Secrets

Adopted

Greta looked out of the window. The grass was cold and dead-it was winter. No snow had fallen much to her dismay. The sky was a cloudy gray; no blue was in sight.

Greta's clothes were torn and ragged. Her long sleeve shirt had multiple holes and the fabric was very uncomfortable.

She remembered the dream from last night. This time, her father had taught her how to do a math problem. The dreams with him had kept happening every night. Each time, he played with her or taught her something new.

Ever since she was three Greta had not had a nightmare. Every dream was about her father.

Greta remembered what had happened that says he was three and scraped her knee. The man who played her father in the dreams had bent down and kissed two of his fingers and touched her knee. The wound had healed right in front of her eyes.

"Greta!" Ms. Simmons yelled.

"Yes Ms. Simmons?" She yelled back down. Lately, the caretaker of the orphanage had been crueler. Apparently her ex-husband had showed up and showed off his new wife. Why he had ever married the nasty woman in the first place had confused her throughout her entire life.

No wonder the man had divorced her. He was one of the lucky ones.

"Get down here you insufferable girl!" Greta went downstairs and into the kitchen. The kitchen was small and had wooden cabinets and white tile. The floor was wooden, most of the house was.

The sink wasn't grey anymore. Over time it had turned red with rust- the water barely came out.

Ms. Simmons had her usual hair style today. Her grey hair was up in a bun and Bobby pins clearly stuck out. Her eyebrows were bushy and unkempt. The yellow sundress she wore clashed with the red shoes she was wearing. For some odd reason, she thought the colors went well together with her paper white wrinkly skin.

Her body was round and caused the woman to waddle around when she walked. Ever since her ex gays and had stopped by, Ms. Simmons had lazed around and yelled at the other children.

"The weeds in the garden haven't been pulled girl! What have you been doing?" Ms. Simmons demanded.

Greta never heard anything about pulling the weeds. In fact, most of them were dead because of the cold.

"You never said anything about pulling the weeds ma'am." Greta replied softly.

"Do I look like an idiot to you? Of course I did you stupid girl!" She yelled. Greta knew for a fact that she hadn't. Every time she got a chore, she would write it down on her hand. No writing was on her hand and that meant that Ms. Simmons had most definitely not told her to pull the weeds.

With a sigh, Greta put on her jacket and walked outside to do the chore. The cold wind nipped at her cheeks and made her shiver.

She walked around to the flowers and kneeled down before starting to pull out the weeds. The cold didn't help and made it hard for the ten-year-old to pull the weeds out. Greta reached out for another patch of weeds when her jacket got caught on a thorn on one of the bushes. She jerked her arm back and the jacket ripped. A large jagged cut was on the jacket. The girl sighed in frustration and sat back.

What she didn't know was a man was talking to Ms. Simmons about adopting her. The woman handed him the papers and he gladly signed them. Ms. Simmons sighed and called Greta back inside the orphanage.

"Yes?" Greta asked her caretaker in a tired voice. She walked inside of Ms. Simmons office and stopped dead. The man from her dreams was standing there, smiling at her.