Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 68004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
“I have. Listen, there’s nothing more I can do without your help. I can’t defend someone who doesn’t want to be defended. Tell Greer I said hi …” Her lawyer started to rise from the table.
Alanna sighed, sitting back down. “I entered the foster care system when I was four. My parents went out for a hike and never came back. I still remember I was watching cartoons when the woman who was babysitting me freaked out when they were late picking me up. Instead of my parents coming back, a police officer and a woman from Social Services came to tell me that they wouldn’t be back. They had fallen off a path, which had been declared unsafe. I don’t know how familiar you are with group homes, but believe me, especially in a large city, it was a hell of an adjustment.”
“I can imagine.”
Alanna grimaced. “I don’t think you can. It was horrible. The older children picked on the younger ones. Foster homes were few and far between, and they usually picked the cute ones, or the children who could contribute to chores, who don’t require as much supervision. I was sent to two foster homes, and they didn’t last because, both times, my foster family found themselves expecting.” Alanna folded her hands over each other to hide their trembling. “I met Kate when I was six.”
“Kate?”
Mrs. Bates picked up her ink pen and started writing on the legal pad.
“Elizabeth’s mother.”
“What’s her full name?”
“Kate Easton.”
“That’s not the name I found listed as the name for Elizabeth’s mother.”
“Kate adopted Elizabeth.”
“Legally?”
“I believe so.” Alanna shrugged. “But, with Kate, anything is possible.”
“You met Ms. Easton when you were in foster care?”
“She was older than me”—Alanna nodded—“and had been in and out foster homes since she was a baby. She took me under her wing, kept the older children from hurting me, but more than that, she called me her little sister. I didn’t feel so alone anymore. I felt loved for the first time since my parents had died.
“When a foster family was found for her, it devastated me. I cried for several days. It was like losing my parents all over again. I felt as if the rug had been pulled out from under me again. About a month later, when Kate came back from lunch, she was there. She told me they had sent her back because of her behavior. She told me she had deliberately misbehaved just so she would be sent back. She told me she had missed her little sister. I fell for her lies hook, line, and sinker.” Alanna shook her head at herself in self-disgust.
“At first, I was happy Kate had been sent back, but little by little, even at that young age, I started noticing something was off about her. She would lie to the staff constantly when she got in trouble by blaming other children. The more Kate disliked you, or even worse, didn’t give in to her demands, the more trouble they got into. The staff liked her and believed the lies she would tell them. If I said anything to her about the lies she told, when I left the room, I would come back and find some of my things had disappeared or been destroyed. The older we grew, the more afraid of her I became.
“I was given to another foster family, and I was thrilled to be away from her. When I was sent back, I prayed she wouldn’t be there. She was. There was no place where I could hide that she couldn’t find me. She would watch me like a hawk, and the more frightened I became of her, the more she liked it. When she discovered something scared me, she would hone in on it, and if I didn’t do something she wanted, Kate would punish me by using those fears against me. The harshness of the punishment depended on how angry she was at me.” Alanna didn’t go into any of the details of the methods Kate had used against her.
Taking a jerky breath, she continued on under her lawyer’s scrutiny. “It came to the point I was afraid to be alone with her and would give my things away rather than see them end up with her or be destroyed.”
Her lips turned upward in a pained smile. “Finally, I was given a reprieve when Kate was sent to a new foster home. I remember sleeping for two days straight with her gone. I wasn’t the only one glad to see her away. Out of thirty kids, she had everyone terrified of her. Truthfully, I think some of the staff were, too, by that point.
“About six months after Kate left, I was taken to a new foster home. They didn’t tell me it was the same one where Kate was living. The only good part of that foster home was the Fields family. They were wonderful to me. They were to all the children. Despite having a child of their own, they had taken in a boy the same age as Kate, then me. However, there wasn’t a day that went by that Kate wouldn’t throw in my face that I was only there because she had told Mrs. Fields she missed her little sister.”