Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 90795 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90795 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Another ring.
Answer it.
Don’t.
Answer it.
Don’t.
But I can’t. There can be only one reason someone would call. My mother.
“Hello. This is James,” I say, voice steady, emotions cut off.
“Hello. This is James Valentine? Originally from Rogue River Oregon?” asks a woman with a soft voice.
“This is he.”
“I’m Rebecca Johnson, a social worker for the Department of Children’s Services in Jackson County, Oregon. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but your mother, Sandra Valentine, passed away a few weeks ago. We have your siblings, Nash and Sadie, placed in a short-term foster home. They didn’t know your phone number or where you live, but we were finally able to locate you and…”
Her words continue, but I can’t hear any of them. There’s nothing but a muffled echo in my head.
Dead. She’s dead. I’m probably supposed to feel something hearing that, but I don’t. My mother was never a mother to me. She was selfish and neglectful. She never cared about me. But then I realize what else this woman said… “Siblings?” I don’t have siblings. I am an only child—at least, I had been when I left.
“Oh,” she says gently, like it just dawned on her. “I thought you knew since they’re the ones who told us they have an older brother. Nash is fifteen, and Sadie is eleven. They said they never met you, but I didn’t consider that you didn’t know about them.”
Anger scorches across my skin, makes me feel like I’m burning alive. So many of the things I lived through as a child come flooding back—the revolving men, the neglect, the days left alone, the filthy house, going hungry, the too small clothes, being made fun of at school, teachers pulling me aside to ask if I was okay, to tell me I stank, her telling me she didn’t want me, that I was useless, that I ruined her life. And then after I left, she had two more kids?
Did she put them through the same hell she put me through? Did she make them feel like they were nothing but a burden? Did they have to be the adults in the house, even when they were young, because she didn’t know how to be?
They still are young.
“Mr. Valentine?” Rebecca asks. “At this time, we don’t have anywhere for your brother and sister to go long term. We’re working to place them in long-term care, but we don’t have enough foster families or resources. There’s no guarantee we can keep them together or that we’ll find a home for them at all. They’ll likely be placed in separate group homes if we can’t find long-term placement.”
My head spins. My heart feels like it’s going to punch through my body. My chest is tight, and I try to steady my breathing, try not to lose my shit because I’m in control, damn it. I control my life, not Sandra, not this social worker, nor anyone else.
“You’d like them to live with me?” I finally manage to say. It took me longer to get there than it should have. Obviously, that’s why she’s calling.
I don’t know the first thing about raising kids. Hell, I’ve never wanted kids. I vowed that when I was probably ten years old. I would never make someone suffer the way I did, and I would never bring children into this world because…what if I was just like her? I’ve done everything in my power to be nothing like her, but what if I am?
“That would be the preference, yes. We prefer to try and place children with family if we can. Sadie’s father passed away, and Nash’s has been in and out of his life. Nash’s father has been in some trouble with the law—nothing major, but we can’t find him or any other next of kin. Can you come? To Oregon? And at least meet them and we can discuss what would happen from there? There’s a process we’d have to go through, background checks and some other steps, but if you’re approved to take them, at least they would be together.”
You don’t know how to raise children. You can’t even have functional friendships. How do you expect to do this?
I squeeze my eyes shut as if that will quiet the voices inside my head. “Yes. I’ll come.”
*
It’s hard to focus on anything Rebecca says to me as we stand in the hallway at the CPS building. I don’t think my pulse has slowed down at all since the moment she called me the day before. Words like home visits, temporary custody, and the process to move the children out of state are all a blur. She says it’d be much easier if I moved to Oregon, but I can’t do that. My job is in Virginia. My life.
I got the first flight out of DC, and now here I am, back in Jackson County, a place I swore I would never see again, to meet siblings I didn’t know I have, and go through the process to see if I’m approved to take them home with me.