Foster Care

Each house smells of strangers: cabbage boiling on the stove, harsh soap at the rim of the sink, starched sheets that scrape against the skin in bed, hard pillows shaped by someone else’s head, rotting bananas, sweaty feet and dust. Each time we come to a new place I try to hide one shirt beneath the mattress just to keep the smell of home. Sometimes they find it, squeeze it through the wringer; hid long enough, the cloth absorbs the air around it, loses its memories. My brother smells like sour milk, unwashed armpits and the school paste he eats. He cries when they hit us; I never do. Each night I hear his sniffles soak the pillow. Come morning, I grab the damp case, hold it to my nose and breathe.