Chapter 1
Growing up in Goodrich Michigan as a child, the boy that I once called my brother and I lived on a small dirt road in an even smaller neighborhood with our parents. Our neighborhood was a safe place to call home and everyone knew each other.
Us kids were feral back in the day, riding bikes, hanging out with our friends or go to places that our parents would kill us if they knew, but kept secret.
We had moved around a few times while we all lived under the same roof and I had developed a love for animals, especially for horses.
It was about when I turned eleven years old that things started to break apart within our family, my brother Jeff started to become an unruly teenage boy, getting into trouble almost every day while I was the child that was too afraid to do anything, to take risks that would get the disappointment lecture from our mother of how I let her down as a child.
My teenage years were especially worse, one day my brother and I got into a fight and he told me that I was not really his sister and that our parents were not really mine to call mom and dad, our mother smacked Jeff for saying such things to me, but I felt the hurt and confusion as to why he would say something like that to me, if it didn't have some truth behind, but I never forgot the words.
Our grandmother Edna lived with us as she was very ill physically but not mentally. Edna knew all of the family secrets because even though she didn't approve or disapprove of things, she was always watchful while saying nothing.
My grandmother and I would sit for hours talking about my future since I was just a year off from graduating high school. Any time my mother would see us talking, she would always interrupt and make comments like, "how come I didn't talk to her the way that I talk with my grandmother?" she would ask me.
I was afraid to speak up and share my feelings as they were always discarded, but I was just supposed to keep quiet and not talk back, show respect but receive none in return.
"Now you leave her alone, Grace and I were just talking," my grandmother would say to defend me.
I could never nor would I ever dream of defending myself against mother, she was the one that ran everything while father was too busy at work to deal with any of the issues at home.
I was sixteen almost seventeen when I got a phone call about my grandmother having taken a worse turn with her condition and that I needed to leave school to possibly say goodbye to her at the hospital.
My grandmother was probably my only true relative that I trusted while I became a verbal, mental and emotional punching bag for the rest of my family and I couldn't bare living life without her.
When I arrived at the hospital, I found grandmother's room pretty quickly, everyone was sitting inside just waiting like vultures for her to die.
"Grandmother!" I cried as she held her arms out wide for me even though there were I.V. lines attached to her arms.
Rushing to her side to feel her sweet embrace before she worsened, I could feel how truly frail and thin she was, knowing there wasn't much time with her was pure hell.
"I want to talk to my granddaughter alone please," Edna said out loud.
"Mom are you sure that you don't want someone in here with you besides Grace?" mother asked.
"Like I said I want to talk to Grace alone," Edna said this time with a little less patience.
Mom just threw her hands up in the air in defeat and walked out of the room.
Edna began with sweet memories of me growing up and how her and I became so close, much closer than the relationship that was between her and my brother.
Even though I had tears streaming down my face, I was able to smile through the pain of knowing I was going to lose her soon.
"Grace, I have to tell you something encase I don't get the chance to do so in the future," she said as she lowered her voice.
"I've been holding onto this secret for so long about you and I need to tell you the truth. Grace my sweet Grace, my time is coming soon and your grandfather loved you just as I have, but I have lived long enough to see the good and bad in people and I hate to even say that I see more bad in my own daughter than good, the same goes for your brother. So, when I pass away, I have left everything to you in my will that will help cement your future when you graduate school. I don't care if you go to college or not, but promise me that when you turn eighteen that you will leave your family and never look back."
I stared at her in confusion as to why she was telling me all of this, I couldn't just not say anything to my parents about grandmother leaving everything to me when she passes, I am after all still a minor.
"Grandmother, why are you telling me all of this?" I questioned.
"Because dear Grace, these people are not your family."
"Grandmother what do you mean, that my family is not mine, so you're telling me that my mom and dad are not truly my mom and dad and the same goes for Jeff?"
"Yes. I had pushed your mother for years to tell you the truth, but she always told me to mind my own business and so that's what I did," Edna said as I noticed her breathing was becoming a bit harder for her to handle, so I pushed the call button for a nurse to come check on her.
It only took a few minutes until a nurse popped inside of her room and asked if everything was all okay, I explained that grandmother's breathing became a bit more labored.
The nurse did what she could to accommodate to grandmother's needs before she left again.
"Grandmother that is a big deal to be saying things like this, you must be mistaken, especially if you don't have evidence."
"Oh but I do."
