Wolf-blood

Homes

Flashback (Lenus's Past)

Most of the rest of my childhood that I remember was spent in an orphanage. My father's parents wanted nothing to do with us and lived in Alaska, just about as far away from Southern California as it gets. Both my mom and dad were only children, so I didn't have an aunt or uncle that could take me. My mother grew up in fifteen plus foster homes until she was eighteen, when she graduated high school, so she literally had no one. I guess that's why they clicked: two messed up kids against the world.

My first foster home was good enough. They treated me well and gave me my own room. I stayed with them from when I was three and a half, three months after my parents had died, to when I was 4 and a half. You see, the first three months, from what I could remember, were terrific. They spent a lot of time with me, I was never ignored, and I got lots of shiny things. Then, the couple got pregnant. Slowly but surely, they started to shut me out and focus on their own flesh and blood. Once they had their own child, I went back to the group home to wait for my next foster home.

When I was five, I finally got it. A middle-aged married couple who had always wanted kids but never managed to get one signed up to be foster parents. They lived in Oregon, so I was moved there. Don't ask me why they didn't take another child; maybe they only liked boys. Once again, it started out great. They spent time with me, I got a mother and father, and once again I got pounds of toys. But, then they sent me off to kindergarten. At first I was all for it; kids my age all in one place? I could almost have a real family! But, when I showed up, the kids made fun of me: from my size (which was abnormally small), to my clothes, to my backpack. I came out crying and my foster parents told me to toughen up. Not the encouragement a five-year-old needs. After a week of continuous torment, I was finally sent back to the agency for reassignment.

I stayed at the group home for two years, going to the closest public school to stay educated. The tormenting never stopped; though it did progress. The kids now made fun of where I lived and that I was the unwanted child. I eventually learned to shut them out. I kept telling myself, 'They just want to see you get mad, don't give them the satisfaction.' At age seven, just as I was about to start second grade, I was put in a foster home. The foster parent had not specified as to what gender she would rather have, but it was obvious from the moment I met her that she had wanted a girl. She treated me, not exactly coldly, but definitely not warmly either. I was out of there after the school year ended.

After that, I went back to the group home until I was nine and then someone decided that they would foster me. At that point, I no longer cared what happened to me; I could've been put into a serial killer's house for all I cared. The parents had a kid of their own, and they often scolded me about not paying attention to him. I was sent back shortly after. 

Once I hit ten, though, the already low interest in me was dropped drastically. I was no longer a desirable kid, I was an irritable child incapable of care. I was moved to different group homes occasionally, but not to another foster home until I was twelve. 

I was chosen by a family in Wisconsin. They came from way in the north, near the UP. They were very kind, and I tried my best to be as kind back to them. They were an older couple, maybe in their early fifties, and they often fostered children. I called them Mr. and Mrs. Fisher, despite their insistence on me calling them Jane and Richard. I just couldn't do it with a straight face. How often was it that you met people named Dick and Jane? Anyway, their home was small, but cozy. They owned a Siamese cat named Mopsy and a fat old beagle named Carl. Carl seemed to have claimed my room as his own before I had arrived, so I slept with a twenty pound beagle on me each night. They were all really, very sweet. It was so far the only home that had made a real impression on me. So, naturally, it was the one where everything went wrong.