“Mom where is my birth certificate I need to to bring to basketball so I can travel with the team to California.”
This one was the last time I trusted anyone, Everyone is a liar, everything is lies.
“I think it’s in the office, try looking in the grey filing cabinet”
In the filing cabinet there was more than just my birth certificate, there were tons of articles from my past and present. Articles from winning state championships, being selected for the all star team. I took them all out to read them and remember the games, the wins, and the friendships that formed out of basketball. I fiddled with the papers and at the back was my birth certificate. Behind it was an article, the picture in the paper was a car with a large indent, the front smashed . The headline, “Couple Car Crash”. Apparently this couple was allegedly run off the road and died on impact. They also had a daughter that went missing after the car crash, she wasn’t in the car with them. When the police got to their house the baby was simply not there. The strangest thing was that the people had the same name as my parents. Cindy and George, and our last name was also Smith as in the article. Later in the article they mentioned the name of the baby, her name was Jade. My name is Jade Smith.
I stood there in awe of the article wondering why this was in the same folder as my birth certificate? This couldn’t be my parents, my parents are alive how could they be alive and dead at the same time? Jade, George and Cindy are all common names so is Smith, this couldn’t be my family. I have always been skeptical of my family though. We don’t have any pictures from when I was a baby or when I was two. I reread the article but this time focusing on the key details. The article was dated the day of my birthday but two years after... June 5th 2000. This was too much to process, I put the papers back and I would come back when my parents were out to do some research on what all this means.
My “mom” yelled up to me from downstairs, “Did you find your birth certificate?”
“Yes mom, I found it. What time do we have to leave for practice today?”
“We’re leaving in like ten minutes, go get ready meet me in the car in five.”
“Okay be right there.”
I ran to my room and changed for basketball. She fastened her fiery red locks in a ponytail, got her basketball clothes and ran to the car. I sat silently on the ride there. Listening to music on my Ipod. I kept thinking about that article, what did it mean? Was it fake or was is real? I thought to myself, If that article is real then who am I living with now? Were these people really my parents? Was I adopted? I kept thinking what the hell was going on. During practice I kept tripping,falling, and missing shots. My coach asked me if anything was wrong and I said no.
After practice, I avoided my teammates and went straight to the car, I needed some answers. I went home and immediately went to sleep. I had dreams of me being in a car with my “parents” and being run off the road into a tree, that image I couldn’t get out of my head. I woke up early and went to my laptop and searched my parents on Google. I found another article on the car crash, it said exactly the same thing as the other, the parents were run off the road and the daughter went missing. I knew I had to get back to that folder, it had to have all the answers I needed. I would not be able to get in there unless my parents weren’t home. I dug my fingernails into my cuticles trying to think, my parents were usually gone from seven to nine while I am at basketball. Maybe I could pretend to have a lot of homework and not go to basketball and then maybe they would still go wherever they need to go. They never told me where they went during my practices they were always there to drop off and pick up, but where did they go in between, they never stayed and socialized with the other parents. Where did they go during my practices?
I pondered the question all throughout school, being distracted by the questions that had no answers. After school I decided to put my plan into action.
“Mom, Dad. I’m not going to practice today because of my work load, and midterms coming up, I just can’t do it all.”
“Okay honey just go up to your room and do homework and study, we’ll leave you alone. We have to run some errands later so when we are gone and you need anything there is food in the fridge and the internet so go study.You’ll be fine.”
“Okay Mom.”
I went up to my room to study, and do my homework. About an hour later my mom called up to me to tell me they were leaving. This was my shot, I could go into the office and snoop some more. I walked down stairs and into the office. The door was unlocked and I scooted in. I found the article tucked away in the filing cabinet and found a bunch of birth certificates with different names on them of people I had no idea who they were, they all had the same age, 15. I went on the computer and found this program that could create documents in a folder on the hard drive.
I said to myself, “What does this all mean, why are there birth certificates that are all female with the same age?”
I tried to piece this all together but nothing made any sense, I needed more information. What were these documents for and why were they here. I tried to put the information I had gathered in order. There is an article from when I was two that two parents died in a car crash with the same name, a girl went missing from their house after the crash and was not found. I had found birth certificates with random names from my birth year and software to create them. I knew enough from TV to know that this wasn’t a simple adoption situation, there would be other papers in the files to confirm that. I looked one last time and found a letter from a woman name Clarissa Grandes telling Harriet and Jerry Trugman to abduct a child. I read further into the letter, Harriet was supposed to abduct the baby but Jerry was to kill the family. The letter also said to take on new identities as Cindy and George Smith. There was a theory forming that was somewhat logical but it seemed surreal. I had to be kidnapped at a young age, that was the only thing that made sense. The only thing I couldn’t grasp was why did they do it? I felt betrayed and alone. I replaced everything I had found in its original place to make it look normal.
I went up to my room and sat on my bed and stared at the wall, it was plain beige, my life was like this wall. It was scrappy and painted over by a complete stranger, I couldn’t trust anyone. I couldn’t stay here surrounded by lies, I had to make an escape. I started planning an escape. I needed to get away from here. I decided to go to the library, it was a good place for me to just think and sort everything out.
When I got to the library I went straight to the young adult section to sit down and plan. I sat there again sitting, waiting, staring out the window contemplating and comprehending what has happened in the past couple of hours. I figured out what I needed to do. I came up with my plan, and I had to act fast I was going to run away and make myself a new life and destroy the one recreated for me. I gathered my supplies and left to go to Indiana where my life was before my abduction. I didn’t leave a trace of myself, but I destroyed any evidence of myself in the house. There was only one way to do that. To burn it to the ground, I watched it crumble from afar until it was a heap of burning embers. I then left for Indiana. I needed to know more.
