Family

Chapter 14

We been sitting on the porch for a while after we finish working. Ma left the lemonade at the stairs, waiting for us.

"Because I know the truth. I know what the world is really like. I know there is a whole bunch of adventures waiting for us out there. Yes, it makes me sad to be stuck here now, but I have hope that the adventures will come to me again. I am twelve years old. And my mother always said that I got a whole life ahead of me, I shouldn't focus on what is hurting me right now. I'm gonna listen to her and focus on what is coming my way."

"Do ya still think ya gonna get out of here," Mack getting angry with Kate. "I thought ya were done wit this. Ya agreed ya would stop trying to escape."

"But that's the thing, I'm not going to try and run. I tried that and it made everything worse. I might as well accept it for now."

"For now?! Stop with the 'for now'! Stop thinking this ain't ya life, Kate. It's ya life now, and tomorrow, and the rest o' ya life. Ya stuck here, Kate. Accept it. There ain't another family looking for ya. If there was why ain't there families looking for the rest o' us? Huh? Why are we different from ya?" Mack start crying. When he see the surprise on our faces he got us and walked back to the barn.

I keep my voice as I say this:"Jus' try to accept it, Kate. For the sake of all o' us. We need you to try to be part o' our family and not fight it. If not for me and Mack, but for Claire, Sam, and Megan. They young. They jus' gonna believe e'erything ya say, and I ain't gonna know how to make them listen to me after they listen to ya. We don't know if they got another family outside o' this, or if it e'en true. But ya need to try and make it look like you are wit us now. Please, I beg ya. Try."

I stand, and take my lemonade wit me to the barn. I wanna see if Mack is okay.

When I get there is standing next to Chance, petting it while his forehead touches Chance's.

"Mack," I ask for him in a hush tone to not scare him or the horse.

"I ain't got nothing to say to ya or anyone," he still mad, but his voice shaking too.

I begin to walk away to give him space. But 'fore I leave the barn, he stop me. "What if she right?"

"What ya talking 'bout, Mack? We know she ain't."

"But what if she is? We might got another family. We could go to school. See the world like she tell us 'bout."

"Mack, this is our family. This what our life is. We got nobody else."

"Ya right. What am I talking 'bout. There ain't nobody looking for us. E'en if there is, I would like to believe my other family would find me sooner. But they didn't, so there ain't anybody else."

"Mack, if ya went missing now, I would stop at nothing to find ya. Know that!"

"I know, Annie. I know 'cause ya my family. Ya always my family."

"I will ne'er let ya leave without me anyways." We laugh.

After that, we continue to laugh and talk 'bout what we think the world is like outside of the house, the fields, and the barn. Mack think it's full of beauty and love. I think it all they say in the books and magazines. There probably a princess somewhere. There gotta be a prince too, 'cause where there a princess, there a prince. There probably beautiful homes full of beautiful families who work together to make the world a great adventure for all of 'em.

"Annie?"

"Yes, Mack?"

"How long ya been here?"

"Ya know that answer."

"I know ya thirteen and I eleven. But how long have ya been here?"

"As long as I remember, Mack."

"Yeah, me too."

I jus' look at him. He sit in the hay next to Chance. Mack pull and the straws out and move them into another pile. Some he twists 'round finger 'til it breaks.

"I wanna know the truth, Annie."

"We do know the truth."

"We know what Pa tell us. But what if there more they ain't telling us."

"E'en if there is more, where we gonna find it?"

"I don't know, Annie. I jus' wanna know who I really am."

"Mack. That who you are. Ya Mack. And ya know ya Mack. Why ya think differently?"

"Annie, ya know what I mean."

"No, Mack. No I don't. Cause I know I am Annie. I am Annie now just as much as I'd been Annie since I was born."

"But ya can't know who ya where when ya were born."

"And why not?"

"Because ya don't know where ya from."

"I'm from here and that's the end of this conversation."

I walk away from Mack toward the little ones playing. I don't like what he ask me. I don't think I from anywhere else than here. I have been me here my whole life and there ain't no one or no thing to tell me otherwise.