Once upon a time, there were two little girls. The first little girl was born to an overwhelmed eighteen-year-old who only thought she was ready to grow up. So the first little girl went to live with her grandparents, while her childlike mother set about trying to find the path to sure happiness for herself. The first little girl was happy. She felt loved and safe and when the child-woman came to visit her, she felt special. She liked the visits, but she was happiest when it was just the three of them – her grandparents and her.

The second little girl was born only thirteen months after the first one, to the same mother, only this time, the child-mother wasn’t just overwhelmed. This time, she was scared and confused. “What about me?” she kept asking herself. “How will I ever find my happiness with two little girls already. No one will want me. How will I ever be happy?”

So the child-mother convinced herself that she could only keep one of the little girls. She moved to another town in another state, she signed some papers and in a short time, she came back home without her second little girl. The second little girl grew up with a mother and a father and another sister in a town not so very far away. She always knew she had another mother somewhere; and she always wondered why that mother didn’t want her. She didn’t know she had another sister. Or that she had a brother, too. She only knew she felt sad because her mother didn’t want her and she couldn’t figure out why.

The child-woman married a man she thought could make her happy. She had another baby, this time, a boy. She didn’t know if she was happy or not; she just tried not to think about it too much. Finally, the boy’s father said to the child-woman, “Your little girl should live with us. Three years is long enough for her to live with her grandparents.” The child-woman just nodded her head.

When the first little girl saw the child-woman come through the door at her home, she was happy at first, because she always felt special when the child-woman came to visit her. The child-woman brought the boy’s father with her, too, and the little girl was happy to see the man she had learned to call Daddy. The child-woman was holding the baby boy. The little girl hoped she would be allowed to hold the baby like last time. She liked to pretend that he was her baby. She was so excited, she ran to the couch to sit down and held out her arms for the baby. She put on her biggest smile and waited. But something was wrong. This time wasn’t like the other times. No one was smiling and the man she called Daddy was talking to her Gommy and Bert (this was what she called her mommy and daddy, because that was what the child-woman had taught her.) Gommy was crying and Bert’s face was red. The little girl got up from the couch to hug her Gommy, but as she crossed the room, she heard the child-woman tell her, “You are going to come live with us now, Sweetie.”

The little girl was scared; her Gommy and Bert were crying and she didn’t know what to do. So, she ran to the bedroom and hid in the back of the closet, way in the back, behind the clothes where no one could find her. She tried not to cry because she didn’t want them to hear her. If they heard her, they would find her. It was hot in the closet, and dark, too; but she didn’t care. She could hear them calling her name, coming closer and closer; but she didn’t make a sound. She was quiet as a mouse.

The closet door opened and the little girl watched as Bert’s hand reached in toward her. “Come here, Doll,” he said, “everything will be alright.” The little girl reached out and placed her tiny hand in her grandfather’s big, warm hand. As she stepped out of the closet, she barely had time to notice everyone standing around in the room before he pulled her close to him in a tight bear-hug. He hugged her for so long that she started to squirm. “Bert, you’re squishing me,” she told him, and when he let her go, she saw the tears on his face as she stepped away from him.

The little girl started to cry then because she knew that Bert was wrong. Everything wasn’t going to be okay. It would never be okay again…

to be continued…