Total pages in book: 14
Estimated words: 13644 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 68(@200wpm)___ 55(@250wpm)___ 45(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 13644 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 68(@200wpm)___ 55(@250wpm)___ 45(@300wpm)
No house after that could compare. I floated through life lost and angry. Now, I’m just a kid, though technically a man, since my eighteenth birthday was two days ago, that’s aged out of the foster system, just as alone as I was when I went into it. Thanks to my Sunny Potentials Scholarship I have a free ride to college, and I plan to use it. Armed with three jobs and a dorm room, I work my ass off, trying to make something of myself.
If I keep this shit up, I’ll be angry and alone forever.
Early on I decided to major in business. It’s my best shot.
Surely, my life can’t get any worse…
Prologue
Jeniveve Palmer
Two Months Ago
“What do you mean she’s dead?” I ask warily.
“I’m sorry Miss Palmer, your mother passed away at eleven fifty this morning. All signs point to an overdose.”
“Where?” I already know the answer, but I want to hear this shifty ass cop tell me to my face.
“A crack house on the corner of Terrace and Moore.” I knew it. I picked her up from there not a week ago and drug her back home. I cleaned her up for our monthly DCS interview with our case worker. Of course we have a case worker and have had for three years. One of Jason’s friend’s told their “Karen” mother about our living conditions, and she called the police. Bitch. I’ve tried my best to keep our family together. But now? I don’t know what will happen. Why couldn’t she have waited two short months to kill herself? I would be eighteen and in a better position to take care of my brothers. Not great, mind you, but I am the one with three jobs to pay for our bills, rent, and food. My mom would just steal it if she knew where I kept it.
Do you know how awful it is to have to force your mother to take a shower? To physically have to wash her hair and her body? Not because she’s disabled, I would have had no problems helping her if she were disabled, but because she doesn’t want to or have the will for anything other than her next fix? She doesn’t want to be healthy for herself let alone her children. Not ten minutes after Miss Honeycutt left our shabby but meticulously clean, thanks to me, house, she was gone again, and I haven’t seen her since. Now she’s gone and I never will again.
“What do we do now?” I ask, thinking of my twin little brothers, Jason and Julian. They are eleven and still at their school. I’m sitting in the principal’s office of Brainerd High talking to haggard detectives. This happens so often in this city; they are immune to this kind of notification.
“Do you have any family you can call? I understand you only seventeen.”
“For three days, my birthday is in three days.”
“Some birthday, kid,” he says, finally showing some kind of response to the situation. I, on the other hand, have no idea what I’m going to do. I want to cry, but no tears are coming.
“Family?” the other detective asks.
“No. None.” My mother’s parents died years ago, and I don’t know who my dad is. The boy's dad is in prison for life for killing someone during a bar fight. We have no one but each other, same as before she died. Nothing has changed there.
“Your case worker will be here soon. As soon as we put your mother’s name into the system several warrants popped up from all over the state and one in Georgia. With the open DCS case against her, the name of your case worker came up as well.”
“I’m sure.”
“Here’s my card. Call me if you need anything at all. It’ll be a few weeks before the coroner determines the cause of death.”
“Okay. Thank you,” I say, standing when they do. I shake their hands and they leave. Principal Pacer comes back into her office.
“Are you alright, Jen? They told me before I called you down here.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“I’m sure you’ll need a few days off from school…”
“No. I’m fine.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“Go back to class and then pick my brothers up like I do every day.”
“You’re a strong girl, Jeniveve. I don’t know that I could handle all the things you do, while maintaining straight A’s. I’m a grown woman and I don’t think I could do it."
“I have to be, Mrs. Pacer. My brothers need me, now more than ever.”
“Of course.”
“When my case worker gets here, please let me know. I’ll come back up to the office.”
“Sure, whatever you need. I’m not supposed to do this, but I think you need it,” she says pulling me into a hug. I hug her back because she’s right.
I do need it.