Edna wastes no time drawing a hot bath for the child then scraping grime out from under nails, washing her hair, cleaning her ears. The girl describes the bath: “Then she makes me stand and soaps me all over with a cloth. Her hands are like my mother’s hand but there is something else in them too, something I have never felt before and have no name for.” As a reader, I realize this is the child’s first experience of tenderness.

And yet, readers, we’re not allowed to relax, to assume this will be a safe place for the child. After the bath, Edna asks the child to come with her to the well. Something about the way she asks makes the child think it’s something they are not supposed to do, so she says, “Is this a secret?”The question triggers Edna and she lashes out, “There are no secrets in this house, do you hear?” When the child doesn’t answer, Edna repeats, “Do you hear?” Edna speaks so forcefully that the child must take deep breaths so as not to cry. Later, the reader discovers the irony in this interaction. In fact, Kinsella and Edna are the ones  keeping a terrible secret.

After the visit to the well, Edna tucks in the child and kisses her good night. “More than half afraid,” the child tries to stay awake as long as she can. When the woman returns later, the girl pretends to be asleep. She hears Edna say, “God help you, child. If you were mine, I’d never leave you in a house with strangers.” This proclamation, of course, seems ominous.

On the surface not a lot happens in Foster, yet Keegan supplies her story with plenty of narrative tension. Throughout, I felt a simmering anxiety:  will this vulnerable child stay safe in Edna and Kinsella’s care or is the girl’s world about to coming crashing down? That being said, the are lovely scenes where the child is treated with warmth, compassion and fierce loyalty. We watch as this nameless child finally becomes seen and deeply cared for by the couple.

The plot is simple and there isn’t much action, so you might be tempted to think not a lot happens, but that is far from the truth. The internal changes that  the child, Kinsella and Edna experience are monumental.

I love the straightforward, no-nonsense tone of this book. We see the story through the eyes of a small child, through her unfiltered perception of reality. She calls life  as she sees it, with no pretense. Her voice is lovely, thoroughly engaging and somewhat somber. Edna provides comic relief with her wry observations of the child’s father and the busybody neighbors.

I have one quibble with the story. I felt the ending left too much to the imagination Maybe I missed some clues, but when I checked reviews online, I found that I wasn’t alone with my confusion. A movie adaptation of Foster has just been released. It’s called The Quiet Girl. I’ll be interested to see if the movie ends differently.

Regardless, this is a gorgeous book, well worth reading. The novel is rich with wisdom, with memorable lines on every page.