Stone and Storm Smiths Corner Five

Description

The adults spoke over my head like I was deaf and had no comprehension that I was again being returned into a foster care system that I’d long since accepted was a part of my life. It was like a dress that someone bought and quickly grew out of, so they put it in the back of the closet and forgot about it. But I was returned into places where folks were paid to pretend to care for me while I waited to see if someone else wanted a reject.

I might have only been seven years old, but I understood my life wasn’t anything like it was for other children. This was my seventh home in two years. I’d tried to be good, be the perfect child so someone would love me the way I wanted. The way I’d seen other girls and boys were with parents who were clean and didn’t smell of stale booze. My mother had decided I wasn’t worth her time or money.

“One hungry mouth is too many,” she’d said often enough. It made something inside me not settle for other folks’ crap. As much as I talked to myself in private about behaving, it didn’t work when someone tried to push me around.