“My parents were drug users. Long and true. My dad got out of the picture pretty quick, and then my mom struggled to keep me out of foster care for a lot of years. It wasn’t until I was five that she lost that battle. When I was six, their rights to me were terminated, and after that court hearing, I never saw either again.” I take a breath before I continue because there’s just some things you have to breathe on. “I went to live with a foster family who had other fosters in it, but as for a forever family, I kept missing the bus. It probably didn’t help that I was quiet, smart, and afraid of making any attachments…while also absolutely wanting nothing more than to be attached to someone. To anyone.”
Kissy goes to looking at the ceiling again. I think it’s to give me some privacy. If she only knew she’s the only person I’ve ever told this to.
“And then I got to Martha and Ray’s house.”
My dream from earlier is hazy. But I know they were in it. They usually are.
“Not a bad couple to be with. Young, open to the idea of adoption. I was twelve by then and had gotten used to being alone. Also to wandering. One day, I walked to the movies while they were out at the store and took my sweet time coming back. It’s the only reason I heard her scream.”
Now I pause, because I don’t know how to tell this part.
My brothers are the only ones who’ve heard the retelling, but when I told it then, I was rushing. Terrified. Upset.
Twelve and alone.
Now I’m lying next to a woman who knows what it’s like for her entire life to change in one moment.
“At first, I wasn’t sure it was real. It sounded so far away, but at the same time, it was one of those sounds you never forget. And Iknewthat then. That it would be something that stayed with me. I think that’s why I went into Deaton Brennan’s house. Right through the back door and into a house that was dark and cold.”
“Deaton was Ray and Martha’s neighbor, and I’d met him two times before,” I continue. “He seemed normal. Middle-aged, divorced but happy. Had a job in sales over at the car dealership. Collected ballcaps and loved watching football. So I wasn’t expecting to find anything. Maybe a TV left on or something. But no one was in the house, and the screaming had stopped. I couldn’t let it go, though. I looked through the top floor and found nothing, then I went to the basement and saw her.”
I feel her in the room now, just like I felt her all those years ago.
She’s cold and scared and tired.
She can’t believe I heard her.
She can’t believe I left her.
I hear my own voice change into a quiet pain. “She was looking up at me through the slat in the stairs. She was terrified. She didn’t speak, and I thought I was dreaming.”
Kissy’s hand slides above the blanket and finds mine.
Nothing can penetrate this memory, though.
I finish before I get lost in it. “We heard Deaton pull up, and I-I ran. Out of the house and right next door. Martha and Ray were already home, and they were so mad that I’d gone to the movies alone that by the time I told them what I’d heard and seen, they were livid. They thought I was trying to get out of trouble. So I didn’t try to tell them again. They were so upset that they took me to the DHR office to talk to my social worker. That’s when I met Maximus.”
I could smile at the memory.
I don’t, but I could.
“He overheard the story I’d told them, and instead of thinking I was acting out, he asked for details. Another boy there heard us, and when Maximus said we should do something ourselves, he was in. That was Lee, by the way.” Kissy gives my hand a soft squeeze. “We made a plan to meet the next day when Martha and Ray were gone. I still don’t know how Maximus did it or why, but sure enough, as soon as they were gone, there was Maximus, his foster brother Macy, Lee, and Jesse and his sister Dawn. Kilpatrick was living across the street and saw the meeting and came over. We looked like some kind of makeshift group of kids you’d find in a Stephen King book, but man, it worked for us. One second I was alone and the next the living room was filled.”
I laugh, just a little.
“Maximus led the charge, and to be honest, a lot of it was a blur. We didn’t expect Deaton to be there, but he was. Maximus, Kilpatrick, and Lee took him down with a bat and tied him up. I’m not even sure what the rest did. My only job was to go back down those basement stairs and find her. And I did.”
There she is. In my mind forever.
Hunched over in the corner of a locked room.
“Sarah Tate had been in that basement for seven months, and we, a group of foster children, are the ones who took down her abductor and freed her.”
“Was she okay? I mean, as much as you can be?” Kissy breaks the silence. I don’t blame her.
“Yeah. Clean bill of health, reunited with her parents, had a lot of news stories about her before she got to disappear from the limelight,” I answer. “We also got some of that treatment. Even the fame part for a minute.”
“Surely that got people wanting to adopt y’all?”
