Chapter One: His Laughter
It peeled in the air like wind chimes sweetly flowing in the breeze, my brother’s laughter. His curly brown hair was blowing backwards with each push I gave him on the swings, sun-stained from the start of summer, and his skin healthily glowing with a slight tan. Jake loved the swings more than anything, especially the ones on our property, right next to the beach on the ocean, every time you swooped forwards you felt like you flying just as high as the seagulls that crashed into the waves to catch their dinner. Arching downwards into the expanse of blue, before coming out again victorious with a fish in their beaks. I couldn’t blame Jake for loving to swing; he was only four years old; and heck, swinging was something even I still loved to do at the age of sixteen.
“Higher, Kenz, higher!” he squealed as I laughed and gave him an extra extensive push. My nickname Kenz, was practically the only name he knew me by, though my full name was Mackenzie. Mackenzie Lynn Gardens and he was my little brother of thirteen years.
Behind the two of us I heard the shuffling of a picnic blanket being billowed in the summer air, the light laughter coming from our adopted mother: Cynthia. Her and her husband, George having adopted us years ago, and yet it seemed like only a blinks worth of time away.
“Mackenzie Gardens,” the receptionist called out lazily, probably the hundredth name she had had to call out that day. But the moment she looked away from the clipboard in her hand, she saw me standing there in front of the desk, standing tall at the age of 12. She smiled sweetly, her glasses crooking down her nose a bit more than usual. “You have another family here to see you darling,” she said, her southern accent sticking out ever more as she said darling.
I just nodded my response; I didn’t talk much back then, always fearing that my voice would cause people to back away from me all together. Turning I started walking back down the familiar hallways that I had taken so many times to see so many varieties of parents, all waiting to see that perfect child they signed on for. Same wooden boards on the wall that my fingers trailed against as I walked, same plush carpet underneath feet that squished with every step. Room 111. Glancing at the number plates of gold posted on top of every door, I saw I was in the total opposite hall I was supposed to be in, passing room 345. With the silent echo of every one of my footsteps I then suddenly took of at a run, taking every twist and turn the halls threw at me, slowing down in the wake of the occasional nurse who trailed in and out of other rooms. Walls passed in a blur, becoming a tie-die shirt of colors that caused my head to spin and my mind to loose its fine defineness of accuracy.
A giggle passed through my lips: a rare occasion coming from a mouth that usually opened only for food. The peal sounded almost exactly like my little brother’s laughter had started to sound like at only 4 months old.
Almost passing the room I was destined for, I had to backtrack a bit until I reached the right gold plated oak door that loomed in front of me. The happiness felt only moments earlier, slowly started to morph into the sense of fear I had grown all too accustomed to when I met yet another set of parents: eager to see a perfectly symmetrical child with a need to be loved and cared for. I was the opposite of what they usually looked for, my brown hair a scruffy mess on top of my head, cut short and ridden of all the burnt pieces that had been destroyed in the fire that had killed my last pair of caretakers, they had only lasted but a week. And a scar that lined down my jaw, and snaked down to the start of the left side of neck, a permanent mark of what had happened. I didn’t look like that perfect goody-two shoes child that they were hoping for, instead I looked like a lost kid taken straight out of the photos of a gang.
Hesitantly I knocked on the door, my knuckles rapping on the oak sounding much louder than I would have wanted. “Come in Mackenzie,” a voice gently beckoned a few seconds later.
I pushed the door open slightly; peeking first, as I slowly stepped inside and closed the door once more behind me. The usual, the slight intake of breath from the two people seated in the plush blue chairs that seemed to have be gotten out of a sale at a garage sale, then the signature clap of the hand over the mouth, as they took in the sight of my scars. Everyone saw the cosmetic factor of what I was, choosing to ignore the fact that I had been through much more than a child of merely twelve should have seen. They didn’t notice the fact that my eyes were dabbed with fear, grief and loss, or bring out that I was playing the part of a mute, just so I didn’t have to speak in my croak of a voice.
The couple was younger than the rest, both looking around the age of twenty-five. They could have been twins, the only thing negating that fact was that they wore matching wedding bands and their hands were locked in a loving way. Their blue eyes matched their perfectly blonde hair: hers waving down her back to rest at the point in the middle of her back, his chopped stylishly above the ear. Both of their faces were twisted with worry, as if they actually cared.
But their eyes, unlike the rest, held a genuine worriness that was deep enough that it normally couldn’t be faked. But my analysis was cut short when I heard the click of a pen, and saw the lawyer like woman was pushing it forward on top of a stack of papers across the mahogany desk. The blonde ladies hand quickly snatched up the pen, “Yes, I’m certain now, we’ll take her,” she glanced over at her husband who looked back at me before nodding affirmatively, “she’ll be a welcome addition to our home,”
She smiled warmly, before moving her hand to sign lavishly on the line of the paper dotted with an x.
I was shocked, the thought of being adopted had never really crossed my mind in the time I’d been hear, mostly I was just taking the meetings so I didn’t get kicked out of the care facility. Always thinking that my destructive features marked me un-wanted, I had dealt with the looks and the careful gestures. But here was a couple, defying the odds I had set, and taking me despite it all. And after only taking a glimpse at me.
My counselor looked as shocked as I did, but she held it inside much better than I did, my chin could have been grazing on the floor. The man couldn’t take his eyes off me, filled with the same sorrow that was always present in mine.
The papers signed, I was then formally introduced the couple I had started referring as the Blondies. A Mr. and Mrs. Cynthia and George Hildman. The first thing I did when I heard the last name was to seriously say if I could keep my own last name. The question, not entirely meant to be a joke, caused an uproar of laughter within the room, erasing the last trace of tenseness inside of the small enclosed room. “Of course, dear, we’d never take away anything that means so much to you,” George said, his eyes starting to twinkle in a way that I knew I’d grow to be fond of.
With the happiness that had suddenly filled me, I had momentarily forgotten my main reason for being here in the first place, “Where’s Jake?” I asked, worried at the thought of my baby brother being left behind in this place all alone, together we would have been able to take it, but alone both of us were nothing, “I’m sorry, but I will have to refuse being adopted if I can’t take him with me. He’s my only family,” I begged, at the first sign of the couple’s hesitantness at the mention of him. If they would have been able to adopt me: the damaged child, they certainly would have been able to take my brother, the most innocent being I had known, perfect and whole.
Complications had come into play, but in the end, another contract had been brought up as soon as they had saw my darling brother’s sweet sleeping face in his basinet, swaddled in a blue blanket. The way the tuft of dark brown hair was sprouting from his head, gave him the appearance of a newborn chicken, and just as oblivious to the world as one.
Mr. and Mrs. Hildman signed the papers, and on that moment I truly relaxed into the idea of being taken home with them, which was exactly what happened. Walking hand in hand with Cynthia, and George’s arm settled around my shoulder warmly. Jake cradled in the nook of her arm, still sound asleep, as if our whole lives hadn’t just changed forever. I smiled, for the first time in a very long time, I hoped it stay permanent on my face.
“Please, more?” Jake begged, hopping up and down restlessly on one foot then switching rapidly to the other. It was getting late and we were just finishing the last of the food that had turned into a late night picnic instead of an afternoon one. Cynthia and George were sitting near us; on the plaid blanket both looking so perfect in comparison to us, gleaming blonde hair and those brilliant blue eyes. I had never gotten used to calling them mom and dad, and probably never would, it was just too weird with them being only thirteen years older than me.
But there was definitely an affection set aside for both of them, for admiring me when I was nothing and loving me when I needed it most. Now almost four years later, we stood on the same lot and home we had come to since the very first day we were taken into their guardianship. Having just turned sixteen only a few weeks ago, I stood even taller than I had when I was twelve, but not tall enough that I towered over everyone. The scar still ran down my neck, telling me that it would never disappear, a forever reminder. But it had faded, just a reminder of my past, something that distinguished who I was and what path I would be taking in my future. My hair had grown out into a luxurious brown, but after my fourteenth birthday, I decided that keeping it short looked best.
“Now Jake, maybe tomorrow honey, its getting late,” Cynthia tried to reason, starting to pack up the last of the food that remained surrounding us.
“But mommy!” he whined, his foot hopping stopping so he could slam a heel into the grass, but the fight was instantly won by me the moment he caught on to my sidelong glance.
The grass felt cool against my bare legs, I had been wearing shorts in the celebration of the beginning of summer and long warm nights. The slight sting of sunburn along my shoulders was now appearing, from all those hours of playing out in the sun with Jake, a never ending source of energy that was combined with that endless imagination of his. I would apply aloe later, but at the moment I was just enjoying the bliss of it.
Noticing the fact that I could feel, the simple fact that I was allowed to stay down on this sphere of an earth just a bit longer so I could have this experience. I felt ashamed and blessed at the same time.
I wanted this day to never end, this perfection to never change. Have it set on an endless rewind that could play in front of my eyes whenever I felt like it, just when my life had finally taken a turn, a turn for the better in fact. I wanted it to stay this way.