Free Ten Thousand Truths by Susan White Page B

see them.”
    â€œI made up a name for her when I first saw her,” Rachel admitted. “In my head I called her ‘Warty.’ The lumps on her face gave me something to hate her for, and when I called her that I could convince myself of how disgusting she was.” She spoke slowly now, trying to keep the emotion from her words. “It was the same with the twins and Raymond. I wanted to hate them, so in my head I called the twins ‘Tweedle Dee’ and ‘Tweedle Dum’ and I called Raymond ‘Balloon Boy.’”
    Zac pulled into the mall parking lot and turned the truck off. A few seconds hung in the air before he spoke. “I was really mean to Amelia when I first came, too,” he said, slowly and deliberately. “I hit her once and told her to get her filthy leper’s face away from me.”
    Rachel couldn’t imagine Zac ever hitting anybody. It was even harder to believe that he’d ever given Amelia a hard time. He was so respectful of her now and helped her in so many ways. Maybe there’s hope for me, too, Rachel thought.
    â€œI’m going to buy Raymond a guitar,” Zac said. “He’ll drive us all crazy with it, but he’s really musical. I know a guy that will give him lessons. Do you want to go in on it with me?”
    â€œSure,” Rachel said, relieved for the change in subject.
    â€œI don’t know what to buy for Chelsea and Crystal,” Zac continued. “I don’t know how to pick clothes out for little girls. Can you help me with that?”
    â€œDefinitely.”
    â€œOkay, then. Let’s go get some serious shopping done. How about we start by buying you some winter boots? Those orange sneakers won’t hold up very long in this snow!”
    Rachel placed her shopping bags on the floor of her closet. She’d actually been able to find a pair of earrings with pansies on them for Amelia, and hadn’t even minded paying almost half her chore money for them. She’d gone in on the guitar for Raymond with Zac, but he had refused to take much money, and she’d found a Barbie Cruise Ship for Chelsea and Crystal. But the thing she was happiest about was being able to buy Zac a hooded sweatshirt without him seeing her. The one he had now was just about worn out, and he was always saying how great a hood was to keep his neck dry when he drove the tractor under tree limbs heavy with snow.
    Rachel hadn’t received any mail since she’d arrived at Walton Lake—or in any of her other foster homes, for that matter—so when she got the mail from the mailbox two weeks before Christmas and found an envelope addressed to her she had no idea who it could be from. She held the envelope up, studying both sides. The postmark said Golden, BC. The Walton Lake address had been printed on the front of the envelope under Rachel’s name, which was written in fancy cursive lettering. There was no return address in the left-hand corner, but a sticker sealing the flap on the back of the envelope read: “From the desk of Audrey Anderson.” The name Audrey Anderson meant nothing to Rachel. She looked at the letter for a few more seconds and then headed into the house and upstairs to her room.
    Rachel sat down on the edge of her bed, opened the envelope, and pulled out a piece of bright pink paper. As she unfolded it, the first lines of the letter jumped out at her:
    Dear Rachel,
    My name is Audrey Anderson and I am your grandmother.
    Rachel hadn’t even made the connection. She knew her father’s name was Donald Anderson, but it had been so long since she had heard his name spoken it hadn’t occurred to her that this letter might be from someone related to him. Her mom had mentioned her dad’s name every once in a while, and she’d always said the same thing about him: He wasn’t able to be a husband or dad and had left after Caleb was born so that he could get some help.