My Foster Parents Took the Money My Late Parents Left Me — and Had the Audacity to Call It a ‘Blessing.’ I Made Sure They Paid for It.

When I was ten years old, my world collapsed in a single night. The memory comes to me in flashes: sterile white walls, the squeak of rubber soles on hospital linoleum, the distant hum of machines I didn’t understand. I remember clutching a worn brown teddy bear to my chest so tightly the seams dug into my arms.

And I remember people speaking around me, not to me, their voices low and careful, as if saying the wrong thing might break me. My parents had been in a car accident. They never made it out.

I didn’t understand what never meant, not really. At ten, I still believed in the power of wishing, in the magic of believing hard enough. I thought if I sat very still and prayed with all my heart, they would walk back into the room and take me home.

But they didn’t. Days passed. Then weeks.

And eventually, a social worker gently told me I would be going to live with new guardians. That was how I ended up in the home of Trevor and Marcia Alden. They weren’t total strangers.

My parents had known them through church and neighborhood barbecues. I remembered Marcia’s booming laugh, the way she hugged people too tightly, her perfume sweet enough to sting the nose. I remembered Trevor as the opposite: quiet, reserved, someone who observed before speaking.Continue reading…