Nothing Like Family

Throughout her life, Lilith never felt fulfilled. She spent the first ten years of her life with her family that never seemed to have enough for her and her brother and since she was older, and a girl, her parents took slightly better care of him. There were very few days that he didn’t get at least one meal. Lilith couldn’t say the same about herself. She understood that it was more important for her little brother to be healthy and clean. His father was the one that brought home the food. She never met her father, but her mother would tell her that the man that was her father was never truly a good father to Lilith’s mom.

Lilith reflected on her earliest memories as she watched the family move into the house. She always wanted to know what some fashion of a family felt like and each smiling family brought up the pain and loneliness that outlined her life so well. Lilith faded back into the house and thought about her life and how she got to where she was at this moment.

Lilith knew a lot of things in her life were not much different from her mother’s life. They both grew up with very little to call their own. Her mother was the eldest of six children and had to help take care of her brothers and sisters. And besides making it a few years more than Lilith, her mother would spill some of the abuse that she suffered when she would have a bottle of wine. Because of that, Lilith swore not to have the same life as her mother, even if that meant being on her own.

Somewhere around Lilith’s eleventh birthday, she decided to go on a walk and not to come back. She knew that she had to get as far away as possible as fast as possible. So, on her way to school one day, Lilith didn’t turn into the gate at her school and decided to make her break for it. She walked for a couple hours before she got hungry. She took a seat on a bus bench and waited for the authorities to find her.

Five buses later, and well after dark. Lilith decided to start to make her way back to her house. It was farther away than she thought and at night things looked different. She walked for what felt like hours and was fighting to stay awake when her life changed forever. Lilith was crossing a street when a car clipped her and threw her into a curb, causing pain to radiate through all of her limbs with such intensity that Lilith could only close her eyes and wait for the pain to go away.

It did not.

She opened her eyes hoping to find herself back at home. The pain relegated itself to mostly her knees and elbows with a duller yet sufficient pulsing in her left forearm. Her hands almost itched and her head felt like it was being torn into two pieces.

It took her eyes a few extra seconds to get used to the light in the room. At first, Lilith thought she might have been in the good place, but then everything came into focus. Although there was quite a bit of white in the room, there were other things that contrasted with the brightness. Across from her was a board with someone named Jane on it. There was a curtain to her left and a machine which was not turned on to her right. She knew where she was and as soon as they found out she was awake, her family would be taking her home. For her own good, Lilith decided to go back to sleep.

When Lilith woke this time, she felt a lot better than before. Her head no longer rang and the pulsing was gone from her arm. She was still in the room of the hospital but they had removed the machine. She figured that they were getting her ready for her parents, but it was not her mother that had come to pick her up. Instead, a lovely woman stood outside the room, signed a few papers, and smiled directly at Lilith. A few seconds later the woman strolled into the room and sat on the edge of the bed.

“So tell me little one,” her voice was almost as lovely as her clothes, “where do you live?”

Lilith didn’t answer.

“I’m here to take you home. If you don’t talk to me, I can’t do my job. So please, little one, tell me your name and where you live.”

“My name is Lilith,” she said in a soft almost pained voice. “but I don’t remember where I live.”

“Well what is your last name?” The woman’s tone growing shorter with the question.

“I don’t remember.”

“Well, what do you remember?” The words were spit out faster and louder.

“Just my name.” This wasn’t completely true, but Lilith was in no hurry to get back to her little home.

“Well, get your things and I’ll take you to my house until we find where you belong.” The woman pointed to the chair at the foot of the bed.

Lilith just nodded in confirmation and climbed off the bed. She grabbed a plastic bag that sat on the chair. And immediately followed behind the woman. Lilith didn’t know where she was going, but it couldn’t be worse than where she came from. At least that what she thought at that moment.

The woman had Lilith sit in the back of car. Lilith put her seatbelt on and then waited quietly as the woman slipped into the driver’s seat. The seat belt was sticky and Lilith wiped her hand on the hospital gown that she was still wearing. The car looked different from the outside that it did on the inside. From a distance, the car was shiny and perfectly balanced. From the inside, there were small snags and rips in the upholstery and carpet. There was a tanginess to the air that almost made Lilith’s eyes water.

“Now there’s no reason to cry,” the woman said with a firm voice. “My name is Miss Yeanger, but you will refer to me as ma’am. Is that clear?” Lilith began to let out a word of understanding, but Miss Yeanger quickly cut her off before even a sound was made. “Do not talk when I am talking, child!” Lilith quickly moved her eyes down to her lap. “Look at me when I am talking, child!” Lilith did what she was told. “If you do what is expected, we should have you home before you know it.” Miss Yeanger’s voice returned to the calm voice from the hospital.

They drove down a long single lane road and pulled up to what had to be a mansion, two stories in most places and three stories on the ends. Lovely trees stood on the corners, standing guard from intruders. The bottom floor had all the lights on, but the curtains were just enough to not let Lilith see the accommodations inside. Lilith could only imagine what it was like inside. She had never been in a house that had more than two rooms, let alone three whole floors.

Miss Yeanger turned off the car and quickly got out of the vehicle. Lilith followed a short distance behind her. Every couple steps, Miss Yeanger would look over her shoulder at Lilith as if to make sure she was still there. Once Miss Yeanger opened the door she stopped and turned around and let out a quick command.

“Hurry up, child!” and as Lilith hurried to get inside the house, Miss Yeanger gave her a forceful smack to the back of her head that sent her tumbling to the floor. Unfortunately for them both, it was the first of too many.

For the first few days, Lilith thought about how she was glad that she wasn’t with her family, but as the days wore on and the smacks seemed to come from all angles, Lilith began wishing for her family to find her. That was a wish that never would come to fruition, for they had a male child to take care of and that was easier with her out of the way.

The days turned into weeks, into months, into years. Each year Lilith would celebrate the day that she arrived at the home as her birthday. She did not receive a cake or any presents, but she was growing up, And when she made it to her eighteenth birthday, Lilith took what few things which she considered to be her own and ran as fast as she could down the long drive away from the house.

She wasn’t sure where she was going, but Lilith believed anywhere was better than the two homes that she lived in for the first half of her life. She had a little stash of money which she had hidden outside of the house and made sure to get that from under a rock near the end of the drive. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to cover some of her needs for a couple of days.

It took her a few weeks to find a job and Lilith had to do all types of things to eat and live until then, but compared to the things she had to do in the home, it wasn’t that big of a deal. When she did find a job, it was working part time in a restaurant. Lilith made friends with one of the servers at the restaurant and she let Lilith stay on her couch for a while. Lilith had to watch the girl’s dog and keep the house clean, but this was worth it for her.

After a few months, Lilith started to feel more comfortable with the people around her and even started to talk to this man that would come into the restaurant a couple times a week. She was slightly smitten with his smile and the softness of his eyes. It wasn’t long before they were together on her days off.

A year later, Lilith had a child of her own and was preparing to marry this man, when she found him coming out of her friend’s house. She wanted to think it was a mistake and nothing happened, but his soft eyes told her the truth and Lilith was soon following in her own mother’s footsteps. She had trouble finding a job after having her child and within a month, Lilith had to make a decision. She either had to crawl back to the baby’s father or his new girlfriend, or she could expedite the process that she went through all those years ago.

“You’ll be alright.” She said to the baby as she set it down at the door of a fire station and rang the buzzer at the door, before disappearing into the darkness f the night.

The sixteen years went by in a blur of a chemical diets and government secured housing. It was during one the binges of her diet when a little too much of a good thing became too much for Lilith. At least Lilith didn’t have to see the inside of a cell again.

Instead, Lilith found herself inside the house of her youth. It was much different from what she remembered. The walls were bright and it was neither hot or cold inside the house. The smell of cigarettes and filth was no longer floating in the air. In fact, there was no smell at all. It was strange to her to be there and she couldn’t remember how she got there. But there was solace in the fact that she was there and felt clean for the first time in a long time.

She looked back out the window and watched as the family grabbed a suitcase each and started to go into their new home. Lilith wanted to be a part of that. She wanted to know this happy family and how they came to be so happy. She decided to go outside and greet the family.

She moved quickly to get to the door before the family disappeared into their house. Before she could open the door, it flew open and Lilith watched a boy and his little sister darted into the house, followed much more slowly by their parents. The two children running right through Lilith.

“Oh, Honey, this house is perfect.” The woman said to her husband as she sat down her suitcase. “How did we get so lucky to find a home like this?”

“It was the strangest thing,” the man said with pride in his voice, “it was a response about the DNA test I did to try to find my mother. A lawyer contacted me and said that this was her childhood home and her parents willed it to her.”

“Why didn’t she claim the house?”

“Apparently, she was around until a few years ago. I wish she could have been around long enough for us to meet her.”

Lilith struggled to get the words out, “Your wish came true.”