The cruelty meted out to children by adults in the Florida School for Boys is reminiscent of Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries, as described by Claire Keegan in Small Things Like These. Though that novella is among the finest I’ve read, it’s Keegan’s short story ‘Foster’ that has had the most impact on me.
‘Foster’ is narrated by a young unnamed Irish girl who is sent away to live with relatives she doesn’t know because her mother is pregnant and her parents have too many mouths to feed. From the outset, it’s clear that John and Edna Kinsella care for the girl more than her parents ever have. “‘God help you, child,’ Edna whispers. ‘If you were mine, I’d never leave you in a house with strangers.’”
Edna bathes the girl and clothes her, cleans out her ears and brushes her hair. John talks to her kindly, holds her hand, and gives her money for choc-ices in town. These are the parents you wish the girl had. The Kinsellas have their own reasons for wanting to pour out their love; we discover that the couple lost their own child in an accident.
Keegan writes about the small kindnesses people show each other and the quiet powerplay between people who do not much like each other. Her writing is spare; it’s as much about what people don’t say as what they do, what doesn’t happen as what does: “My father takes rhubarb from her, but it is awkward as a baby in his arms. A stalk falls to the floor and then another. He waits for her to pick it up, to hand it to him. She waits for him to do it. Neither one of them will budge. In the end, it’s Kinsella who stoops to lift it.”
Keegan has a way of making you ache with longing for her characters. The ending of ‘Foster’ is enough to hollow you out. The first time I read it, I cried and cried. Keegan has said that, for her, the girl ends up back with her parents. However, she’s also said that it’s for the reader to end the story for themself. For me, the final sentences offer ambiguity. When the child utters the word ‘Daddy’, so clearly intended for Kinsella as she grasps him tight, I find myself willing her back into his arms and choose to feel hope.
First published in The New Yorker in February 2010, and available to subscribers here. Published in book form by Faber and Faber, 2010. Revised paperback Faber and Faber, 2022
A Personal Anthology 