Page 4 of The Lies We Believe

As I stared at the ghost from my past I thought I’d never see again, a mountain of memories crashed over me like a suffocating avalanche.

“Take him! I don’t want that thing in my home a moment longer.”

“Mrs. Jenkins, if you could just sit down a minute and explain to me what happened?” Elise said calmly as she took my hand and pulled me onto the grubby couch next to her.

“Explain?! I don’t have to explain anything. Just get that thing?—”

“Please calm down, Jean. River is just a child.”

“That ain’t no darn child. That’s…that’s a monster. An abomination! And I don’t want it in my house. Get it gone.”

Elise sighed and looked at me. “River, can you go sit in my car for a minute, please? I’ll be right on out.” I looked at her, trying not to show how scared I was, because I didn’t want to move again. I didn’t want…I didn’t want…

I shook my head as the first tear fell.

Mama Jean scoffed. “Cut that out now, you little heathen.” Her eyes turned black like they did at night when she came into my room and hit me. But last night, I’d had enough and bit herwhen she smacked me across the face for something Jackson did.

All it did was make her worse. She’d wailed like I’d broken her arm or something. The other boys in the room hid under their blankets, pretending to be asleep.

They didn’t help me. No one ever did.

Mama Jean grabbed my hair and dragged me downstairs before kicking me out the back door. She made me sleep on the dog’s bed outside on the back porch in the pitch black. I hated the dark. Bad things happened in it.

The heat hit me as I stood on the crumbling concrete steps as the screen door banged in its frame behind me. It was too hot to sit in the car, so I sat on the stairs instead. The other kids played in the street. Some were on bikes, while others kicked a ball around. Mama Jean didn’t allow us to play in the backyard. That was her space and wasn’t for us kids.

I wiped away my tears with the back of my hand and watched a line of ants as they walked around the tufts of grass growing through the cracks and waited.

And waited.

“Come on, River.” Elise patted my head, and I followed her to her old Toyota. “Get in.” She held the back door open for me, and as I climbed in, she raised her head to the sky and sighed before shutting the door.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” She asked as she slipped into her seat. Her light blue eyes found me in the mirror as she reversed out onto the street. I shook my head. “I can’t help you if you don’t talk, River.”

I shrugged and picked at the thread on my jeans.

“You can stay at my house tonight while I find you another foster family. If any will take you. This will be your third home since I’ve taken over your case.”

I said nothing. What was the point? Adults didn’t listen to me, anyway. I’d learned that quickly. It was better to stay quiet.

At the time, Mama Jean seemed like the biggest monster I’d ever known, but I soon came to realize she wasn’t all that bad. Within months of leaving her care, I came to crave her brand of cruelty.

“Get out, ya little thief.” Darren’s boot swung for me again, so I ran faster. He was old and slow. He couldn’t run due to his size and having bad knees. Luckily, I was small and quick. “Don’t come back!”

I made the mistake of thinking I was safe once I was out the door and away from his one-story shack of a house, but I forgot he had friends. Friends that were like brothers to him. Friends that sat around the yard on lawn chairs drinking and smoking weed all day like they were kings. Friends who would come when he called, claiming I’d stolen fifty bucks from his stash.

I hadn’t; it was his nasty son Derek that had done it so he could get his own weed rather than risk a beating from his dad for stealing his. Weed and beer were the only things Darren seemed to care about, other than the check he got for fostering me.

Instead, Derek blamed me, and Darren searched my room, trashing it in his rage until he found what he wanted. Hidden under my pillow was ten dollars I’d earned by helping Mrs. Winslow next door take out her garbage, but Darren thought it was his money and punched me before I could run. And run I did, straight into the arms of his friends.

“We’ve got you now, you little shit.”

That was my first trip to the emergency room, but only one of many. I had a broken arm and a concussion. Elise arrived when my cast was being set. Darren claimed I’d fallen out of a tree,but as I sucked the lollipop the kind nurse gave me, I heard her talking with Elise.

“You need to remove him from that home. This isn’t the first time something has happened to him.” She glared at Elise. “Unless he’s very accident prone. But the facts speak for themselves. There is systemic bruising on his body, centered around his torso, which is easily hidden. Placement on the body like that is not accidental or caused by falling from a tree.”

“He is a very troubled little boy. It’s hard finding placements that will accept him.” Elise sighed. She looked tired, and dark circles ringed her pale-blue eyes. She didn’t look like the lady I’d met months ago; she looked old.

“That’s not been my experience with River. Other than only communicating with a head nod or shake, he’s been very brave. He just needs a home that’s going to give him the right support to come out of his shell.”

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