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But what about our rule? My room is my room because I’m your Number One and all that. Because I’m so, so lucky. Right? Remember—no one is allowed inmy room without my permission. That is our rule, right? Andrea’s room is Andrea’s room. No one invades it.”
    “You broke a few major rules today, so I’m not sure you want to bring up rules just now. Reality is, we’re clear out of space.”
    “No, we’re not! Brayden has his room and the girls have the other. The babies are with you. We’re fine.”
    I watch her roll the cot to where my desk sits, along with my bulletin board and adored bookshelves I worked so hard to make out of plywood and bricks left over from the patio Dad built.
    “Mom, you can’t do this! It’s the way I keep sane. My room is all I have and—”
    She stands up and frowns at me. “I think we can do without the dramatics, darlin’. Your life looks pretty good from where I’m standing.”
    My wind comes fast and furious and I fight not to stop breathing altogether. “What are you talking about? I’m an afterthought around here!”
    “Have you ever been left in your crib while your crack-addict mother went out to score? Have you been hit? Starved? Left with a pervert uncle?”
    I can’t help but make a joke here. “Well, Uncle Jimmie likes to watch his pornos. One time when I was staying over, I snuck down to get some cookies—”
    “I am being serious, Andrea. These kids come from garbage situations. They’ve had garbage lives. You know that. I sincerely hope that temporarily sharing your room is the very worst thing that ever happens to you. I sincerely do.”
    This silences me. I watch as she starts sliding booksfrom my shelves and stacking them on the floor. Above her, pinned to my bulletin board, is the letter from the Stanford recruiter, Mortimer Wolf.
Be patient for now,
I tell myself.
It’s less than a year until September.
I drop to my knees and help her, cradling my Judy Blumes and my Harry Potters and my Bellas and Edwards close to my chest, trying not to cry. “Who’s moving in—Samantha or Cici?”
    “Neither. I have a bit of news.”
    “Oh no.”
    A bit of news is never good, not when it’s coming from my mother’s mouth. The first time she told me she had a “bit of news” was when I was about five. The news, which she assured me was all good, concerned Joshie and Drew, my six-and eight-year-old brothers, as I’d always known them, with whom I’d lived as long as my young memory served. Joshie and Drew helped me build a good-dreams-only tent over my bed when I was afraid of nightmares. They taught me early on that it wasn’t cool to watch
Teletubbies.
They showed me how to wiggle my ears. And they were being adopted into a “loving home.”
    I just sat in the bath that day, stunned. Adopted? Into a loving home? What was wrong with our home? Did we not love them?
    Mom tried to explain but I was inconsolable. You can’t fling terms like “temporary situation” and “long-term childcare agreements” at a five-year-old covered in Mr. Bubble. Words like these mean nothing to her.
    My brothers—with whom I’d shared every cold, every game of tag, every Disney movie, every trip to Laguna Beach—were leaving and I was never to see them again.It was the last time I ever thought of the fosters as my real siblings. Mom can call them whatever she wants, but the truth is they aren’t related to me. The truth is, each and every one will go away.
    Tell me
you
wouldn’t start to distrust “a bit of news.”
    Mom gives me a sad smile. “We have a new girl coming tonight, very last minute. It’s a terrible situation.”
    “They’re all terrible situations. We don’t have room for any more kids!”
    “Sometimes you open your door anyway.”
    “My
door. Aren’t there laws about this? Foster kids sharing rooms and stuff?”
    “Kids have shared rooms since the beginning of time. Anyway, there’s nowhere else for her to go right now. While she’s with