookie from the Booster Club moms and then hang out with the guys for a while before the bell rang. If we got there on time, I’d have to run to my locker and get my books and then head straight for my first class. My stupid locker was right up front near the principal’s office, but math was all the way at the back of the school in the new additions they’d built over the summer.

Layla was squealing over Dad’s guessing game.

We’re getting a puppy? she guessed hopefully. She wanted—more than anything in the entire world—to have a puppy. Of course, Mom said no every time she asked.

Where are you going to play with him, Layla? she’d ask, her hands on her hips. Where is he going to pee and poop?

Outthide, Layla said. She had thought this through.

Outside, where? On the sidewalk? There’s no grass for a mile.

That was an exaggeration, but it was a good point. There wasn’t much puppy-space around our city apartment building. But sometimes I wished Mom would give in too. If anyone could wear her down, it would be Layla. So I let her do all the heavy lifting.

Better than a puppy, Dad insisted.

Two puppies? Talia muttered dryly, which sent Layla into high orbit.

Two puppieth! she cried happily. She was probably imagining her lap full of puppies that never grew up into dogs. Man, to be six again.

It’s not an animal of any kind, Dad said patiently, still smiling. He turned to Mackie and asked, Would you like to guess?

I watched his expression in the car’s side mirror. He was actually thinking about it. What was there to think about? He didn’t know Dad. He didn’t know us. How could he possibly guess what exciting news Dad had?

He was about to open his mouth to say something (no doubt, something incredibly stupid), when I blurted out, Is Aaliyah coming to visit?

Great guess, Isa! Dad said proudly. You’re exactly right.

It wasn’t a total stab in the dark. I’d heard Mom talking with her on the phone that morning, and she seemed even more excited than normal. Aaliyah called all the time about the baby. It hadn’t been born yet; I don’t know what there was to talk about. But she and Mom would talk for hours, and when Mom got off the phone, she always looked happy. But sad too. I know she wished Aaliyah hadn’t moved away, but what are you going to do? She was twenty-one and married. That’s what happens. When I turned eighteen, I was going to put my stuff in a bag and move anywhere I wanted. Out of our cramped family and our cramped city. And I wouldn’t even call. Maybe.

Aaliyah’s coming? Talia asked, perking a little. When I said she hates everyone and everything, all the time, what I meant to say was: everyone and everything except for Aaliyah. Talia idolized Aaliyah. Probably because our big sister took Talia shopping every time she came to visit. And she showed her how to do things with makeup. And treated her like she was seventeen and not eleven. Talia ate that stuff up.

Is Rashid coming too? I asked while the girls exploded with excitement about seeing Aaliyah. Secretly, in a hidden, totally uncool part of myself, I was a little excited too. I’d always liked Aaliyah the best, but after she married Rashid and started to explore Moroccan culture, she’d become even cooler to me.

She’s coming to see you, actually, Mackie, Dad said to the kid sitting in my rightful seat, and I felt a twist in my gut. What? We hadn’t seen Aaliyah since she found out she was pregnant, and now she was going to make a special trip down to see my weird new roommate?

Why? I asked hotly. Why does she want to see him?

Aaliyah knew Mackie when he was a baby.

I caught his eyes in the side mirror, and I narrowed mine darkly. I’m going to get you, Mackie, I said silently. I don’t know when or how, but I’m going to get you for doing this to me.

I don’t know what he said to me in his head, but he held my gaze with his blue eyes for a really long time until finally, annoyed, I looked away.

AFTER DAD kissed the girls good-bye, he announced that we were going out for breakfast.

But, school? That was the first time I’d ever said something stupid like that. Was this new roommate making me dumber?

He laughed. No school today for either of you. I thought the Zaman and Cormack men could go out for some grub and get to know each other better. Maybe go see a movie later?

I was stunned silent. He’d never let any of us skip, even when it was really important, like if someone had threatened to beat us up or we’d forgotten to do our homework the night before. And I’d definitely never seen Dad play hooky before. He’d been a foreman at the Henry Plant since before I was born and would go in to work even if he were dying. On the rarest occasion, when Mom really put her foot down, he’d call in sick—like the time he had walking pneumonia. But regularly? No way!

Is this a joke? I asked.

No joke. He smiled into the rearview mirror. So what do you think, Isa? Should we introduce Mackie to the Biscuit Basket?

No.

No.

No.

I’ve got something important I’ve got to do at school today, I lied.

It’ll wait. I’ve called them and made an excuse already.

You lied? I asked incredulously. Dad never lied about anything. Dad was incapable of lying.

I maybe fibbed. He grinned, really proud of himself, and turned onto the street toward the Biscuit Basket.

The waitress put us at a table near the back, away from the kid’s section, which was a relief. Usually when Layla and Talia came along, we got stuck near all the families with their screaming babies. Of course, Talia thought this was the worst insult ever. I thought it was annoying.

What can I get you gentlemen to drink? she asked.

Dad ordered a coffee, and I asked her for a cocoa. The Biscuit Basket makes the best cocoa in the whole world.

She looked at Mackie, and he said, Um, I’ll take a coffee too.

God, I hated him.

You know, I actually met your father in high school, Mackie. Dad smiled as he spoke. Keith was a helluva practical joker.

Mackie stared at Dad, not saying a word. Maybe Keith’s joking days were over, or maybe he just didn’t know anything about his father. Weird foster kid.

When the waitress came back with our drinks, we ordered, and then Dad said he was going to use the restroom. The second he was out of earshot, I turned on Mackie.

I want to ask you a question. I was kind of glaring at him when I said it, but only because he was drinking his coffee black, like he was trying to prove something.

Yeah, okay, he agreed quietly.

Why were you in foster care?

Because my mom didn’t know how to take care of me. His voice sounded flat when he said it, and the whole thing came out really stiff like he’d rehearsed it. He probably got asked that a lot.

What does that mean? I wanted to know. Like she didn’t make you dinner?

Like she didn’t feed me, he agreed.

And they just took you away?

Yeah.

Why didn’t your dad come back to get you?

Didn’t know it had happened.

"Then why get you now?"

Mackie looked away from me.

I expected something more. Why would they take a kid over something like that? I mean, Mom said he was in foster care from the time he was nine. Couldn’t he have fed himself?