(2/5) “If I had to guess, she was probably the one who said yes....

(2/5) “If I had to guess, she was probably the one who said yes. It’s that way with a lot of foster children. You’re raised by the one person who said ‘yes.’ And my great-grandmother is the one who said ‘yes.’ She smelled like Violets. There’s a chewy candy called Violets, and she would eat them all the time. They had a big smell. Sometimes I’ll still buy a pack, just to remember her for a second. I loved her so much. I can remember being in her closet, rubbing the bottoms of her dresses. My great-grandmother had the most colorful dresses, and I loved dresses. I loved being surrounded by them. I’d put them on and they’d be so long on me. But she let me wear them. In the living room there was a Tiffany lamp. It was glass, and floral, and multicolored. If you touched it, it would go on. If you touched it again, it would go off. It seemed like magic to me. And my great-grandmother let me touch it. She let me be a kid. She gave me this little plastic keyboard, and she’d smile while I banged the keys. She let me sit on the countertop when she was cooking. I’d help stir things. I went with her to all her doctor appointments. We’d hop on the M10 bus, and she’d let me put the money in the machine. She’d bring the doctor a giant bag of M&M’s. I remember that. Because I always wanted those M&M’s. But I don’t remember her telling me she was sick. Nobody sat me down and explained things to me. On the morning I was taken she got me dressed in the bedroom, like she always did. That’s the thing with her: I had my own clothes, I had my own room, I had a home. That was my home. I remember there was a knock on the door, and a woman walked in. She came straight to the bedroom and started throwing my things in a trash bag. I was so young. Even then it seemed like a normal day to me. I didn’t realize something was wrong until the woman picked me up and carried me outside. I don’t even remember my grandmother saying goodbye. I just remember being in the backseat of a car, and the woman telling me that my grandmother was sick. She drove me to a new house. It was a two-story house. It was wooden. And when we pulled into the driveway, the first thing I heard was barking.”