Homecoming

I.1

“Where do you want to go?” he asked me, seated in that chair two sizes too small for his girth. Do I have a choice? was the frightened thought that went through my head. I suppose now I would think this differently, more bitter and less afraid. But this was then and I was too young to be bitter. Angry and confused yes, but not bitter. I was simply scared.2

“I guess I’m going to a group home,” I said, not really answering the question he asked. Instead, I stated the truth, what I knew was going to happen. It was a very practical answer for a twelve year old, but I think I was more mature then than I am now. No, there was no reason to say where I wanted to go or even if I wanted to go. I was going and there was no questioning of the matter. They didn’t want me anymore and they knew I didn’t want them either. It took running away twice to force them to make good on their threat.3

The group home.4

The thought of going there frightened me. Joyce had always used it as a threat to hang over my head, to enforce good behavior. She once told me of the horrors of the place, the stealing, the pain, the fact that nothing you had was yours. You weren’t even yours. She once told me that the children there sleep with their shoes on for fear of them being stolen. I remember thinking that I didn’t want to sleep with my shoes on. Funnily, that was what frightened me. That was all.5

Living with the Cowhers was like living in a group home. Living in any foster home is like living in a group home. They function on the same principal: it’s where the unwanted children go. That’s where the differences are supposed to stop and that’s the way it used to be. Until the Cowhers. They took away me till I was only theirs and no one else’s. I had to be Samantha (called Sam) Rae Cowher instead of Samantha (called Sammy) Lorena Edwards. They couldn’t take away the bond I had with my mother so they took away the name she gave me. 6

The pain she told, no, scared me with would be nothing new. She had it down to an art form, how to distribute pain. God, she was such a master of it and she really worked hard on it. Sometimes she would start off slowly, building and building the crescendo that would eventually explode and I would realize what she had been doing. It was like that when she took away my mother. It started pleasantly. She made the visits my mother and I shared longer, until we were spending every Saturday from eight in the morning to seven at night together. Then she started taking them away. An hour here, an hour there; it was all very gradual. She’d snip and slice until it was just two and a half hours every other week, then twice a month. I didn’t realize what she was up to until she allowed only my birthday and Christmas. I cried then. Soon there were no visits at all. I was completely hers. She could do whatever she wanted with me.7

I owned nothing here, so how different would that feel in a group home? I was used to not owning anything. Anything I had could be taken away, ripped, destroyed, sold or tucked away into some obscure location to never see the light of day again (like the blanket I had had since infancy). Not even my diary was mine. She could read it at her leisure and pick it apart. Nothing in it was secret. She told me that from the get go: I could only have a diary as long as I didn’t write anything in it that I wouldn’t want someone else to read. I thought she wasn’t serious and paid no heed to her word. I realized how utterly stupid that was when I cam home to my diary thrown at my face and harpy screams about a spiteful entry.8

So I guess I really wasn’t that frightened to go to the group home. I owned nothing, not even myself, and I knew what pain was. There would be no change. I just didn’t want to wear my shoes in bed.9

“Do you want to go there?” he pressed. His whiskered face smiled into something sinister. He caught my non-answer. Well, he’d always been perspective. 10

I had a choice. I could tell the truth and they’d keep me here forever, despite their hate for me. They’d do it just to make me miserable. Or I could lie and pretend that my life here wasn’t hell and they would pack my things and ship me off to The Meadows and I would never cross their minds again.11

Tell them just how much I despised even the lint that clung to his shirt or lie through my teeth and tell him what he wanted to here.12

I told the truth.13

And lied.14

“I don’t want to go to a group home.” But I’d rather be there than here was the silent finish to my statement.15

“You’re not,” he answered.16

I think something in my eyes showed my disappointment. Whether it told him my truth or my lie, I don’t know. His face subtly shifted into an understanding. In that moment, I felt as though he could read my thoughts. He was suddenly like the thousand cartoon villains I had seen: bloated, smug and all-knowing of my innermost workings. 17

I didn’t want to ask it, to afraid that my bruised hopes would rise only to be mangled once more, but his coal-like eyes ordered it of me.18

“Where will I be going?” I knew I was leaving, being cast off once more. I knew why, just needed to know where.19

He stayed silent a moment, his black eyes boring into mine. I could discern nothing from his carefully, almost masterfully, controlled face. At least, my twelve year old mind could see nothing. Today perhaps I could, but that is irrelevant to this story.20

The hope I was so fearful of began to swell. It curled and knotted at the base of my stomach, where all my emotions seemed to make themselves at home. It warred with fear for dominance. He was carrying this out for a purpose. Either my greatest hopes would come true and I would finally get my own fairy tale happily ever after or his words would confirm the monster of a thought that lingered in my mind. Perhaps I really wasn’t going to be leaving. Perhaps they would keep me here forever, letting me out only for school and feeding me that terrible sauerkraut and reading my diary and forcing me to rake leaves in November without gloves on until I turned eighteen. Or died; there was no telling which would come first.21

I didn’t breathe in that pause, as he started deliberately and as I scared myself into believing worst case scenario. 22

He smiled. I have no idea why.23

“You’re going to live with your grandmother.”24

II.25

I found my belongings packed away in boxes and suitcases piled next the front door. It was strange. One never realizes how much stuff they have till they’re packed and leaving. I hated living at 29 Port Matilda Road, yet I knew I was going to miss it. Four years of my life had been spent there. I knew every inch of the house by heart, had experienced a thousand fanciful adventures in the wild back yard. I would miss it. I did miss it.26

Barry had only told me hours before of this new change in my life and my thing were already boxed and folded neatly, as if they could not wait to be rid of me. I shouldn’t have felt hurt, but I did. Though this had happened several times, I still felt the sting. I felt unwanted, I hurt because of that. These people were like the rest, casting me off when they got tired of me. The only thing that was dulling the lonely smarting was my new destination. The other times, I had had no idea where I was going, who would be taking me in next. I was simply packed up, put in a car with a social service lady and taken to house I had never seen before in my life to be greeted by a complete stranger. This time, I had seen the house I was going to; it was not a stranger I was to be living with.27

It was a nice feeling to know these things.28

My room felt strange, that last night I used it. Only a set of pale blue pajamas and clothes for the next day signaled that this room had ever been mine. Every last, tiny item I had ever claimed possession of was gone. The shelves were bare, glaring a vivid bony white that hurt to look at. I opened my clothing drawer, amazed at the hollow sound it made. It had never made a sound quite like that before, empty and deep. I would have kept on doing that, opening and closing the drawer, but some found it rather annoying. It hurt to look at the bare, devoid, hollow room.29

Sleeping was hardest of all. I felt out of place, like I shouldn’t have been there. It was an anonymous room, not mine. Of course, it had never been mine but the things I “owned” lent the room an aura of belongingness. The material things made the tangible room intangibly mine. 30

I think I missed this room most.31

III.32

They pulled up into the stone driveway in a green Explorer. At least, I think that’s what it was. I have never been good with cars. Both of them came. The door was opened to greet them. Fake, we’re such perfectly marvelous people that we are giving you a second chance at paternity now take this child and leave smiles met tired, we hate every last bit of you, including your nose hairs and contact lenses, and the only reason we aren’t beating you with a blunt instrument is for the sake of the children smiles. It was a tense moment.33

The usual pleasantries were observed by both parties.34

“How are you?”35

“Oh just fine.”36

“Did you have a nice drive?”37

“Yes, a bit long, but traffic wasn’t too bad.”38

“It’s really nice of you to come all this way for her.”39

“Oh, we really don’t mind.”40

“Right.”41

I stood invisible through this all. The whole situation, the fact that I was leaving for something good still seemed rather surreal to me. I barely spoke in those last few moments, busying myself with loading the car with my things. I just couldn’t believe that they were actually here. In my mind, I replayed the events that had led to this dramatic conclusion: raking leaves without gloves on. That’s what it was. I had felt cold and wanted to go inside, even if for just a bit. But no, the front, back and side yards needed raking. I remember crying and then, by a sudden impulse, I was running. I ran past the window (which is where she must have seen me) through the back yard and a stretch of trees to the neighboring development. I was running away, again. No idea where, just that I needed to go, needed to get away. I had hid in the nearby church, empty on a Friday evening. Someone must have seen me go in for that was where they found me, curled up behind the large, green velvet covered altar.42

I wanted to run away and now they were sending me away, to someplace good.43

It was too surreal.44

Even looking at everything that was mine packed in that sturdy green Explorer that bit the dust in a fire a few years later didn’t help it sink in.45

With the car packed, there was nothing more to do but say the final good-byes. The standard hug and “take care” routine was acted out, a shake of the hand for the grandparents was given and even a few tears were shed and then we were out the door, in the car, buckled up and pulling out of the stone driveway. And I was gone from that house which I would never see again, nor the people inside of it. The only evidence that I had ever stepped foot into that house was my seventh grade portrait still hanging on the wall.46

Last I heard, it’s still there.47

IV.48

The trip passed in a silent, boring blur. I occupied myself with gazing out the window, at trees, people, passing cars, anything. I played my counting game, this time counting all the little plastic ribbons tied to wooden stakes that I saw. It was easy to amuse myself this way.49

My grandparents only asked the occasional question. They understood I still had difficultly understanding everything.50

These kinds of trips were a routine. Drive several miles, pit stop, fill up for gas, “if you have to go, go now; we won’t be stopping for awhile” drive some more and watch the people, perhaps a dog with its head hanging out the window, big sixteen wheelers rolling by like they can crush you with a single wrong turn, cursing at traffic, another gas stop/bathroom break/“are you hungry” and then back on the road and wondering when it was going to end.51

I hated trips like these.52

V.53

We finally pulled into a stone driveway. Circular, not long and straight. 140 Dutton Mill Road. My new home. I had been here before, lived here before, but it had never been a true home. I wondered how that would change.54

We opened our doors and clamored out of the car, stretching all the stiffness and kinks the come from sitting for so long. A black and white cat ran towards us with a loud mewing of hunger. My grandmother bent down to pet the cat. She called him Frank. I thought that was a strange name for a cat. She unlocked the door, let us into the dusty old house and flicked on the lights. The clutter that greeted me was a far cry from the neat and orderly 29 Port Matilda Road. I liked it.55

With a little begging, I fed the cat, petting him softly. The Cowher’s had never kept a cat. He rubbed his head against my hand and licked my fingers. I thought something about me attracted him to me but I found out he just loved anyone who fed him.56

My grandmother came up to me then and kissed my forehead. I looked at her and saw she was smiling, happy tears lightly coating her eyes. I finally understood.57

I was home, but more importantly: I was wanted.