Archive of Our Own ^beta

Andrew Doe did not trust Betsy Dobson. 

For his first dinner with his new foster family, he sat at the dining room table and refused to eat. Betsy sat across the table from him, with wire-rimmed glasses perched low on her nose. Her face was framed by dark, curly hair. She looked like a therapist, Andrew thought sneeringly. She had taken a few bites of her meal already, but Andrew refused to eat with her. 

This woman was not his mother. She was not Cass. They were not a family.

“Would it make you feel better if I left?” Betsy offered politely, fifteen minutes into the agonizing silence. “I want to make this transition as easy as possible for you, Andrew.” 

“Fuck you,” Andrew snapped. 

Cass would not have tolerated that kind of language. She would have reprimanded him. Betsy, of course, did nothing of the sort, and instead took her plate past him to the kitchen. 

“I’ll be in my bedroom,” she said calmly, “And when you are done, would you mind putting your plate in the dishwasher?”

Andrew hardened his gaze. He wouldn’t do anything that Betsy wanted of him.

Cass would have made them all eat family dinner together. Cass would have insisted on Andrew clearing his plate. Cass would have--

Stop. Andrew forcefully diverted his attention from those memories, burying them under a fierce layer of apathy. He wrestled his breathing back under control and pushed his chair back from the table. He left his plate on the table out of spite for Betsy to clean later.

Andrew didn’t want her sympathy. He didn’t want her concerning looks. 

And at the end of the day, Betsy wasn’t his family. He couldn’t afford to believe that someone else would care. 

His bedroom had a lock on it, a deadbolt carefully picked out by Andrew a few hours earlier. Betsy had helped him install it, showing him the right way to use an electric drill. At first Andrew had flinched away from her fingers, before realizing that there was no way for her to tamper with the lock. He tested it later that night, tried tugging the door from both sides, until he deemed it safe enough to sleep in. 

Even with the lock, every sound kept him awake at night. Every creak on the staircase made him sit up, alert and sweating with anticipation. The room felt cavernous and black, shadows lurking in the corners. In the morning, he balled his sheets up and stuffed them into the laundry machine. The detergent was on top of the cabinet, too tall for Andrew to reach without help. He stood there, glaring at it, willing it to fall into his hands. 

He wanted a shower. He wanted to curl in his room and not go to school. He wanted to go back to a place he understood. He wanted to be tall enough to grab the fucking detergent on his own. 

Betsy knocked on the door to the laundry room, startling Andrew slightly. Andrew watched her gaze travel over the bundle of sheets in the machine to the detergent, high overhead. 

“May I grab that for you?”

“I don’t care.” Andrew said flatly. The lack of sleep combined with the barely-repressed panic had left him drained and emotionless. 

Betsy didn’t take that answer. Instead, she leveled him evenly and said, “Consent is important, Andrew.”

Andrew’s gaze turned flinty. Betsy knew about what had happened in the Spear household-- after a previous foster child had confessed to Drake’s abuse, Andrew was removed from the household. 

It had all happened so fast. One night he was falling asleep, hollowed out and aching, but clutching the warmth of Cass’s smile close to his chest, and the next morning he was jolted awake by child protective services. 

They didn’t allow him the glorious sight of Drake bent over a police car, hands cuffed behind his back. They rushed him out of the house, every possession of his stuffed into a garbage bag, and sat him firmly in the back of a van. 

Cass was crying, Andrew remembered vaguely. His mind served him well in some situations, committing each precise detail to memory, but the memory of driving away from Cass was fuzzy and purpled at the edges. Instead, Andrew carried the kinder memories with him, tucked carefully away in his mind. The gold band on her finger, the chunky manicures she would get once a month. The way flour dusted her apron on Saturday mornings. The crinkles at the sides of her eyes, usually covered by tortoiseshell reading glasses. The sound of her laugh, bright as a bell. 

Betsy was still standing there in the doorway, patient and understanding, and Andrew felt a sick swoop of hatred. She might know the details, but she would never understand. She would never know what Andrew had survived. 

“Fine,” Andrew bit out. “Go get it.” 

She reached overhead for the detergent. Rage churned in Andrew’s mind. With enormous effort Andrew forced the anger down, into a blackened corner of his mind where no one could reach it. 

He watched the sheets swirl around in the laundry machine, bubbly and soaking wet. Already he felt disconnected and detached. This way of living was manageable. 

All he had to do was deal with it one day at a time.

It was one AM and Andrew was hungry. 

There was no sound from the rest of the house, so the click of the deadbolt unlocking was as loud as a gunshot. He didn’t know the stairs yet, which steps creaked under weight and which ones were carpeted in silence. He crept down them as quietly as possible. 

He foraged through the kitchen, tucking a few chocolate granola bars into his sleeves and a bag of chips under his shirt. From the freezer, he stole a pint of chocolate ice cream and snuck a spoon from the silverware drawer. The tub was cold against his skin and sweated condensation. The spoons clattered noisily in the drawer, even as he slowly shifted it closed. 

Something moved in Betsy’s bedroom. Sheets rustled. Suddenly awash in anxiety, Andrew bolted for his room and unloaded his stash. He fumbled for the lock, clicking it closed with shaking fingers.

Logically, Andrew knew that Betsy was giving him enough food. He was eating three meals a day and two snacks, enough for a “growing boy.” He wasn’t fiercely hungry, not in the way where his body felt like it was eating itself alive from the inside out. He wasn’t malnourished anymore. 

But the hidden worry still scratched at the back of his mind, the anxiety that one day he would have to compete with someone else for food. Betsy hadn’t shown any signs of wanting another foster child, but the simple fact was that Andrew wasn’t enough. There was always going to be someone else.

He had gone through thirteen homes before Betsy; there was a reason he hadn’t stayed. 

Andrew heard footsteps carefully climb the stairs and froze. There was a minute of agonizing tension, before Betsy descended again. He inhaled a shaky breath and waited for the house to fall back into the sleepy silence it had been in before. The ice cream was melting rapidly against his thigh. 

The quiet came a moment later. Under the covers, Andrew flipped open the most recent book Betsy had given him, and began reading.

The next morning, Andrew woke up to his alarm ringing shrilly. It seemed far too early for the day to begin and his vision was bleary from the lack of sleep. It was seven AM; Andrew’s school started in forty five minutes. 

He made his way downstairs, yawning, and plonked himself down at the table. A box of cereal was already out on the table and a carton of milk. Betsy was in the kitchen making herself a cup of coffee. She moved to the freezer to get something and stilled for a moment.

“Did you eat the ice cream that was in here?”

Andrew froze. 

“No,” he said. The word came out twisted. Andrew didn’t like lying, not when so many people had lied to him before. A few months ago he might have provoked Betsy more, all snarling aggression and sharp words. Now, Andrew didn’t think he could handle whatever her anger looked like, whatever punishments it would bring.  

He had grown to know Betsy in a strange, half-trusting way.  She liked communication and honesty, and so far had respected Andrew’s boundaries. She never pressed about his previous foster families, but told Andrew that she appreciated what he chose to share. 

She was like a tealight in the dark, Andrew thought. Small and unassuming, at first seemingly like the candle was giving off barely any light. But blow the candle out, and the darkness would become overwhelming and all-consuming. 

Andrew couldn’t let the darkness come back, not after feeling what the light felt like. 

The school day passed in a blurry haze. Andrew’s thoughts rebelled against himself, gibbering and cycling in rapid circles. Stealing was going to get him removed from the house. He thought he had been so careful, so precise. Other families didn’t look that deeply into his actions. Betsy was too observant, too caring . 

Andrew sat in front of the school, waiting for Betsy to come pick him up. It was a Wednesday afternoon and Betsy had no clients that day. Eventually she pulled up in a nondescript Sedan, and Andrew clambered inside.

Anxiety sharpened the tension in the car. Andrew unconsciously clenched at the long since healed scars on his arms, remnants of a time when everything was spiraling out of control. Betsy, of course, noticed. 

She pulled into the driveway. The engine stopped humming beneath them. 

“Andrew,” Betsy began, “I’d like you to be honest with me.”

Andrew reached for the door and slipped out of the car. He didn’t hear Betsy’s words. He wouldn’t hear them. He would hold onto this as long as he could. 

He refused to think about the last time he had held on to someone so strongly, how he had ripped himself to pieces each night for it. 

He marched upstairs and Betsy followed. Instead of slamming the door behind him, Andrew paced the length of his room and sat against the foot of his bed. Betsy stayed at his doorway, and sat down to match his level. 

“Fine,” Andrew snapped, once the silence became too much to bear. “I ate the ice cream. It doesn’t fucking matter.” 

Betsy didn’t reach out to him. She didn’t cross the border of his room. She sat in the doorway patiently and said, “Oh, Andrew.”

Shame dribbled over Andrew in slimy trails, and he fought to grasp at the hems of his apathy. No matter what she said, this would be the end of it. 

And then: “You won’t get in trouble for eating food. You don’t have to hide it from me.”

Andrew’s breaths were coming quick. His chest hurt. He would go back to the system and get shuffled around again, never finding another place that would care for him. He had fucked it up again, just in the way he always did-- never quiet enough, never good enough. 

“Why did you hide it?” Betsy said, empathy seeping into her voice. Andrew barely heard her.

“It doesn’t matter,” Andrew spat, his words barbed. “You’re going to make me leave. Just get it over with already.” 

The silence that fell was thick and tense, stringing between them. Andrew focused his gaze on the far wall and thought of nothing. 

“I’m not going to make you leave,” Betsy said. “I’m not angry or disappointed or upset. I just want to help you.” When Andrew stayed silent, she continued, “I would never make you leave if you didn’t want to. Being here is your choice. I admit that I would like you to stay, I really would. I want to help you as much as I can.” 

Andrew uncurled slightly. Anything he wanted to say had dried and shrivelled up on his tongue. 

“Are there any flavors you would prefer?” Betsy asked casually. 

Andrew shot her a glance out of the corner of his eye. Relief welled in him, cool and soothing at his fiery nerves. “I like cookie dough.”

The next day, two different pints of ice cream were stacked in the freezer. One was dark chocolate truffle and the other chocolate chip cookie dough. Andrew eyed them when he opened the freezer, before carefully taking one out.

From the other side of the room, Betsy-- Bee-- smiled. Andrew pretended he didn’t notice.

The ice cream was sweet on his tongue, but the honesty tasted better.

Saturday bloomed under the sun like honeysuckle vines. Bee let him sit shotgun as they drove up to San Francisco, so long as Andrew sat up straight and kept his seatbelt on the entire time. Andrew reluctantly followed her guidelines; the air conditioning was cooler in the front and yielded a better  view than the backseat. 

Outside, the hills rolled out in shades of green and yellow. The May sun heated up Andrew’s legs and air whistled through a crack in the window. Betsy wouldn’t let him roll it down all the way on the highway, but she didn’t mind the fresh air. Andrew somewhat enjoyed the buffering sound of the wind; it muffled every other sound being made. 

Betsy weaved her tiny car in and out of twisting streets in the city before finally squeezing into a compact spot. It was right in front of an ice cream parlor, the interior decorated with pastel blue and pink. 

“Do you want to get some?” Bee offered, noticing Andrew’s glance. She was trying this new thing where Andrew vocalized things that he wanted or needed. It was a strange dynamic that Andrew had never experienced before, always used to being violently shut down whenever he was in need. It was strange to even think about expressing something he wanted and have someone genuinely follow through on it.

Andrew agreed, and ten minutes later, Bee handed him a towering waffle cone with double chocolate and sea salt caramel ice cream. Her own cone consisted of two sad scoops of lemon and strawberry sorbet. She offered Andrew a taste, who scrunched his nose in rejection. Fruit didn’t belong in ice cream. 

They walked down by Golden Gate Park, and stopped by the California Academy of Sciences. Andrew was reluctantly tempted by the museum, coated in white marble and glass. There was a family entering the museum, a mother, a father, a teenager, and a baby in a stroller. A bumblebee hummed behind Andrew, the air full of lavender pollen and sun. A sign out front boasted the Steinhart Aquarium.

Trying out the whole “expressing desires” thing, Andrew asked to go inside. Betsy gave him a reassuring smile, and went up to go buy tickets. 

It was relatively crowded on a Saturday, but the lower level was hushed. It was entirely aquatic, every wall taken up by blue-green fish tanks. In one, bright orange jellyfish pulsed in time with each other, pushing themselves through the water. Sunlight streamed in through high windows, sending watery light across the floor. Andrew trailed around the entire floor, eyes landing on everything. A coral reef filled a tank that must have been at least thirty feet tall. Multicolored fish darted around in flashes of color, weaving in and out of pink sea anemone. Strands of seaweed dangled all the way up to the surface. 

It was on his second lap around that Andrew realized Bee hadn’t spoken in a while. He looked around for her, making sure that he hadn’t accidentally lost her, and found her eyes shining.

“What?” he demanded. Bee continued to stare at him, her gaze almost teary, until she composed herself and smiled. 

“It’s nice to see you enjoy something,” she said finally. There was nothing calculating in her gaze, nothing threatening. It seemed… genuine. It seemed like she was genuinely happy. 

Andrew’s heart made a funny leap in his chest. It was true; Andrew really did enjoy the aquarium. It was mesmerizing the way schools of fish swarmed around in silvery patterns. He looked from the aquarium tanks to Bee again, and offered her a small smile. 

“Thanks,” he said. For a moment it was just the two of them: the taste of caramel and chocolate on Andrew’s tongue, the sunlight filtering into the room, and Bee’s smile. 

For a moment, Andrew was content. 

“Andrew,” Bee said gently, “I was wondering if I could talk to you about something.” 

Andrew’s spoon froze over his Lucky Charms, from where he was picking out the marshmallows one by one. Hearing those words never precluded anything good. He gave a noncommittal shrug, which Betsy took as implicit permission to continue.

“Cass Spear emailed me,” she said. Andrew, who had resumed picking through his cereal, stilled again. “She wanted me to set up a meeting with you.” 

A buzzing sound washed through Andrew’s ears. Cass. 

He had been with Bee for six months now, two weeks and four days past the time he had spent with the Spears. Slowly, each day was being replaced with better memories. 

“Do you want to see her?” Bee asked. She was giving him a choice. 

Andrew’s knee bounced under the table, and he tried to still it but couldn’t.

Against his will, his mind dredged up memories of Cass that he had tried to shed. 

She had been wonderful. She had been kind. She made cupcakes on Saturdays and she let him lick the spoon, never mind the raw eggs. Some mornings she would make him pancakes before school. She hung sheets stained pink to dry in the summer air outside.  She gave Andrew his own library card and told him how to check out books. She slept down the hall at night, dead to the world. She was going to be his mother. She was everything Andrew had wanted and more. 

And he would have done anything to keep her, up until he cut himself to pieces for it. 

“No,” he said, his voice tight. “I don’t want to see her.”

Bee nodded, her gaze troubled and far too knowing for Andrew’s liking. “Are you feeling alright?”

I’m tired, Andrew thought wearily. I want to sleep. I want to sleep and never wake up. 

“No,” he said. The words burned.

 Bee offered a lifeline. “Do you feel able to go to school today?”

Cass would have given him the option of not going, but her disappointment would be stained on his skin for the rest of the day if he chose it. He would bear that mark of shame and avoid her gaze at dinner, and have to wake up the next morning agonizing and hurting and knowing that he still had to go to school even when everything hurt. And if he didn’t, Cass would be disappointed, and the cycle would repeat, and it always ended with Andrew aching on the inside. 

But Bee wouldn’t. Bee would understand the gaping, black emptiness inside of him. Bee had earned his trust, over months and months of proving she deserved it.

“No,” Andrew said, the vulnerability choking him, fingers wrapped around his throat, and he grappled for his usual apathy. “I don’t care.” 

The clock ticked down. They would have to leave in five minutes if Andrew was going to be on time. Andrew spooned another bite of cereal, but it was sawdust in his mouth. For a moment, he grappled between two memories of different mornings, one with Bee, the other with Cass, both hurting on the inside and silent on the outside. 

“You won’t get in trouble for taking a mental health day,” Bee reminded him. They had this conversation before, albeit a one sided conversation, during Andrew’s first few weeks. She sat outside his doorway, spoke loudly enough that Andrew could hear her, and told him that the adjustment to a new home was difficult, and it was okay to take time for himself. 

Andrew’s gaze burned. “That’s not true.”

Bee regarded him. “Why do you think that?”

Andrew stared down into the cereal bowl. All the right words surged to the forefront of his mind, but they were misshapen and jagged coming out. He opened and closed his mouth, trying to come up with a reason. Bee didn’t pressure him. She simply sat and waited, calm and quiet and soothing. 

“It just isn’t,” he said tightly. 

He didn’t know how to shape the wild, intangible fear into words: that he couldn’t see Cass again because she was the first person to care about him, that he couldn’t go to school because he was raw and vulnerable and every inch of his skin ached, that he couldn’t skip school because he couldn’t be a burden to Bee. 

Everything hurt. Everything hurt and Andrew wanted to vanish. 

“I’m going to call school and tell them you’re not coming in today,” Bee said gently. “Are you okay with that?”

Andrew nodded mutely. From the other room, he heard her muffled voice calling the school administration. After a few minutes she walked back out, car keys in her hand. 

“Come with me,” Bee said. “I want to show you something.”

Mechanically, Andrew followed her out the door. He felt disconnected, staring blankly into space, after the violent rush of emotions that had just washed over him. He could feel Bee’s cautious gaze, knowing that she could read him better than he knew, and hopped into the passenger seat. 

Bee came to a stop at an Episcopal Church. Andrew looked at her sullenly. He hadn’t suspected Bee to be the religious type, and he had no intention of going inside.

He scowled. “I’m not going to church.”

“I’m not taking you to church,” Bee said, and dropped her car keys into Andrew’s hand. 

On a Tuesday morning, the parking lot was deserted. It was simply a wide open stretch of black pavement, pockmarked with various potholes from lack of upkeep. Andrew clenched his fist around the keys. They dug into the flesh of his palm, leaving red marks behind. The spike of discomfort was grounding, an anchor to the present. He looked from Bee, sitting in the driver’s seat, to the parking lot. 

“I don’t know how to drive.” 

“It’s not that hard,” Bee said patiently. “Go into the driver’s seat, and you can learn the basics.” 

Andrew got out of the car uncertainly and switched places with Bee. It felt odd to be sitting on the opposite side of the car; he had gotten used to the view from the passenger window, and now it was reversed. 

Bee made him shift the seat forward to adjust to his height-- she was on the short side, only a few inches taller than him, but Andrew was small enough that the seat still had to be adjusted. She reminded him to keep his foot on the brake pedal, and Andrew turned the key in the ignition.

The car thrummed to life beneath him, a years old, rusted down Sedan, unable to top sixty five miles an hour, held together with willpower and duct tape. It was the most freedom Andrew had ever felt in his entire life. 

“Start off slowly,” Bee instructed, and made sure he shifted the gear into drive . “Use the same foot for gas and for the brake, that way you’re not confused if you ever need to brake suddenly.” The car jolted in fits and starts as Andrew figured out the right amount of pressure for the gas, and the best way to brake slowly. He carefully maneuvered into the center of the parking lot, Bee giving small tips and pointers along the way. The car halted. Andrew looked at his hands, placed firmly at ten and two.

Cass wouldn’t let a thirteen year old learn how to drive. Cass wouldn’t--

Andrew’s gaze steeled. 

Cass wasn’t there. 

“Can I go faster?”

He almost expected Bee to tell him no, but instead she smiled and said, “As long as you’re staying safe.” 

For a while Andrew made slow, wide loops of the parking lot, figuring out left and right turns and pacing. He wished he could go onto the highway, but knew for sure that Bee would say no.

Then he backed the car all the way to one side, before gunning it across the longest length of pavement. He couldn’t reach any good speeds, not with just that bare stretch of parking lot, but he could go fast enough that to him, it felt like flying. Each fierce jolt from the brake and each quick turn of the wheel was invigorating. Andrew couldn’t remember the last time he had been this engaged in the present. 

Minutes or hours later, Andrew eased to a stop. His chest was tight with exhilaration, breaths coming quick in his chest. The thready, sticky panic from earlier had washed off, leaving behind clean skin. Bee was in the passenger seat, smiling broadly at him. 

“Do you feel ready to go back now?” 

Andrew nodded slowly. He turned the car off and passed the keys back to her. They switched sides again, Bee adjusted the seat, Andrew buckled his seatbelt. Her driving was smooth and fluid, nothing like the harsh, barely controlled turns of Andrew’s. Silence settled comfortably over them once they were on the road home. Sunlight streamed in through the windows, and Andrew rolled his down to feel the wind in his hair. 

Andrew didn’t have the words large enough to tell Bee what she had just given him. “Thank you,” he said eventually. It tasted bittersweet on his tongue, as genuine as he could get. 

Bee kept her eyes on the road, and said gently, “You’re welcome.” 

A few minutes later she pulled into the driveway. Andrew’s knee had started bouncing again but this time, from the rush of energy he had just expended. Bee turned the ignition off, silencing the constant humming of the engine, and Andrew hopped out of the car.

“One day I’m going to buy a car,” Andrew burst out, before they even made it to the front door. “I want a really nice one.”

Bee grinned. “Do you have one in mind?”

“Maybe a GS.” Andrew thought for a moment, and then added, “Or a Maserati.” 

“Start saving,” Bee advised. “Those cost a lot.” 

Andrew shrugged, uncaring about the price. His mind was replaying the sudden, breaking freedom of the car flying forwards, powerful beneath his fingers. In California he could get a permit at fifteen and a half, and that was a little more than two years of waiting time. He was practically counting down the days. 

The thought flashed by so quickly, intense and vivid, that Andrew nearly stumbled going up the stairs. His heart beat a frantic pace, but not out of panic. Andrew cautiously pressed fingertips to his chest, searching for a name for the new feeling .

When he had lived with the Spears, each day was another burden to suffer through. There was nothing to look forward to and nothing behind him. The only event Andrew could remember looking forward to was Drake being enlisted and leaving in early summer. If Drake was gone, the raw agony would fade. He could finally sleep through an entire night, and feel like a child who was worthy of having a mother. 

Now he had a bedroom that belonged only to him, a door that locked, a drawer full of clothes that weren’t from a garbage bag. He had three meals a day, each week a new ice cream flavor inside the freezer. He had memories that he held close to his heart, of blue-green aquariums and orange jellyfish and cars on highways. He had this blooming, overarching feeling of hope: that each day was turning out better than the last.

And he had Bee. 

Who, he supposed, wasn’t too far from a mother in the first place.  

It was the one year anniversary since Andrew Doe had moved in with Betsy Dobson. California was in the midst of its winter months, which manifested in constant rain and fog over the Bay Area. On such rainy nights, Bee had started making homemade hot cocoa for the two of them. Her recipe was constantly improving, each trial tasting better than the previous one. 

Andrew’s adoption papers lay sprawled across his bedside table. Bee had given them to Andrew the night before, and had made it very clear that she wanted it to be Andrew’s choice. She wanted Andrew to willingly choose his family, whether it was herself or someone else. And, she added, he could take as much time as he needed to decide. 

Andrew had stayed up all night reading through the various legal documents. If he agreed to be adopted, he would shed the last name Doe and become a Dobson. He hadn’t come to a decision yet. It was full of large, blustery promises and thoughts of home and parents and safety. 

Andrew sat at one end of the sofa, curled up against a pillow. There was a sitcom on the television with a preprogrammed laugh track. On the coffee table were two mugs of hot chocolate, one with a dollop of whipped cream and cinnamon and the other with marshmallows. There were blue tasseled pillows and a bookshelf with immaculately organized glass figures. The living room was familiar, every inch of it recognizable. 

Andrew looked around, and abruptly realized that this was where he wanted to stay.

“Bee?” He said, voice strangled. He swallowed, and asked, “Can I call you mom?”

There was silence. Andrew stared down at the white-knuckled grip he had on his armbands. A wild-eyed surge of panic told him that he had said the wrong thing somehow, tense and frozen in his seat. He waited for her response, after what felt like hours but was really just seconds, and eventually looked up to see a teary eyed face looking at him. 

Bee smiled, her gaze watery, and said, “Of course, Andrew.” 

Andrew curled deeper into his side of the sofa and drank his hot cocoa. Outside, rain trickled to the ground in endless streams. Inside, the room was warm, closeted in yellow light, and safe. 

Mom, Andrew thought, and the word felt like home.