Three of a Kind

Sara was born in a rural town just outside of Kansas City, Kansas. Her birth was unexpected and unwelcome. , and her parents, Julie and Ray, were never ready for the responsibility of a daughter. They left her in the care of the local orphanage just days after she was born. The woman who ran the orphanage, Mrs. Steele, was sweet with graying black and bifocals that obscured half of her round face.

However, Sara didn’t stay in the care of Mrs. Steele for long. She was placed in a foster home only a few months after arriving at Sunny Home Orphanage. The young couple she was placed with proved to be loving and affectionate. Her foster parents, Jean and Daniel Marsden, coddled and doted on their beautiful baby girl, and she was perfect in their eyes.

As she began to walk and talk the Marsden’s showed her a privileged life she would have never been exposed to with her biological parents. Sara had a pretty normal childhood, growing and developing. The older she got the more she discovered her aptitude and love for art. She would spend hours sitting in her room drawing anything and everything she could think of. Her parents were so proud of their little girl. She worked very hard to maintain exceptional grades and her skill in art got her recognized by many. Her favorite subject to draw was people; she could sit staring at old pictures and transfer the lines and shapes perfectly. Sara used to go to the nearby park on nice days and draw people as they interacted.

When she was nearly 12 she found out that Jean and Daniel were not her biological parents. This news came as a complete shock to Sara and she was furious. The close bond she had developed with her parents seemed to disappear. All she could do was spend her time fuming over how they had betrayed.

However, one day, just after 12th birthday her parents were murdered. Sara was upstairs in her room doing homework when she heard a loud thud, as if a door had been slammed, and an earsplitting scream from her mother. She ran quickly down the stairs to investigate what was happening but as soon as she reached the landing just above the first floor she saw them. Two strange men were holding her parents hostage at gun point. Her father saw her and with his eyes signaled her to be very quiet.

Her parents, refusing to comply with the intruders demands were shot multiple times as Sara watched in horror. That was the day Laura emerged. The police found Laura an hour after the Marsden’s murder curled up on the closet floor unaware that her parents had just been murdered. Laura was the rational one; she kept a level head through the entire experience while Sara on the inside screamed out in agony.

The police’s questions were brief although they were confused why a girl whose name was Sara continued over and over to tell them her name was Laura. They assumed she was just scared. Laura was placed in the orphanage which was her home for the next year. Her life in the orphanage was mundane and unexciting although Laura knew nothing else. Sara was still locked tight inside Laura afraid to reappear because she knew she couldn’t cope with the real world.

Finally, a year after the murder of Sara’s parents Laura was placed in another foster home. Laura’s foster parents were very unlike the loving Marsdens. Laura was subjected to abuse after abuse for over two years. Her foster mother Joann drank her little money away to escape from the abusive hand of her husband Don Poplar. He repeatedly beat and raped Laura while Joann lay passed out on the dingy living room couch. Laura couldn’t take the abuse anymore and Liza was there to protect them. Liza was fearless as Laura’s foster father came toward her as he had every night for the last two years. He and Joann were dead in minutes and Laura returned with no recollection of the brutal acts Liza had just committed. Sara was horrified by the atrocities of Liza but kept quiet afraid to challenge her.

The police showed up days after the murders of Joann and Don to find Laura contentedly drawing the gruesome murder of her foster parents. They brought her in and after hours of interrogation determined that Laura needed some full time help. They placed her in a psychiatric hospital in the center of Topeka, Kansas at the age of 15. Sara began to emerge more and more frequently, drawing vivid pictures to help the hospital understand what was wrong although Laura had no idea Sara was trying to keep her in this awful place. Liza only showed herself when there was trouble. She fought with patients, nurses and doctors in order to protect the three of them. Sara was terrified of Liza and tried to warn the doctors of how dangerous she really was. Laura cheerfully lived each day without knowledge of Sara or Liza. She only knew that sometimes she blacked out and when she awoke she learned of things she had done that she didn’t remember doing.

Doctors tried to treat her and told her of her separate personalities but Laura refused to believe it stating how ridiculous that theory was. She wondered how there could possibly be three people in one body, her body. Sara refused to emerge other than to draw a few pictures and Liza only when Laura couldn’t cope with the bullying or the questions. The three of them spent the rest of their lives in this hospital. They never learned to cope with their problems and they couldn’t figure out how to coexist. The three people trapped in one body tore themselves apart. Sara’s grief, Liza’s anger, and Laura’s contentedness was ultimately their downfall. In then end, Liza unable to hold back her anger toward Sara anymore took Sara’s life resulting in the death of all three five years after arriving at the hospital.