I am the Skeleton in the Closet

Wasted Efforts

I had been asking questions about where I came from. Being adopted had always been rather embarrassing for me. Everyone else had a family. Everyone else knew where they needed to be. Everyone else knew where they had been. I had no idea. I held it above my head for the longest time and my list of reasons for why I wasn't kept was growing every day. They hadn't even tried to contact me so to me it was obvious that they wanted nothing to do with me. I had always fantasized that I was the child of one of the characters from a plethora of different books, shows, and movies. I really had no basic idea of either of them. I figured I looked like one of them, as children often do, but I had no idea which one.

"Oh so you look like your father I'm sure!" Chimed in an exuberant nurse that was testing me for strep throat one day as she swept into the room.

"I don't know." My answer threw her off as she grabbed the swap and she paused with a clouded look on her face. "Adopted." I squeezed my jacket closer into my shoulders and jutted my chin out opening my mouth as she fumbled for the opening to the swabs package, turning tomato red.

Often it seems people forget that adoption is an option. If a child is wanted no one just thinks: Hey let's go pick up a child from the shelter they all just go straight for making one. It's always been funny to me that way because it's the exact opposite with dogs. Breeders and their clientele are seen as snobbish since they didn't adopt. I guess the biggest difference is that no foster homes kill their children after x amount of time of not being adopted. I wonder if we'd be adopted quicker if they did, barring the criminal investigation.

I had asked my parents a few times about who they were and they told me a number of things. I was told I was born in Flint Michigan, only about an hour drive from where I was staying now. My last name was something they never seemed to be able to settle on. They told me three different last names before I stopped asking about it all. I could never got a straight answer from them. Anytime I would ask they would try to change the subject or preface it with an onslaught of affectionate phrases that they never said any other time. In the end I figured it didn't matter, if they really wanted me around they would have tried to find me by now. I decided early on that I would become as successful as I could just to spite them. Then when they would come crawling back to me I would just tell them to get out of my sight. I relished the thought of them walking away from the child they gave up, heads hung low, sour looks plastered on their faces, and then me, smiling gleefully behind them. I don't need them anyway.

"Hey Elise, I gotta talk to you." Alex stated as I sat curled in my favourite armchair watching cartoons in the family room.

"What's up?"

"Hey so, mom wanted me to tell you. I got in contact with my real parents the other day..." She paused to watch my reaction, not sure how I'd respond.

"OK cool." I ended, thinking that that was it, taking a big lick off of the spoonful of peanut butter I had gotten.

"Aaaand.... Turns out I have a twin." She continued watching me as I paused mid lick. "They live down in Tennessee though." She added as I continued.

"OK." I said after a minute swallowing the clump I had licked off. Not that that changes really anything. I continued in my head.

"Mom just wanted me to tell you. She thought you'd freak out and think we weren't family anymore or something."

"I mean, we're not though. In the first place really." I explained my view on it. "Kinda expected you to one day meet them and kind of, not leave I guess, but I don't know... Ya know?"

"Yeah. I get that.... OK." She stayed standing awkwardly for a minute. "Well. OK then." She started walking away.

"Wait. How'd you find out?" I asked knowingly.