chapter 0ne
I know I was born on a cold winter’s night.
March 11 1999 By whom, I do not know.
History has it that on March 11, 1999, the whole of Staten Island was struck by a terrible storm — the kind that turns sky to sea and sea to sky. That was the night I came into the world. I don’t remember much, of course — how could I? But thank God for Google; it told me that something major happened that day. Maybe that storm was more than weather. Maybe it was my arrival, the sky’s way of reacting to me being born into the wrong hands or maybe into no hands at all.
I hope whoever birthed me held me, even for a moment, before letting me go. I hope they looked at me once and saw something worth remembering.
But I can’t recall anything from then — no warmth, no faces, no voices. You can’t remember anything as a baby. Still, I wish I could. I want to see the faces that were there when I was born. I want to know the man and woman who brought me into this world. From the way I look, I know one of them must have been white and the other black. I wonder which one left first.
Maybe that doesn’t matter anymore. I tell myself I don’t want to know — but thoughts are tricky; they don’t listen. They come anyway, scratching at my mind in the quiet.
I want to ask them to bring forth their strong reasons — their defense — for why they gave me up. For why they handed me over to an orphanage like I was an extra piece of luggage they couldn’t carry.
Oh, I am mad. Mad at the world, mad at myself, mad at everybody else.
People say I’m beautiful, but I don’t see it. Their words make me sick. All my anger stays inside me — a quiet, burning kind of anger. I don’t have the appetite for chaos or the strength to fight, but I do have the brain to orchestrate it if I ever wanted to.
Still, I’m grateful for one thing: they didn’t let me inherit any sickness. Poor Gina did. She throws up all the time, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith don’t like it. They don’t like much of anything, except money. They’re foster parents — if you can call them that — living off the government’s payments for keeping us. They hate the work of caring, but they love the checks.
I like when Miss Stella from social services visits. She comes too often for the Smiths’ liking, and I love that. She’s like the coming of Jesus — sudden, unexpected, always catching sinners in the act. Mrs. Smith lets us go to church sometimes, but only to keep up appearances.
I keep my conversations inside, like I’m doing now. I’ve learned from every home before this that silence keeps you safe.
Oh, how I wish Miss Stella had been around back when I lived with the Light, Murphy, Fitzgerald, and Chambers families. Miss Thompson was my social worker then — she didn’t have the heart. She would have saved me from those unfair whooping and punishments I didn’t deserve.
But I’m glad Miss Stella’s here now. I laugh every time she threatens to report Mr. and Mrs. Smith to the government. Whenever she does, Mrs. Smith suddenly becomes kind — she buys us cakes, candies, whatever we want, just so we’ll give her a good report.
I take advantage of it every time. I ask for more and more, because I know after Stella leaves, the kindness will disappear again — and there’ll be nothing sweet for a while.
