Inspiration.

Date- 5th of January, 2010

I’ve always been impatient, especially as a child. Now that I’m thirteen years old, almost fourteen, I’m finally starting to realize things about myself that I don’t think I would’ve noticed unless I was with this certain family.
My biological parents weren’t exactly bad people, but someone had told me that once before. The year 2009, in the month of January, I finally learned why I had been adopted. I had finally gathered up the courage inside of me to ask. My Mother was in the kitchen, I sat on one of the stools on the other side of the counter where she stood.
My heart was racing, I was shaking from the nervousness. At first when I tried to speak, nothing came out. But I didn’t let that stop me. I cleared my throat and finally asked the question I deeply needed the answer to.
My parents weren’t bad people. Both of them had just made bad decisions. Major ones. Both my biological Mother and Father were alcoholics and drug addicts. My Father was abusive towards my Mother.
I was taken away from them, my parents, when I was just three months old.
My Mother had had other children with a different man then my Father. One boy and one girl. Nathaniel and Rachel.
Both of my parents went off to rehab to get better so that they could have me back... but that didn’t happen.
Just around six months old, I moved in with the Boardman family. Lawrence Thomas, and Diane Boardman already had two children of their own. Rory, the oldest, and Gilly. Plus another foster daughter, Chelsey who was about the same age as Gilly.
While I was living with this family, Rachel and Nate were just a ten minute drive away. But I didn’t realize I had “real” siblings, I had never lived with them before.
The Boardmans finally adopted me when I was three. I don’t remember myself going into the courtroom for my own adoption, but I do remember the day of Rachel and Nate’s adoption into my new family. I don’t know how old I was then, but after we left the court house, we went to Papa Murphy's and bought pizza to bake at home. We only went and bought pizza for celebrations, it was a treat.
In the beginning, Tom and Diane plus their children lived with Diane’s mother. Roberta Riutta. When I was around the age of four, they built their own house right next door to her, up on the hill. I remember walking up the hill from my Grandmother’s house and walking into the white unfinished house that would soon be mine.
My Mother had fallen in love with her new tub, and even I knew it was bigger then most. My Father had plans to build decks on both sides of the house, at that time only one side of the house had stairs.
I remember one of my white socks catching onto one of the golden screws that was in the floor, dividing the living room carpet from the white kitchen tile. Rory had to help me get un-stuck.
The house contains five bedrooms. Two bathrooms, one a master. Each bedroom has a huge closet, so big they require two closet doors. Every wall and door is white, even on the outside.
For a while in the beginning, I had to sleep on the floor. This was before Rachel and Nate were living with us. I had Pocahontas sheets spread out in one corner of the room. Two pillows, and my stuffed pooh-bear (Which I still have) I remember one night I couldn’t sleep, no I didn’t just want the attention, plus my stomach hurt. I could see that the kitchen light was still on, and I yelled out for my Mother. Instead my oldest sister Gilly came to my room.
I remember getting Ritz crackers and water, then being told to go back to sleep. In the dark, I stared at the ceiling and periodically sat up to drink my water and nibble on a cracker.
I loved the dark, I imagined that magical things were happening deep in the darkness of my room, but if I went to explore, those things would never come back.
-

My first real bed. A white bunk bed. I remember the bright day when Rory and one of his friends brought in the parts and put together my bed in the same room I had already been staying in.
I would share the bottom bunk with Rachel; Nathan would sleep on the top bunk. Gilly, Rory, and Chelsey all had their own rooms. And of course, Tom and Diane shared the same room, just down the hall from mine.
I was much happier sharing a room, a bed, than having to be alone. Even though Nathan was often a pest, trying to scare me, and make me cry all the time, he was still my older brother and I loved him. I wouldn’t say that Rachel and I were ever “close”, but we had our sister-moments.
Nate, Rachel, and I would often stay at my Grandma’s house. Tom was often too drunk, and my Mother knew how un-safe it was for us to stay home some nights in the house. The only time I remember actually having to leave was when both Tom and Diane were drunk, but Diane was the one who told us to leave.
We walked down the trail in the dark, and walked into my Grandma’s barely lighted house. She was sitting in the living room, reading the paper. That’s what she would almost always be doing.
Rachel had to explain to her what happened. I was used to my Grandmother having to be a Mother sometimes.
-

That night was when Rachel taught me how to draw a star. Im positive I’ll never forget that moment with her.
We were sitting in the living room, drawing on the long dark wood coffee table. Rachel was drawing stars and moons with stencils, but then she started to draw them on her own. I was amazed. I looked up to Rachel so much, and I’m thankful for the things that she taught me.
I asked her how she was doing that, drawing the stars almost perfectly.
She took my right hand which had a pencil in it, and showed me over and over again how to draw just like she was.
“Just remember, there has to be five points on a star.” she told me. I looked up at her and nodded, I now understood.
We then had to get ready for bed, just as I was getting the hang of drawing stars freehand. “I hope I remember how to draw them in the morning.” I told Rachel.
We stepped up the stairs together, and went into my Grandmother’s large bathroom.
Our Mother and Father never even came to mind. Sometimes when I was staying with my Grandmother I would completely forget that I still had parents. My Grandmother was all I needed.
We brushed our teeth, I combed my long blonde hair, and we both walked out at the same time.
We always slept in the same room, my Grandmother called it the “green room” because the walls were painted a light green color.
I slept on the right side of the bed, Rachel always slept on the left. My Grandmother always told us it would be easier to sleep if we didn’t face each other while laying in bed, so we never did. I faced toward the closet, and she faced toward the old baby crib and old sewing things.
-

Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary.
You close your eyes in a dark bathroom, you say her name three times.
She just might come to kill you.
I had a nightmare that night. I was murdered by the woman who had the name of Bloody Mary.
The dream took place in the bathroom, my Grandmother’s upstairs bathroom where I got ready for bed with Rachel. I was terrified of the dark, but I still walked in and closed the door behind me. Rachel, Nate, and one of my cousins had dared me to do it.
I placed my hands over my eyes and kept my eyes shut tight. I was absolutely horrified.
I could sense that a light was on, I took my hands off of my face and opened my eyes.
The door was barely open, and the hallway light was shining into the bathroom. I could hear Nate talking, and I caught a glimpse of someone standing outside the door. I looked at the crack in the door in the mirror.

A shadow was making it’s way into the room.