“What happened?”
“I was placed in foster care.”
“Babies are usually adopted, aren’t they?”
He nodded. “Unless they have what had been described as the ‘worst case of colic ever known.’ Apparently, I exhausted many prospective parents. All I did was cry and scream. I was too much for anyone long term, I guess. They passed me from place to place, and eventually, they gave up and I ended up back in the system in an orphanage. No one wanted me.”
My heart broke at his words. I couldn’t imagine a small child being passed around, never having a home or someone to love him. Unbidden, a tear ran down my cheek and, startled, Reid leaned over, wiping it from my skin. He stared at the wetness on his finger as if mystified by my emotion.
“Tell me more,” I whispered.
“I finally got over the colic, but I was still sickly and hard to deal with. I was sort of lost in the cracks. I went from place to place but never found the right fit since I required so much work. As I got older, I never seemed to connect to anyone. They described me as being dissociated. But no one had ever shown me how to love, so I had no idea how to show it back.”
“Of course not,” I murmured.
“When I was seven, I got into a foster home. The woman who took me in was Ellie Reid. She was older and kind. Like a grandmother, I think. There were six of us and it was crowded, but she tried hard. It was the first time I ever felt as if someone cared. She wasn’t rich, in fact, she could barely scrape by, but she did her best. We shared a room with bunk beds, my clothes were hand-me-downs, but she was patient, made sure we had food and a place to sleep. She walked us to school every day, and she helped me with my homework. I was there for three years.” He ran a shaky hand over his face. “It was the closest thing to a home I ever knew.”
“What happened?” I asked, already dreading the answer.
“She died. She didn’t show at school one day, and I walked home with the other kids. I wasn’t the youngest anymore, so I made sure they came with me. When we arrived, there was an ambulance at the house and police. I was taken away and put back into the system.” Reid stood and walked around restlessly, picking up things then setting them down. He stared out the window for a while, his throat working constantly. I knew he was trying to control his emotions.
I held out my hand, grateful when he took it. I tugged him down to the sofa. “Do you want to stop?”
“No. It’s always hard to talk about her. The rest—” he shrugged “—is simply history.”
“Okay.”
He turned to face me, moving until our knees touched again. I leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to his mouth. He wrapped his hand around the nape of my neck, keeping our lips joined. Neither of us deepened the kiss—it was a simple show of support, one I felt he needed.
He drew back, running his fingers over his mouth, pressing them into the flesh. I had noticed him do it every time we kissed. I wondered if it was a nervous habit, but I decided to ask him another time.
“What happened to you next?”
“I went back into the system. I was ten, and not a lot of people are looking to adopt a ten-year-old. They sent me to a group home. After that, there was a disastrous attempt with a foster family, then back to the group home, and finally, I ended up with another woman who took in foster kids.” Reid’s facial expression indicated disgust. “But unlike Ellie Reid, she was only in it for the money. There were nine of us, all between ten and fourteen, crowded into her basement. It was a fend-for-yourself type of place.”
“Did you tell anyone? Complain?”
He shook his head with a sad smile. “So I could return to the group home, Becca? That place was worse than hell. I spent all my time trying not to get beat up, forced into a gang, or worse. At least at Mrs. Keen’s place, she ignored me most of the time. There was one meal a day. If you were lucky enough to be around when the food went on the table, you grabbed what you could. If not, you waited until next time. I forgot what it was like to have decent clothes and sleep in a bed. Usually, I slept on the floor. Everyone ignored me there and overlooked me at school. I was basically invisible.”
My chest ached at his words. The way his voice shook at times, trying to conceal his emotions as he spoke. I wanted to erase his pain, but I knew it was impossible. All I could do was hold his hand and listen.
“One day, I was so hungry I wandered into the neighbor’s garden. It was overgrown and full of weeds, but things were still growing. There was a long row of carrots. I dug some out and ate them.” He chuckled without humor at the memory. “I hardly wiped the dirt off of them. Then I found some potatoes and ate those too, before the neighbor found me in his yard.”
“Oh no! What did he do?”
“Rodney Matthews was his name. He was a gruff old man. Huge. Used two canes to walk. He yelled at me about trespassing, asked me where I lived. When I pointed out the Keen place, he sort of growled under his breath about her. He told me rather than get me in trouble with the old cow that he was going to let me work off the food.”
“How?”
“I had to weed the garden. He sat and watched me, yelling if I tried to pull the wrong thing. I think he would have scared most people, but I found his yelling almost comforting—because he saw me. He watched me. I wasn’t invisible. It took me all day, but I got it done. He had me pick more vegetables, and I had to carry them inside for him.” A glimmer of a smile crossed his face. “That was the day my life changed.”
I rubbed my thumb back and forth on his hand.
“He lived alone—his wife had died over twenty years prior. His house was small, but compared to where I lived it was a palace. He had his entire living room filled with computers. Working ones, dead ones, parts, pieces—and he had a massive table that he called his workstation. I had never seen anything like it.”
“Is that what he did? Fix computers?”
He shot me grin. “That was his hobby. He was captivated by them. He knew everything there was to know about computers—how to build them, run them, and anything else to do with them. He did online work for computer companies, like a help desk. That was his day job anyway. His other job was much more interesting.”
“He was a hacker?”
“Yes, he was.”
I pursed my lips. “I see.”
Reid chuckled. “That gruff, cantankerous old man became the reason I am where I am today. For some reason, he liked me. He let me hang around. He’d feed me. He showed me his computers. I was interested, so he let me mess around with some of his spare parts, and I built myself my first computer.” He laughed lightly. “It was shit, but I did it.”
“How?” I asked.
“He had lots of books, and he let me read them. My teachers never thought much of me, but I loved to learn. They overlooked me a lot, so I read and taught myself—and I absorbed. Rodney’s books fascinated me. What he did fascinated me. I watched and learned. The next computer I built was better. So was the one after. He started to teach me how to use them.” Reid sighed. “I was in love. All I thought about was computers. I couldn’t get enough. I spent so much time at his place you would think I lived there.”
“Your foster place didn’t question it?”