Third grade year
Third grade year was important to me as I was beginning to understand my world a little bit more. I understand there were people out there other than my family that wanted to hurt me . I understood I was different and everything was different. The house parents here was constantly trying to find me someone to adopt me. Christmas time we had donations and our interested adoption parents would send gifts.
My social worker would come over with a black bag trash bag full of unwrapped gifts as there was no pretences for Santa clause or Easter bunnies here. The system would set aside childish thoughts and childish ways. The kids here had already seen the worst that humanity had to offer and was trying to deal with it through mandated therapy and prescription medicines.
There was an older couple in a suburb town that was interested in a little girl. The couple was about fifty years old and they lived in a nice two story brick house in a perfect sleepy neighborhood. Both of the couple worked in the day so during the summer they came to get me , Scarlett,and Paula at first. For the first summer it was us three. The woman would make fruit cake where they would fermint the fruit in a jar and the man would eat ketchup on eggs as this would be a favorite food preference all the way into my adult life. It's funny how something so small can impact a person's entire life.
Then during thanksgiving it was just Scarlett and me as Paula did not fit within their idea of an adoptee as she was willfully defiant and hard to govern . Then Christmas the same old couple would visit me and Scarlett like we were family. They didn't yell they spoke gently and was gentle. I saw this as a chance for a possible normal life. A chance at a peace I needed more than ever.
Every holiday they would come down and celebrate holidays with us and when I was with them they trusted me to take my medicine. One Christmas we got to stay until new years. We never had to pack because they bought us clothes . I remember we went to her the woman's family home and we sat around a tree Scarlett and me and open gifts. And that was the first time I saw Hawaiian barbie doll as all the dolls I had seen before were blonde hair and blue eyes. I felt like I was accepted. The woman got me a Hawaiian doll because I was half Hawaiian. And I felt wanted and not made fun of my skin color.
Then the following summer I was the only one who went as Scarlett didn't like how her batting eyes and manipulating ways didn't work on them as they were very wise . Her usual methods of playing innocent didn't work on them. This was the time they spoke to me and wanting to adopt me and I was happy but I worried about Paula as even though we didn't like each other I couldn't leave her behind.
But later on I realized my selflessness would be my mother's selfishness. I was willing to go live with them and be their daughter and live a normal life I deserved as I was nine years old. But when they went to discuss the terms of my adoption there was no way they could adopt me without adopting Paula as well. As part of my mother surrendering me to the system was me and Paula had to be adopted together in order for an adoption to go through.
When my father was arrested and investigated for the things he did my mother would not give him up and the courts offered to allow us to stay with her and not be placed in the system if she just gave up her husband. My mom's entire life was Paul and she wouldn't give him up for anything. So in return she surrendered us to the system willingly to prevent giving up her man.
Her misguided actions caused a suit to be filed against her as an assessory to abuse. In this surrender of her children she made the stipulations that me and Paula could only be place in homes together. It's why it was so hard to place us in places for long periods of time. Paula would not like a place and act up and even though they like me I had to suffer for her actions.
I still remember how the police came to my school and took me and my sisters out of the school. I remember us being placed in the back seat as everyone watched us being taken away . I rember seeing my sister Jamie at the police station as she was talking in a room . I remembered the pale room full of toys and glass windows while we were in an aquarium as we were left there with an officer as they spoke to jamie.
Then I remembered the lights and me on a cold metal table seperated by thin medical paper as a doctor examined me as they took samples and swabs from my uterus as I cried as people whispered around me and shook their heads and asked me questions about things I didn't understand. When I got off the table I was given a small pad and new panties as the nurse explained I may spot bleed . I was only six years old and given a pad for my pelvic exam .
I could see the torment in their eyes as every nurse looked at me like I was broken as mia and paula screamed and fought down the hallway in other rooms. I was brought to the police department to see my sister Jamie after they did this to me. I was terrified and scared and didn't know what was going on. This was why I believed I deserved a better life. To be adopted by parents that wanted me. By parents that would love me the way I should have been loved.
When I heard Paula was tied to my happiness I was very upset and disappointed at my mother and that day I realized my mother was an incredibly selfish person. My sister Jamie was adopted by her first foster parents and my mother was glad to be rid of her when her adoption came up. Then my sister mia went to another group home we were all placed in. But some teenagers tried to hurt me and she went crazy and tried to cut the girl with a knife she found in a kitchen . When that happened we were moved away from her to another home.
I was now realizing I could never be adopted if they didn't also accept Paula as well. My mother single handly sabotaged any chance for me to have a normal life ever. I ran out of the home as I felt like I was just a ticking time clock as I ran to the woods to be alone.