Better Off Alone (Adopted by Brendon and Sarah Urie)

24. Sarah

Sheri was very nice. She'd even brought an interpreter in case Callie wanted to join us. Brendon had gone up to check on her when she'd gone running upstairs as soon as she saw Sheri.

"She thinks we're sending her back," Brendon said as he came into the dining room.

"Poor kid," Sheri said. "That's all she's ever known. When I show up, it means she's being sent away. Did you not tell her I was coming?"

"I debated," I said. "But I was worried she'd react exactly the way she's reacted."

I sighed. It was a catch-22 for sure.

"I told her she's not going anywhere. She was packing though," Brendon said. "Shoving stuff in her garbage bags."

My heart broke. Poor Callie was so convinced we'd be sending her away, despite everything we'd said and done.

Brendon said he thought she'd be okay, and that he'd reassured her and asked if she wanted to join and that she could if she wanted.

We started talking with Sheri who had Callie's file with her.

"So, you know Callie's mom died, and that her dad relinquished custody of her. How much more have you been told?" Sheri asked.

"That's it. That's all we were told," Brendon said.

"Oh," Sheri said.

"Oh?" I asked.

"Well, it's a little more than that. That's the short version. The longer version is a little sadder. Callie's mother committed suicide," Sheri said.

"Oh. That's terrible," I said. "Her mother was the only person she could communicate with, we were told."

"That is true. Her father never bothered to learn sign language. He also blamed Callie for her mother's suicide. He would write her pages of notes and make her sit and read them telling her how her mother's death was all her fault, she drove her to it and no one would ever want a kid who killed their own mother."

"That's," I couldn't speak. There were no appropriate words.

"Disgusting," Brendon finished.

Sheri nodded.

"He told her that every day for months. Until he'd had enough and finally gave her up.

"He psychologically abused her and then tossed her away?"  Brendon asked.

"And physically. And maybe worse. We don't know for sure. Callie won't talk about it. We only know about the physical abuse because she still had bruises."

"When you say, worse..." I asked.

"We think he raped her at least once," Sheri said. There were... signs."

Tears filled my eyes. Our beautiful daughter. Our sweet innocent girl.

Just then, I heard the door chime go off that a door had been opened. Callie knows she's supposed to ask to go outside in the back, just so we know, and so I looked to see if she had, but there was no one outside.

"Was that the front door?" I asked. Brendon shrugged, and went to look. The door chimed again as Brendon presumably opened to door to look outside.

"Bogart and Penny are both at the door," he said, coming back to the dining room.

"Well, they didn't open the door. Is Callie out front?" I asked.

"No," he said. "I'm going to check her room."

He went upstairs and came running downstairs.

"She's gone. Her drawers are open and clothes are missing."

"What do you mean she's gone?" I said. "Where did she go?"

"I don't know!" Brendon said loudly. "Sorry, I'm not yelling at you Sarah. I don't know. She didn't leave a note."

"We need to find her. She's only 12. She's little."

The whole time Sheri was on the phone.

"I bet this looks just great on us," I said.

"If I were evaluating you for a foster placement, not really. But as she's legally your daughter, I'm here to support you, not punish you for her running away. That's not what we do anyway. We try to keep families together."

Brendon started making calls. I could hear him calling Zack and telling him to call people while he called others. He texted everyone one of our more recent pictures of Callie and tried to remember what she'd been wearing.

"She doesn't know the area. She only knows the way to the library," I said.

"Then let's start there," Sheri suggested. Brendon called Zack and asked him to check the library.

All our friends came to the house so we could coordinate where to search. Sheri called the police to let them know Callie was missing, that she'd run away and that she is Deaf. It's a myth that you have to wait for someone to be missing for 24 hours before the police will do anything. As soon as Sheri called, they were on their way to the house.

I was frantic. Kala came over while Zack went out searching with Brendon. Texts and phone calls kept my phone active. I tried texting Callie and heard her phone vibrate upstairs. I broke down into sobs.

"She left her phone," I said. Kala hugged me.

The police arrived and I sat with them in the dining room and related everything that we knew, which wasn't much. They took the photo of Callie that Brendon had sent to everyone, and I'd sent it to them.

"She's small for 12. Not too small, but she is just, she's just a little girl," I sobbed.

The police assured me they were going to work hard at locating Callie tonight. They asked about friends (none of her own yet), places she'd go (she only knows how to get to the library) or people she might run to (no one we knew. We hadn't taken her to any of our friend's places yet).

They called the Children's Home and sent a couple officers there in case she went there.

They searched the neighborhood, the ravines, the streams and ponds. They knocked on doors. I stayed in the house hoping Callie would come home.