I dream.

I wish.

I cry.

All this time later, I still wonder why.

Will you ever come home?

This just isn’t fair.

It’s so hard to cope with the restlessness.

I toss and turn with racing thoughts.

They’ve tied our hands and there’s nothing we can do.

Only God hears the screams through the forced silence.

All I can do is pray and have faith through the storm.

The time will come when I can hold you close.

One day the sun will shine through the clouds.

The love we’ve saved will beautifully bloom.

The black and white replaced  with bright colors.

The emptiness will be no more.

The heavy weight will be lifted.

Chains broken, spirits free.

It’s so terrible having your whole life and well-being decided by some “suit” that sees your name on a file, makes a decision on your life, then you never see them again. Men you don’t even know getting to pass judgment on you, your past, your future, your very sense of self and place in the world. They get to decide as if they are God and what gives them the right?

“The Suits.” The judges, the district attorneys, the flashy lawyers that know the law and how to bend and break it, the police and detectives that are supposedly there to protect you, when in reality they’re there to protect themselves and their own. Then it’s not until years later that you find out about their sins and secrets, immoral acts, and wrongdoings. By then, it’s on court-filed paper and undoing it is impossible. Their connections give them advantages the rest of us don’t have. They can just not answer questions, files are “lost” or buried, they get to get to point fingers and pass the blame. They’re simply not accountable. They get to take advantage of the innocent and their victims get victimized over and over again. How many families have they torn apart that shouldn’t have been? How many times have they made the wrong decision? How many times have they stepped in the middle when they should have stepped aside? How many times did they look away instead of looking through?

Those who “know best” don’t always know best.

Judy and Marissa still live in the house across the street from one of my parent’s houses, next door to where Lupita lived until recently. Their family was already there when our family had our house built on the empty lot across the street. I think my sister was three and I was eleven. I babysat both Judy’s daughters and had what I thought was a good relationship with Judy.

We got our Thanksgiving gravy from Judy’s husband, her parents stayed in my parent’s guest bedroom when they came to visit. She gave us vegetables from her garden and my mom and I dressed her up and did her makeup for a special dinner, my mom helped stencil roses in her dining room. Yes, there was an obvious friendship that extended beyond the normal hi-and-goodbye neighbors. We trusted them, they trusted us, which makes it harder to swallow the betrayal they inflicted upon us.

Judy was originally the person that my sister confided in about her pregnancy. She asked her not to say anything, but the first thing Judy did was run to Lupita. And, Lupita took it from there, promptly sending her sons to move my sisters things over to her house, without my sister even agreeing to do so. Judy’s character can be described as weak, a follower that worked too many long hours to give her daughters whatever they wanted. Judy told me a lot of things about herself and her rebellious stage growing up and she lent an ear when I needed to talk out my confusion about coming into womanhood. She told me how her father had to go get her and bring her home after she got into “drugs” when she was living in California, and I knew of her affair with a married man and the conception of her eldest daughter, she definitely had her fair share of making bad decisions.

After I found out about the adoption, what Lupita did, the situation was still unfolding, and I couldn’t hold back the way I felt for one more second. Being that we had been so close, I was so dumbfounded to learn that Judy had any part in it. But she did, and I called her on it.

Overcome with emotion, I called her on the phone; asking her how she could do such a thing, did she even know what this had done to our whole family, how could she look us in the eye after having done such an awful thing. Her daughter Marissa was on the other extension, trying to defend her mom and her deceitful actions, as if they had a leg to stand on. What they did was dirty, but still they tried to justify it. I remember myself hysterical, wanting to jump through the phone. Not surprisingly, I had a few not-so-nice things to say, but never once did I threaten them, I simply told them how I felt and what disgusting people they were. But the story doesn’t end there.

They actually had the audacity to call the police and what a surprise, good ol’ Elliot County jumped on the chance to issue an arrest warrant for ME, which I didn’t find out until I went for a visit and the police were investigating a missing turkey, yes a missing turkey, near a house I had spent the night at. I thought I was being ‘punked.’ They arrested me, I posted bail, and was given a date to come back for court.

To this day, I feel I did NOTHING wrong, so I made a phone call to people who I had known for twenty years and told them how I felt. I guess the truth hurt them so much they had to try to make themselves look good by smashing salt into our open wound, it wasn’t enough they took part in this clandestine adoption. Our family obviously hadn’t suffered enough, now it was ME who was on trial for something so ridiculous as a phone call, yet Lupita sold our baby away from her ticket window. What a great DA with impeccable judgment, anything to take the focus off what the issue really was.

So I went to court, missing my daughter’s eighth grade graduation to go defend MY name. Seeing Judy and Marissa, and Lupita at the window, mere feet from where I was being tried and questioned made me dizzy. It took every ounce of self-restraint I had not to completely go postal on these horrible people. 

When I was finally before a judge, I never denied calling them, why should I have to, I never threatened them, I merely told them they were garbage and how could they do such a thing. The judge looked at me and I could tell he didn’t want to be hearing what I was saying. There was no order that was in place stating that I couldn’t call them, but because I never denied having made that ONE phone call, he gave me the most lenient punishment of one day in jail, suspended so I wouldn’t have to actually go spend the day in jail. Thank goodness I was able to clear my name completely.

What justice.

All that these people had done and I was the one being held accountable for A phone call, as in ONE call I placed to them. Sounds like a joke, but it’s not. I told the judge I had no interest in ever speaking to them again, that they were trash, and I wanted nothing to do with them. They helped to set this unnecessary adoption in motion and all they got was a phone call, how did they ever make it through such a horrific thing …. I hope that phone call didn’t land them in therapy for the next ten years. It’s so ludicrous, I don’t know which it makes me do, laugh or get mad.

Really, I’M the criminal in this scenario?

Give me a break.

I utterly despise Judy and Marissa. They stuck a knife in our backs so eagerly after so many years of trust and friendship. I can only hope that they are given the same courtesy they bestowed upon us, that their hearts will be torn out by a friendly face when they least expect it.  

They certainly have no room to talk when it comes to family situations, or scandals, so the finger they point at our family for the small incidents we ever had is just plain stupid. They have a lot of nerve thinking they’re superior to anyone. I pray that with every misfortune they have they will be reminded that what goes around comes around, no matter how long it takes. I hope God shows them every tear we’ve cried and that they too will face a trauma so deep they can barely get out of bed. They should be ashamed of themselves. They cannot be trusted as friends or neighbors, and I hope they’ll keep their blinds shut tight like they have since this all happened. I hope being in their own home makes them uncomfortable, as they try to save face.

I don’t ever want to lay eyes on them ever again, they are absolute garbage.

It’s late and I’m tired. Emotionally I feel so worn out. As usual, the quietness of the late night seems the loudest time of day. I seem to go crazy right before bed every night unable to get away from the rage I feel. The emptiness only soothed with prayer.

I’ve been creating a new writing space, since I have all things pertaining to this adoption in a huge ottoman-style storage bench, I need the room to be able to keep everything organized and accessible. I have had to create a designated space for my writing so I don’t spread the negative emotion throughout the house. As I sit here going through paperwork, seeing documents, I feel my blood pressure rise.

I’m not even a lawyer and I’ve put this case together like my life depended on it, because it does. Since the DA of Elliot County turned a blind eye to our accusations, because that’s what Elliot County officials do to protect their own, I’ve put it all together myself. After all, Lupita’s boss’ actions were essentially covered up, so why wouldn’t hers be? She worked directly for him, no wonder we couldn’t get any questions answered; justice denied.

If you follow the money, or in this case, the Tiffany jewelry, plane ticket, and God knows what else, all roads lead Lupita. After all, she was the star of this show. Instead of performing office tasks at her clerk’s window, she was busy setting up an adoption that should never happened. She seems to take pleasure in the fact of knowing that she did such an ugly thing.

Recently, I found out that she no longer pollutes the house across the street from one of my parent’s homes. She and her husband sold their home, separated, and she now lives in a mobile home park. Not that it gives me any satisfaction in seeing her life fall apart, no amount of despair could ever come close to what we feel every moment of every day. Only me taking one of her children and selling him away would make us even, and that is something I could never do. I’m just glad that should I ever decide to visit that area, I won’t have to see her living so comfortably and going on with her life as if she had no part in ripping a family apart. Not so pleasant when that family is your own ….

I’ll wait anxiously forever if it means one day I’ll be able to hold you …

I wish for you when I look up and see the stars in the sky …

In my dreams, I find you, and no one can take you away …

I hope your heart will show you how much we long for only you …

My thoughts always drift to you and I cry silently inside …

I ask God to bring you home through the days and nights I pray …

I remember your eyes and your smile, the way your hand felt in mine …

You’re my niece and no one can ever change that.