In Faith's Range

Chapter 1: The Missing Fith

Detroit, Mi                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 6/3/2016
Junior's Book of Stories to Tell to future kids.

          "Are you sure you're not related to the Agapesons?" Asked Surely

          "I'm positive," I answered firmly.

          You see, the grocery store cashier asked me that question whenever she saw me. It had gotten  really annoying over the last year, especially since I was a twelve-year-old foster kid. No one seemed to want me and I didn't want to think about the family who gave me up.

          "You sure do look like one,"she continued.

          "Well I'm not" I snapped.

          I didn't give her a chance to respond. I just stomped off to a bench to wait for Caren. Ania, my foster sister, decided to follow me though. She sat down right beside me, but we didn't talk. We were both too busy thinking about different things. I was so mad at how my life turned out. I wanted to grow up so much, so I could start a better one.

🤎❤️💙🤍💚

Leelanau County, MI
Gloryanne's Journal.                                                                                                                                                                                                                              6/4/2016

          It has been a very strange morning. The family received a mysterious phone call. After my Grandpa answered, the grown ups had a meeting in my grandparents' bedroom, leaving Laurel and Rence, my older cousins, in charge.

          No one left the house. Us children were all way too curious. Hailey tried after a while to go play with her friends, but Laurel insisted no one go anywhere beyond the backyard because she knew there would be a family meeting. As it turned out she was right. The three Agapeson generations gathered in the living room, where we usually all gathered to be together.

"As you all know, this morning we got a call,” started Grandpa after we finished praying. “It was about your Aunt Nina. They found her body last week.”

          Laurel glanced at Rence and everyone was shocked. My Uncle Peter and Aunt Nina, Laurel and Rence’s parents, had lived in Detroit with their twin children twelve years go while another was on the way. One fateful night, Uncle Peter was found shot dead in their apartment, but his wife went missing. Laurel and Rence moved in with Grandpa and Grandma after the incident and everybody in the family was left to wonder what happened to the mother and child.

"Where and how?" Elyse asked the first question.

         "Her body was found in an apartment room. Some of the neighbors had reported gunshots to the local police." Pa answered. Grandpa looked unsure about sharing this information.

          "So she's been alive this whole time?" Confirmed Matthew, my cousin.

          "Yes and was being held captive by a man." Grandpa looked really uncomfortable by now.

           "Why," Rence asked a little angrily.

          Grandpa just shrugged his shoulders.

          "Did they say anything about her baby?" I asked the next question.

          Grandpa didn't answer right away. He just sat and stared up at the ceiling. "I didn't think to ask about that," he finally said hesitantly.

          "How could you not think to ask about Aunt Nina's baby?" I flopped my arms up and down.
          "I just didn't think to ask." Grandpa replied more sternly.

          I didn't bother to keep the subject going. Part of me left the room, though. Elyse skooched closer and put her arm around me. The meeting went on, but Anne (my imaginative side) wasn't there. She went to her place of abnormalities and unlikelies.

🤎❤️💙💟💚

Detroit, Mi                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               6/10/2016
Junior

          "This is Officer Jeds from the sheriff's department. May I speak with Mr. Junior? The voice rang from the speaker box.

          "Come on in,'' Mr. Fauster, my foster dad, responded. He turned his head toward me sternly. I just rolled my eyes. You see, I had done nothing to break the law. It didn't change the fact that a policeman was on his way up, though.

          Ding! The elevator rang and the officer walked into the penthouse living room, which wasn't much different from any other living room. It had a couple different couches facing a TV with a coffee table in the middle. The only difference is all the furniture was pretty luxurious and the TV was a 75" smart TV.

          "Officer James Jeds." He held out his hand.

          "George Fauster," Mr. Fauster replied with a hand shake. Then he offered him a seat.

           Officer Jeds didn't seem to be mad at anything. He looked more... I don't know. Whatever you call it, when somebody looks like he has something important to tell you but it might be confusing.

          "You must be Junior?" He turned his attention to me as he took a seat on a couch next to me and looked at me as if to gather his thoughts.

         "Would you like anything? My wife just made nut bread," Mr. Fauster offered.

          "Do you have any donuts?" Officer Jeds winked.

          Mr. Fauster snorted. "No, sorry."

         "I guess nut bread will have to do,'' Officer Jeds sighed.

         "I'll be right back," Mr. Fauster said as he walked towards the kitchen.

          "Who are they?" I groaned. To tell you the truth, most of me didn't want to know but I had a feeling that I didn't have a choice.

         "Their names were Peter and Nina Agapeson. They lived in an apartment building with their twin children, Laurel and Laurence. Until twelve years ago."

          He paused for a moment, while Mr. Fauster returned with a tray of nut bread. He took a piece and continued in between bites. Of course you can well imagine what my response was to this, considering how many I denied it to Surely.

         "What happened twelve years ago?" I was pretty curious about this. Mainly because twelve years ago, I was found in a dumpster by a hardware store. One of the employees discovered me and turned me into CPS. Since then, I always wondered what idiot would leave their  baby in a dumpster as trash and why.

"I'm sorry, but your father was found dead in their apartment room and your mother went missing. About two weeks ago, we received a call reporting a gunshot. When we got to the site your mother was dead. We arrested her and your father's killer, who had been holding your mother hostage. When we interrogated him, he mentioned the couple's baby he dropped off at Junior's Hardware. We've traced that baby to you."

         You know that scene in movies where a character’s mouth drops open really wide? It was like that. This whole time I was mad at the wrong people. My parents didn't give me up; their killer did. Questions filled my mind: why would someone do something like that, what happened to my siblings, did I still have a family who wanted me?
And that is how I found my family and found out I was an Agapeson.