Waterfall
Copyright1999Ginger Johnson
All Rights Reserved
I remember the time well, although most children don't. I was a mere child of six, but the darkness of that time left me old. He was just four and all I had. She wanted him, but for the life of me I don't know why she didn't want me. Perhaps she thought me too old, but I would have been a good girl, if I had been allowed to stay with him.
No one else could understand the words he spoke, but to me they were as clear as any spoken by another. His moods I knew. He knew mine. They promised me we could stay together forever. That we wouldn't be parted again. I should have known adults can't be trusted.
My father didn't stay around after Momma found herself pregnant. Of course, I don't remember that, but I have ears and I've heard folks talk. Momma would get this strange look in her eye and I knew she no longer knew me. Drugs and booze were so much a part of my life that I didn't know all parents didn't act the same way. Of course, I never left the small four rooms of our apartment so what did I know.
I remember the police bursting through the door and Momma crying. I can still recall the perfume of the lady who grabbed me up. Over my shoulder I saw someone come out of the bedroom with little Billy. It was the last I saw of him for what seemed liked years, but it reality it was only a year.
They put me in a foster home and the Momma there was nice enough. She washed me, read to me, tucked me in bed all the things my momma never did. Three meals a day appeared and I forgot what it was like to go hungry, to try to find something my little hands could open, when my momma was laid out on her bed. Her snoring echoes filled the rooms with some assurance that I wasn't alone, even though in my little heart I was scared. But Momma told me big girls didn't cry and I believed her. This new momma told me it was okay to cry sometimes, but even to this day I have a hard time remembering that.
They didn't think I would remember Billy when they brought him with him being so little, but I did. He was so scared when he came here. He was just two and he didn't remember me. But I helped feed him and washed him and he shared my bed. With my help, he became less frightened and he even began to talk. The lady caseworker was proud of him and proud of me, she promised we wouldn't be separated, but took him away and said she couldn't do anything. The judge said he couldn't stay, but he never asked me or Billy. We would have promised to be good, both of us.
See that waterfall right there? Momma Helen bought it for me because the angel at the top looks just like Billy. Some day when I'm bigger I'll find him again and I'll let no one separate us. No one.