Casey is a lot of things, but subtlety has never been her strong suit. From her first kill – even before I knew it was hers – I knew she was made to be loud and strong. I love that. I love that she has that adventurous spirit, a need to be independent. She’ll need that later in life but right now, it means she frequently gets written up in school for talking back or ditching school (which, seems less rebellious when it’s all performed online).
At least there are no trips to the principal’s
office. Just Zoom meetings were the wi-fi “conveniently” cuts out after twenty
minutes. I don’t have time for people who feel the need to micromanage children.
So long as they aren’t being arrested and they’re learning something, what
should it matter if their homework is late, or if they want to work with their
camera off, or they (in my opinion, rightfully) call out their teacher for
making them write a paper on family history – a rather insensitive topic in
this and other houses.
I know who Casey’s mother is. Not sure if I
talked about it last year, when I found out who she was – not James’ daughter
but a girl escaped from a juvenile detention on a charge of attempted murder.
Faking her death and changing her name was easy. Taking her across the country
to be with us and create a new life was easy. Knowing who she was and keeping
that secret from both of them, has been incredibly difficult.
Casey’s family history is a little unclear.
The reason she was imprisoned in the first place is because she was convicted
of stabbing her foster father “for the fun of it” (as per the court transcript).
Unfortunately, he recovered and named her as his assailant and she was given no
opportunity to learn, only punished for her crime.
Apparently, this was her fourth foster home
in six years, consistently cited as “difficult to manage”. I don’t know what
child they were “managing” but that little girl has been a dream. Although, I
suppose I shouldn’t call her a little girl any more, she’s sixteen now. It’s
hard to believe the girl we brought into our home all those years ago is
growing up.
I can’t lose another one.
Anyways, her mother was apparently murdered
by her father when she was eight and then he killed himself in front of her,
but the notes from the lead detective on the case suggest that he wasn’t 100%
certain that was the case. He believed that Casey had slit her father’s throat
while he slept and when her mother woke up, she killed her as well. It’s a
reasonable theory (and one I may be inclined to believe) but she was an eight-year-old
girl, and it was a lot easier to imagine the alternative. But I know the truth:
my girl has always been a killer.
It took some digging, but I found something
that was left out of the local papers at the time. Her mother survived. She had
lost so much blood and was in a near-vegetative at the time of the
investigation, so the police declared it a murder-suicide, instead of waiting
for her to potentially recover, and they took Casey away.
According to the hospital records, she woke
up a few months later and checked herself out of the hospital – and by that, I
mean she snuck out during a nurse rotation – and no one has heard from her
since.
I found all of this with a few months of
research and seducing an administrative assistant for access to patient records
(I was very bored on my road trip with Heather, and the hospital was on the
way). I can’t help but wonder what Casey’s mother might be able to find with a
few years and a lot more free time.
But if that’s the case: why hasn’t she contacted
anyone? Not the police, not her daughter; as far as I know, no one has heard
from this woman in nearly nine years. Why?
This girl – this sixteen-year-old living in
my house – has my name and my trust and my love. But I am not her mother, and a
part of me is wondering if I should tell her the truth.
You didn’t see the look on her face when
she asked me about her family history project. The sadness in her eyes, thinking
that she had nothing and no one. I told her to use us (James and me) as the
branches of her tree, but should I have told her what I know about her real
history? Would it hurt her or help her? Is it even my decision to make? Her
mother disappeared and never came back for her, why should we feel obligated to
give her anything?
Keeping secrets in this family has always
been disastrous and I can’t imagine this will be any different.
Part of me is hoping that she won’t care.
That she’ll tell me that we are her family and she wants nothing to do with the
life she had before. Another part of me is terrified she’ll go off in search of
her mother and I’ll never see her again. The truth is: I don’t know what will
happen.
She has always been her own person –
defiant and curious and loud – and I have to face the fact that nothing
I say or do will stop her from doing exactly what she wants to do.
Is it wrong to admit that I’m scared?
As always, dear readers,
Stay Safe
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