Taken

Yes, normal exists. We are living normally, we are examining the world with curious eyes and open minds, wondering, questioning. As the book suggests, many of us Eat, Pray and Love. Childhood is our kiln; we bake until hardened. We ripen under the sun and grow from love. And so, now I can accept my own place in this world, my own normality; now I embrace it, because I remember grabbing a jar of crunchy peanut butter and sitting down with my brothers and digging spoons into the jar. We devoured the peanut butter, our bellies bursting, and I thought, "I never want to see peanut butter again." What is more normal than that? But sometimes interruptions come. Sometimes we are taken out of the kiln before we are done. Sometimes we are removed from the vine unripened, only for someone to tape us back up after taking a bite and deciding that we were bitter. And so, this is how I felt when I was taken.

We were young. My brother was 5, I was 7, my youngest brother at the time was 3. It was a time when we played and laughed and were care-free, and although I had my own room, I would occasionally sleep in my brothers’ room, telling them stories. Trying to scare them so bad that they wouldn't be able to sleep. Tickling them until they begged for mercy. Sometimes doing arts and crafts with them. One night, after a day of crafts and fun, we were cutting out drawings we had just colored, we each got under the covers and we began an epic tickle fight. Rolling beneath the covers, tossing sheets, laughing until we drooled. Then, suddenly, there was a scream, no a shriek. A high, trill sound, piercing me. Something was horribly wrong.

My mother came running into the room. She grabbed my brother from under the covers and examined him. He was cut. She wrapped him in a blanket, threw a coat on over her night gown, and rushed to the hospital leaving my younger brother and me with her boyfriend. In between the hours of her departure and return I replayed everything in my head. We were having a tickle fight. There was paper and scissors on the bed, but the scissors fell behind the bed while we were kicking and squirming. As only a child's mind could, I drew the conclusion that I scratched him with my nails. I bit off my nails as I lay in the bed and cried. It never occurred to me that my brother was cut by the scissors and didn't feel it until after they fell to the floor. No, it was my fault, I was the oldest and it was my fault.

When my mother returned, she wasn't alone, police followed behind her, but there was no brother. The police asked me what happened, I told them the truth as I knew it, that we were playing and I scratched him with my nails. My mother was hysterical. I later learned that my brother had been taken into foster care due to the severity of his injuries. The only saving grace of the situation is that my uncle and aunt were allowed to act as his foster parents.

Months went by, it seemed as though we lived in family court. I was interviewed several times by several people and it was always the same. They would ask me what happened, I would tell them, and then they would tell me their version of what happened. According to my interviewers, either my mother or her boyfriend held my brother down and cut him in some ritualistic practice. I vehemently denied this, but they always 'comforted' me and told me that I didn't have to take responsibility for what I didn't do.

One day, after a grueling interview that lasted for what seemed like hours, my brother and I were herded into a room. When I looked towards the courtroom, I could see my mother being escorted out by paramedics, she had fainted. People were rushing by, my thoughts were a jumble, I didn't understand what was going on. A woman approached my brother and me. She had a friendly face and a soothing voice. She led us away from the chaos of the crowd. We went to an office and she ordered us sandwiches. She explained that my brother and I were going into foster care. I asked if we would be going to my uncle's house like my brother, when she said no, I didn't know what to think.

We were herded into a car, and several hours later we arrived at an older couple's house. We saw our other brother sitting at the kitchen table. The woman asked us if we were hungry, by then it was past 8pm, we said yes. She fed us spaghetti. Silent tears fell to our checks as we ate.

Tomorrow, Life In Prison. . .