The Foster Girls #2: Finland

Prologue 1

Seventeen years earlier...

I could hear their hushed voices talking about me, whispered words such as "difficult," "don't want her back" and the one I'd heard many times over the last few years: "runner." I'd achieved that label after executing twenty-two escapes from the seventeen foster homes I'd been placed in over the last eight years. 

After a few more minutes of muttered discussions, my case worker came out and sat beside me, her boss standing a bit apart but watching.

"Finnie, why did you run this time?"

I gave her the answer I always gave: a shrug.

She sighed heavily, but I knew it was because she cared. That was a fact. Miss MacKinnon cared about me.

And there were precious few facts I knew about myself.

I knew I'd been abandoned in front of a fire house at about nine months of age.

I knew that my mother had left a card tucked into my blanket that said, "This is Finland. I can't take care of her anymore. Rakastan häntä." Miss MacKinnon told me that meant, "I love her." Since authorities had thought the words might be a clue as to my mother's identity, they'd had it translated, but it only told them she spoke Finnish and was probably from Finland. It also explained my unusual name. I had been given the card to keep, and I liked it because at one time, someone loved me, even if she gave me away.

I knew nobody called me by my full name – it was always shortened to Finnie.

I knew I had two bad scars on my face.

I knew that I liked to tell myself stories about what I wanted my life to be like. I imagined a big family and all the hugs I could want.

I knew the label "runner" was not a good thing in the foster care system, and I knew that I was one. I'd first run away at four years old. That escape didn't last long, but as I grew older, my escapes were more successful, lasted longer and got me farther away.

That was the sum total of the facts I knew about myself. 

"Finnie, I'm sorry, but you won't be going back to the Davises."

I looked at her. "They won't take me back."

Miss MacKinnon grimaced. "You're too smart, Finnie. You've run away from them four times since you were placed there three months ago."

I shrugged.

"We're going to try you in a group home, child. Maybe you'll like it better than foster homes. It's a brand new house, just recently opened, so you'll be one of the first girls there. Will you give it a chance? For me?"

I shrugged, and ten minutes later, we were in her car, driving to my newest home.

The house was plain and simple, surrounded by a lot of land. I followed Miss MacKinnon up the front porch steps, my little  trash bag filled with the few clothes I had.

She opened the blue front door and I stepped in behind her. The house mother came up to us, obviously having been awaiting my arrival.

"Hello, Finland," she said to me in a polite, if cool, voice. "Welcome. I'm Mrs. Thomas, and I'm in charge of you girls."

"Hello," I said quietly. She wasn't giving me warm and fuzzy vibes, but at least I didn't sense any mean ones from her.

I had practice with those kinds of vibes.

"Hello, ma'am," she corrected.

"Hello, ma'am," I parroted back.

"I'll take you to your room right now. Later, we'll go over the rules and your chore list. We all have chores here."

"Yes, ma'am," I said sweetly, thinking I'd be ditching this place soon.

She took me to my new room, and there was a tiny girl sitting on her bed, school books open in front of her. Her brown hair was short and sticking up all over her head. 

"Elizabeth," Mrs. Thomas said. Elizabeth jumped up and stood beside her bed, staring not at Mrs. Thomas but at me.

"This is Finland, your new roommate. She has ten minutes to get settled, then you can bring her out so I can show her the chore chart. Miss MacKinnon, will you please follow me?"

Elizabeth and I waited until the ladies left. "Hey," I said to my tiny roommate. "I'm eight. How old are you?"

Holding up eight fingers, she then skewered me with her eyes and whispered what I was to learn later was her first word in a year: "Stay."

I looked into her sad eyes for a minute and made a promise that would change the course of my life. "I will."

And I did.

Over the next six months, two more girls, Harper and Willow, were added to our little group, and the four of us called ourselves the Foster girls.

We were a band of sisters – not by blood but by choice. It was the first family I'd ever had.

Because of them, I stopped running.