Chapter 2

WHEN CHILD SERVICES CAME to take me away again, I had mixed feelings. When I was with my mother, I wanted to be anywhere but home, but now that Child Services had placed me with another family, I desperately wanted to be home with my mother, even if she was abusive. Looking back, I think I just wanted her to accept me because I felt like she never did.

I eventually received a court date and was able to plead my case before a judge. I begged and pleaded with the judge, telling him I wouldn’t try to run away anymore and that I would stay out of trouble.

The judge said that if I showed I had learned my lesson and could behave myself while in foster care, I would be allowed to have some visits with my mother and eventually some sleepovers, which, in turn, would lead my mother to regain custody of me. I told the judge I would behave and try my best.

I was put in a foster home under the care of Jack and Evelyn O’Neil, who had three girls, two were older than me, and one was younger. The sisters were spoiled, getting whatever they wanted, while I was lucky if I got to eat dinner. When they were home, they would sneer at me and treat me like garbage. On some occasions, they would get physical and push me around, and when I tried to tell Evelyn, my foster mother, about it, I would always get the blame.

Evelyn was a harsh taskmaster. Slightly on the portly side, she would bark orders at me to do chores around the house, never saying a nice word to me. She scared me, so I tried to avoid her as much as possible. However, whenever we were out in public or other people were around, she would act like a doting mother, but behind the façade, she was cruel and uncaring.

My bedroom was in the basement. My room had the basics: A bed, a dresser, a nightstand, and lamp. I spent many nights staring up at the ceiling, frightened, unable to fall asleep, trying to push away the memories of how my stepfather used to lock me up in the basement, not letting me out.

Sometimes we got to watch television, which was a real treat, but I always had to watch what the sisters wanted. Occasionally, if I was alone, I could watch some television, but could only watch Scooby Doo.

At night, Jack and Evelyn would close the door to a small sitting room, where they would drink, watch television, and listen to music on a big record player, not caring what their daughters or the other foster kids were up to. My foster parents were horrible, mean people, but they were much worse when they were drinking. One time, Jack, red-faced with bulging eyes, started to yell at me for some small infraction. I can’t remember what had happened, but he grabbed me by the shirt and started to drag me to the edge of the stairs.

He is going to throw me down them, I realized in horror, struggling to get free of his grip, but it was no use. He was too strong. Thankfully, one of the other foster kids, an older boy, came out from his bedroom and saw the commotion in the hallway.

“Get your hands off of her,” he yelled at Jack.  

Jack scowled, turning his head. For a moment, I thought he was going to strike the older boy, but he let me go and I scurried away so Jack couldn’t hurt me. I was never able to thank the older boy, but he probably saved me from a severe injury—if not death.

I wasn’t allowed to leave the house most of the time without one of my foster sisters, mostly because they were the eyes and ears for Evelyn, and would tattle on me for anything I said or did when I was out of her sight. I hated their guts. I did make one friend a few houses away, but one day, when I went to her house, her father was not shy about saying in front of me that he didn’t want her hanging around a foster kid. He brought her inside the house and shut the door. I never spoke to her again.

As for the daughters of my foster family, when I did leave with one of them, it was to go wherever the O’Neil’s wanted. If I suggested going to another place, say the convenience store to buy candy, Chantelle would punch or pinch me, which, of course, made me angry. Sometimes, I would just take it, but other times, I had enough and would fight back. Of course, I was always the one who was blamed and got in trouble. I would be sent to my room for the smallest so-called infraction.

It was a horrible time. The only bright side was when I got to visit my mother. But those days were few and far between. Just like before, my mother’s mental health seemed to have improved with me out of the house and so too had her mood. It felt like a large, dark cloud had lifted over her and I no longer had to watch what I said or did around her. During one of these visits, my mother told me she had gotten some bonus money from her job and took me out to shop for some new clothes. The clothes weren’t fancy, but they were pretty and brand new, which wasn’t something I was accustomed to. Then afterwards, we went for ice cream. We laughed and joked with each other, which we hadn’t done in a long time.  It was one of the best times in recent memory—that is, until I got back to the O’Neil’s house.

“What’s that you got there?” Evelyn asked, as soon as I had walked in the door carrying a couple of bags of new clothes.

“Just some things that my mom got for me,” I said. I tried to walk past her, downstairs to put them away, but Evelyn stepped in front of me.

“Let me see ‘em,” Evelyn demanded, her face clouded over. I knew it was best not to argue, to just do as she was asked and get it over with. So, I held out my arms and passed her the bags. She snatched them away from me, then turned, and started walking away. I followed quickly after, with a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“Where are you taking them?” I asked.

“Just wanted to have a look at them. Do you have a problem with that?” Evelyn sneered at me as she dropped the bags in the middle of the kitchen table. She opened the bags and began pulling my clothes out.

Chantelle arrived in the kitchen, no doubt hearing the voices and wondering what was going on.

“Whatcha got there, mom?” she asked.

I stood there helplessly as she pulled out the first article of clothing, which was a red shirt with frills and glitter. It was my favourite thing from my shopping trip with my mother.

“Oooh,” Chantelle said, eyes wide as her mother held it up to inspect it. “Yeah, like that, do yeah?”

“Yeah, of course I do. Would go great with my dark hair,” Chantelle smiled sweetly.

Evelyn held the shirt up against Chantelle’s chest, and I felt my heart sink. I knew what was coming next, and in the pit of my stomach, I was helpless to stop it.

“Yeah, it does look good on you. Much better than it would on that little imp,” Evelyn nodded in my direction.

“It would.” Chantelle stated, her eyes sparkled with mischief.

“Guess you can have it,” Evelyn said, as she tossed it at Chantelle.

“Wait!” I yelled, reaching for the shirt as it floated through the air, my fingertips just missing the fabric.

“Wait, what? It’s mine now.” Chantelle said, her lips formed a sneer at me.

“No, it’s not!” I insisted. “Give it back.”

I reached for it again. Chantelle took a step back as she waved the shirt just out of my reach.

“Enough, Shannon,” Evelyn said to me, as she dug her short nails into my shoulder, preventing me from moving.

“But that shirt is mine! My mother bought it for me.” I cried.

“Not anymore, it isn’t. And if you keep it up, that isn’t going to be the only thing.” Evelyn stated, releasing me. Her nasty eyes burrowed into me.

“That isn’t fair!”

“Here, Chantelle, you can have a look through the rest of these bags and figure out if there is anything else you want.” Evelyn pushed the bags across the kitchen table, out of my reach.

“I think I’ll take them all then.” Chantelle smiled smugly at me.

“My mother bought th–” I started.

“That is enough out of you. You don’t deserve any of this stuff.” Evelyn waved a hand at the bags that Chantelle now clutched to her chest.

“But—” I tried to protest.

“No. Leave. Go to your room. Now!” Evelyn leaned towards me, causing me to back up a few steps.

“My things. You can’t give away my things,” I said defiantly.

“I just did, and there’s nothing you can do about it, so you might as well just give it up.”

I stood there, angry, wanting to do something, but not sure what. Evelyn was right. I was powerless to stop it from happening.

“Go on now. Off to your room. If you’re lucky, I will call you for dinner.”

I didn’t move. My mother had bought me the new clothes; she wanted me to have them, not Chantelle. This was worth fighting for.

“You argue with me or be defiant anymore, and I won’t bother. You’ll be given a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a glass of water.”

When I still didn’t move, Evelyn took an aggressive step towards me. This threatening posture was enough to send me running from the kitchen and down into the basement to my room. I closed the door and set the desk chair up against the handle like they did in the movies when they wanted to keep the bad guys out. I wasn’t sure if that would work, but at least it would slow them down if they tried to get in. I curled up on the bed, drawing the thin, rough blankets up to my chin, tears collecting at the lower edges of my eyes. I just wanted to go home to my mother, but I knew I couldn’t. I knew I needed only to behave long enough so that the judge would see that I had, in fact, changed my ways for the better and allowed me the chance to go home. However, I didn’t know if I would be able to last that long at the rate things were going. I closed my eyes, thinking about what life would be like if I ever got home again. It had been far from perfect, but with my stepfather out of the picture, it was more tolerable than this. I don’t know how long I lay there, but eventually Evelyn called my name from upstairs.

“Yes?”

“Get your ass up here.”

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and walked slowly up the stairs, removed the desk chair and stepped into the kitchen.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Dinner.” She grunted towards a plate in the middle of the kitchen table.

On it was some sort of stew-like meal. It didn’t look too appetizing, but I was suddenly hungry.

“Where’s everyone else?” I asked, taking a seat and picking up the fork beside the plate.

“Long since ate. You clearly don’t have any idea what time it is, do you?” Evelyn scowled at me.

I didn’t reply but instead took the first bite of food. I looked around the kitchen until her eyes landed on the microwave clock which said it was a quarter after nine.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“You are lucky that there was anything left for you.” Evelyn nodded at the plate in front of me.

I shoved another bite into my mouth. The gravy had become thick and lumpy now that the stew was cold. I was sure it would have tasted much better when it was hot, but as it stood right now, it was borderline nauseating.

“Better eat up. Don’t you dare be wasting that. Or it will be the last thing you do.”

Fork halfway to my mouth again, I paused. I didn’t know if Evelyn was seriously considering doing something to me for not finishing my meal, but there was something about the way Evelyn was watching me that made me feel very uneasy. She seemed to say that she was willing to take it to a whole other level if need be. Her look made me realize I was going to have to find a way to get out from under Evelyn—that I wasn’t going to survive long enough to get back to my mothers. The judge be damned. Maybe I could find a way to slip out when everyone was asleep. A thought then occurred to me: Maybe if I could get out of the house, I could go back to her mom’s place and tell her everything that was going on. Child Services would be forced to listen, wouldn’t they?

Maybe my mom could go to the judge and ask that I be returned home. I swallowed down more of the stew as Evelyn watched me like a hawk. Maybe that would be what I would do. But first, I had to find a way out of the house after everyone went to sleep.

After dinner was finished and I had stomached as much as I could, I was sent back down to my room in the basement. Once the door had closed behind me, I finally felt an ounce of relief. I sat down on the bed and listened to the noises from upstairs. I heard footsteps, then the sound of the TV coming from the den. No doubt Jack and Evelyn were watching their favourite shows and drinking again.

I sat there for a few moments longer until I was sure Evelyn wouldn’t come down the stairs to my room and catch me before I had the chance to escape. I grabbed my backpack and started putting in clothes and other belongings—whatever would fit. Sadly, because it was a small backpack, there wasn’t much room, but at the very least, I put the important things in. I could come back for the rest once the judge heard my plea and allowed me to go back to my mother’s. I hadn’t been paying much attention to the goings on upstairs, but I stopped what I was doing when I heard a familiar creak on the stairs. Another thump of a footstep or two and I realized someone was coming down. I quickly shoved my now full backpack under the bed and flopped back on the pillows, grabbing the book that had been laying on the side table. I tried to look as innocent as possible.

The door to my room swung open, and Chantelle walked in, wearing the red shirt—my red shirt.

“What were you doing?” she asked.

“Just reading,” I said, trying to sound casual.

She looked me up and down. “Yeah, okay. We both know you weren’t just reading,” she sneered. I was really beginning to hate that look.

“Maybe I was,” I shot back, sitting up to face Chantelle.

“Like hell.” Chantelle crossed her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes. “Not that I give a shit, anyway.”

“What do you want?”

“I just wanted to show you how good the shirt fits me.”

“You have to give that back to me right now,” I growled.

“No, actually, I am not going to.”

“I don’t care what it looks like on you because it ain’t yours, and you are going to be giving it back to me.” I stood up and lunged towards Chantelle.

“MOM!!!!!!” Chantelle cried as I reached out and grabbed her arm to pull her back from trying to escape. “Shannon’s trying to hurt me!”

Loud footsteps thundered across the floor and down the stairs as we wrestled. I didn’t even care anymore. A heavy hand grabbed my ponytail and pulled me back away from Chantelle, who was desperately trying to pull the shirt back down over her body after I had almost had it off.

“What the hell do you think you are doing?” Evelyn snarled at me, their faces close enough that I could feel the spittle fly as she spoke.

“I am taking back my shirt she stole.” I screeched as I tried to pull away from Evelyn and reach for Chantelle.

“She didn’t steal nothin! I gave it to her!” Evelyn pulled on my hair, causing me to yelp.

“It wasn’t yours to take!” I fought against the rising feeling of helplessness as she stopped struggling.

“I don’t care. Kids like you don’t deserve things like that. Only normal kids do.”

“Normal? She’s a bitch!” The words flew out of my mouth before I could think better of it.

The hand that wasn’t still holding onto my ponytail came out of nowhere and connected with my cheek. The slap was hard enough to rattle my teeth and send me stumbling sideways. Evelyn tightened her grip on my ponytail.

“What’s going on here?”

I turned to see Jack in the doorway. He looked big and menacing, like he had been drinking.

Evelyn quickly told him how I was trying to get my clothes back.

“I’ve had enough of this,” he screamed. “You can get out of my house!”

He grabbed me, and with one hand, he opened the bedroom door and pushed me towards the stairs.

“Just get out,” Jack said to me, turning away. Scared, I rushed out the door. I heard the door slam behind me. Not sure what to do, I looked around the deserted street. A cool wind picked up. I cupped my elbows with my hands and hunched over, trying to stay warm. I was only in a light t-shirt, not dressed for the brisk weather. I debated what to do next. I decided to go next door, climb the wooden steps, and knock on the neighbor’s door.  Finally, a kind older woman in a nightgown answered. I explained that I needed to use the phone to call my mother. She smiled at me and let me inside, where I quickly warmed up.

While I sat on the step waiting for my mother, Evelyn started throwing all of my belongings onto the front lawn. I watched, helpless, as one thing came flying out the door after another. Finally, my mother arrived, helped pick up all my belongings, and took me home. But unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to stay there long.