Me, an autobiography, Part 11---NKA

ME—

Chapter 11

A new family

Morning came and off I was to my new home. It took about an hour to arrive. I had so many questions to ask the social worker on the way but I was so anxious and scared I couldn’t get any out of my mouth. When we got to the house the first thing I noticed was that there were like 300 or so bumper stickers all over the front of the house. I thought that it looked really trashy for the neighborhood that it was in.

The house was in a section of Levittown that was upper middle class. Mostly all of the houses had been remodeled since their conception in the 1950s. Levittown was a once vibrant steel town and the town itself was the first subdivision in the United States, built by William Levitt. After the early 1980s the town was in an upheaval as the steel mill was slowly laying off all of its workers. Most of the houses were left in disrepair. Later as the economy of the area started to recover people began to remodel their homes. Pinewood, the section in Levittown where the house was located, was one of the most financially sound sections. It was located in a top rated school district and it was evident that the community took pride in their homes. All of the community except for this house where I was going to live.

We walked in the door and to my surprise there were three other girls there all around my same age. They all had very distinctive clothing on. Sher was goth, Dawn was super hyper snobby cheerleader, and Kathy was dressed like a forty year old hooker. I have never been one to judge on first impressions so I figured I would take my time and get to know them. The foster parents were out back in the yard with their mentally retarded daughter Candace. They came in and introduced themselves. I won’t mention their names, you’ll understand why soon.

They seemed awfully friendly, very happy to have me. They showed me to the bedroom right away. I was to share a room with both Sher and Dawn. Kathy and Candace had their own rooms. I didn’t mind. I wanted the company. When we came back out into the foyer the social worker had left. She left me her business card which the foster parents quickly scooped up. It was near lunch time and all of the girls headed into the kitchen to help with lunch. I offered to help but they insisted that I take the time to settle in. I didn’t really have any decent clothes at this point. As I was putting them away the mother came in and told me that she would take me shopping the following day. As she was telling me this I heard yelling coming from the kitchen. The father was arguing with Sher. I ran out to the kitchen and as soon as I went in they all stopped and just sat down quietly and told me to join them. I just blew it off as a typical family argument. We sat down to lunch and it was peaceful but you could feel a sense of negativity although, no one spoke.

After lunch I went into the room to lie down, I was feeling really tired from all of the problems in my life and just wanted to relax a little. When I woke up it was the next day around elevenish. The mother came in and told me it was time for us to go to the store. She didn’t talk to me the whole way there. We got to the mall and she handed me a credit card and told me to get whatever I needed and that I had three hundred dollars to spend. Well, I didn’t hesitate. I took the card and went on a mini shopping spree. She didn’t even comment once on what I was buying and believe me it wasn’t anything I would have ever let a 13 year old wear.

We got back home and the girls had returned from school. They invited me to go out with them after dinner. We ate dinner. The father wasn’t there. I had asked where he was and they told me that he was away on business. I didn’t really ask anything else. We cleaned up after dinner and off we went. We started walking through the section and the girls were really quiet. Finally I couldn’t take anymore and I asked them if they ever talked or if they were all anti-social. Sher spoke up and said to Dawn that they needed to talk to me. Dawn said no, that it was better if they didn’t. Sher decided to talk to me anyway. She told me that we had to share a room and Kathy didn’t because they were trying to adopt her. Then she told me that the parents were really weird and to watch out for the father. I asked her what she meant but she said to just trust her.

We ended up going to a trailer park about a mile away. We went to a friend of Sher’s house. We stayed there for about an hour and then headed home. Dawn was mad at Sher for talking to me and they didn’t talk the whole way home. When we got home they both went into the bedroom and I went to talk to the mother about getting registered for school. I asked her when she was planning to take me there and she told me that I had to wait a few days. I didn’t think anything of it at the time.

Two days later the social worker called me and told me that I had to go to court against my mom in a week. They needed to prove that my mother was unfit. I didn’t feel good about going but I had no choice. During that week I saw Sher becoming more and more depressed. I went to talk to the mother about it but she told me that it wasn’t anything to worry about. There wasn’t too much I could do. I tried talking to her but she was really unreceptive. She would just storm out of the house very evening and didn’t return until very late at night. Dawn was busy being her snobby self , Kathy was never home and I was just left waiting for my court date.

A week went by and it was time to go to court. The social worker came and picked me up. We arrived at the court house and my mom was there with her attorney and my aunt. The social worker told me that I wouldn’t need to go into the courtroom unless the judge requested it. I sat outside the door and then all of the sudden I heard my mom screaming that she wasn’t going to pay them a cent. She said it was my decision and that she didn’t have to financially support me anymore.

The fight went on for about 10 minutes and the social worker came out and said that we could go. I wanted to leave quickly. I didn’t want to see my mom. We didn’t leave fast enough and I had to see her. She didn’t say a word to me but my aunt grabbed me and hugged me and told me not to worry.

We finally left and we went back to the house. The social worker told the mother the news and she seemed quite happy. That night her husband came home. He was being really miserable. He sat down to eat dinner with us and then he started yelling at Sher and told us al to get out of the dining room. He told Sher that he didn’t like the way she dressed or the way she ate and that she was going to end up a whore just like her mother. I sat at our bedroom door for about 10 minutes listening to him lay in to her and them it happened. He struck her. She ran back into the bathroom which was across the hall from our bedroom and she grabbed razors and started slashing her wrists. I ran in after her and the father came back and told me to mind my business. I told him to go to hell that I wasn’t going to watch her suffer. He ran out of the house and took off. I grabbed Sher and told her that he wasn’t worth dying over. I sat in the bathroom for three hours just holding her as she cried and cried.

During this time the mother took off too. I guess she went to go get her husband. When Sher stopped crying she told me that he had hurt her more than once in many ways. I asked her what she meant but she started crying again so I took her in the bedroom and we went to bed. I laid beside her all night and told her that I wouldn’t let that jerk hurt her again.

Morning came and the girls went off to school. The mother still hadn’t returned but he did. He came in the room and sat on my bed and told me how sorry he was that I had to see that but that Sher was out of control. I told him he was a freaking liar and to just leave me alone. He got up and walked to the door. I thought that he was going to leave but he didn’t he locked the door. He came back over and put his hand on my leg. I told him if he was even thinking about doing something to me that I would fight him to the death. He insisted that I calm down. I guess the jerk had no idea that I had been through this before. I grabbed him by the throat and told him again. He begged me to let him go. When I did, he told me to please not tell his wife because she had a heart condition. The woman never did anything to me and I felt bad for her. I didn’t tell her when she came home. I was trying to decide what to do. When she got home he left and she went into her room. I decided to call my mom, I didn’t know what else to do. I started dialing the phone and it went dead.

I went back into my room to think about whether I should call the police or not and the mother came in and told me that she needed me to go up to their barn about 20 minutes away so she could go feed her horses and check on them. I didn’t want her to know that anything was wrong so I agreed to go. When we got to the stables I noticed that her husband’s car was there. I felt so scared but tried to hide it. I didn’t see him for the first 10 minutes that we were there. We went into the barn and I played with the horses, it was calming. I turned around and the mother was gone. She was no where to be found. I walked towards the entrance to the stables and it was closed. The door was locked and I couldn’t get out.

Inside the stables was an office but it was locked too. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I thought that maybe she had locked the door by mistake and that she would be coming to open it soon. Hours passed by and she never came. I finally realized what had happened. Now I had to get out. I had no tools to pry open the door. There was only one phone and it was in the office but I had no way in, at least I thought I didn’t.

To be continued…

self explanatory

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