14 Days

[1]

"Come on Elise. It'd be fun," Sam insisted.

"Thanks, but I have to go to work. See you later," I put my tangled red curls into a braid and headed to the campus bookstore 20 minutes before my shift. I had too much on my plate to be out wasting time and my limited funds going to the movies. At 20 years old, I was a college student desperately working to pay off tuition and rent.

New York was majestic in the winter, and as I rented textbooks to eager freshmen and laid back seniors alike I thought about when I first came to New York. Unorganized as a wide eyed, cautious, 18 year old. All alone, no family, and anxious about starting college as a junior. I tried so hard to fit in and make friends, and for a minute I thought that would happen. However, I found it difficult to open up to new people and to loosen up.

When the clock struck 4pm my shift ended, and I headed to my cardboard box sized New York apartment to start writing an essay. I was working on my master's degree in English, and I desperately wanted to become a writer. Half-way through the brilliant analysis I was typing of the character Victor Frankenstein, someone knocked on my fragile dark stained door. I opened it hesitantly, not knowing that my life would never be the same after that.

Standing outside my door was a tall, scrawny man in a slick charcoal suit.

"Elise Maud?" The man questioned.

"Yes, that's me. And who might you be?"

"I'm Fred Williams from social services. My office is looking for relatives to take in your sister, Madison."

I'm sure that any stranger could have registered the look of utter doubt on my face, but not Fred. He just continued right on with his polished spiel.

"After your parents passed away we started the search for any family, and we got lucky when a family friend remembered that at some point your parents had another daughter before they moved to New York, you, and social services have been tracking you down ever since."

"My parents?" That wasn't possible, "I never knew my parents. I grew up in an orphanage in Rhode Island. Are you positive you have the right person?" Part of me wanted him to be right, it would feel so good to be remembered by anyone. However, the part of me that was remembering the orphanage I spent the first 18 years of my life in, wanted no part in a family that rejected me before I had the chance to say my first word. Never had I been so conflicted, my heart pulling me in one direction and my brain the other. Fred pulled a tainted piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and squinted at the writing.

"Elise Diana Maud born in NewPort, Rhode Island on May 2nd 1995. Graduated from NewPort high school in 2013 and have been going to NYU for two years. That is you, correct?" I was catatonic, and continued to stand there with no words coming out of my mouth. When I finally became "unstuck", I noticed Fred was gone. He had left a business card on my counter with the words, "Think about it, Madison is 13," written in blue pen. Plopping into my plushy old recliner, I thought about what all that meant.

My parents were dead, that didn't bother me too much. I had a sister, that was...interesting, and social services wanted me to take in this long lost sister named Madison. There was no way I could be another person's guardian. I could barely afford to take care of myself. I decided I would call right then and there to tell social services no, but then a thought sprung up in my head. If I was the only family they could find, what would happen to Madison if I pushed her away? She would most likely go to a foster home. A place where she didn't know anyone, and nobody really cared enough about her feelings. I had no idea what to do, so I picked up my landline and dialed the person whom I always dialed when I needed help. My old social worker Mandy was always my first call.