The Phone Call

Narrative Essay

Becoming a parent did nothing in regards to helping me understand my parent’s decision to abandon their children. I remember too well being told that one day I would understand. I was told that one day when I was a parent, I would be able to relate to what they went through. At twelve years old I had no real understanding of the word abandonment, I only knew my parents were gone, I had no real home, and I was now a foster child. My siblings and I were separated into different foster homes within a year of being in the system, and I have not seen them since the separation. As the oldest, I feel responsible for the four of us. The foster care system is not equipped to keep large groups of siblings together, so it became increasingly difficult to hold those bonds in place. Being forced into another family’s home, and being told that you are welcomed yet feeling separated took a lot of getting used to. I am not sure you get used to it as much as you adapt to it. The reality of the situation eventually started to sink in, with one phone call I understood that I was not wanted, that I was not loved, and that I had been separated from my family forever.

            The day that I relive over and over in my mind started with a conversation with my foster mother from the third foster family I was placed with.  I was sitting in a high back chair with my foster mother, foster father, and my social worker seated around me. My foster mother had obviously been the one delegated to speak, as the other two sat very quietly just staring at me. At the time I thought that I had done something wrong. The situation seemed to be one they had all put a great deal of thought into and every one of them held anger and frustration in their eyes. I was not a bad or unruly child, but I did not always make the best choices. I was known to act on impulse, and I was angry at the world. I sat there in front of her with my hands sweating. I knew that whatever it was I was about to hear I would not like it, which also meant that I probably would not accept it either. As a child I became defensive very quickly, even before I knew what it was I would be facing. My foster mother looked at me and spoke very deliberately, and sternly. I think she expected me to argue or protest against what she was about to say. My foster mother’s hands began talking before she did. I watched as her hands drew a picture for me in the space around her, trying to communicate words that were so hard to say. She told me that the State of Kansas had come to the point that they no longer had many options. My father was nowhere to be found and my mother had been reluctant to speak with any of them. They had tried many times to talk to her. She then told me to call my mother, and ask her if the four of us could come and live with her. A chill immediately went up my arms. I knew, even at the young age of twelve, that I was going to regret this moment, and never forget it. I realized that it was not anger I saw in my foster mother’s face, but fear, and concern for what might happen. If she was angry, it was not with me, but with the situation.

            I was then handed a small piece of paper with a number on it. The phone that sat on the table next to me was pushed closer, within my reach. I can still recall exactly what the phone looked like. It was just like the phone I had seen in the Motel 6 we stayed in after my father went to jail. A different social worker stayed there with the four of us because they could not find a place to put all of us together on such short notice. I held that little piece of white notebook paper with my mother’s phone number on it like it was going to fly out of my hand.  I pictured my mother in my mind. A woman with a sweet, almost childlike disposition in public, and a mean streak a mile wide behind closed doors. This same woman abandoned her four young children years ago, left them with an alcoholic, drug addicted father, to live with her Attorney husband who did not relish the idea of raising children at his age. I pictured her in my mind, waiting on the other end of the line to hear from her eldest daughter. I pictured her waiting for me to call so that she could comfort me and tell me that everything would be ok. With shaky, chubby, little fingers I dialed the number that had been written on the piece of paper I held tightly in my hand.  The phone seemed to ring forever, and then I heard her speak. “Hello? Angie, is that you honey?”

            I have never been able to hold on to my anger with my parents once I hear one of their voices. Something just takes over and the emotions poor out like a fountain that has been frozen all winter and suddenly the water breaks free of the layers of ice that was holding it inside. The sound of my mother’s voice was warm and inviting and I took the bait, like a starving fish that just found the one and only worm in the lake. I didn’t know that soon I would be pulled out of my comfort zone, with a hook in my mouth, gasping for air, and eaten for dinner.  “Momma, it’s me, it’s me Angie.” The small talk and her never ending promises of gifts soon to come faded in one ear and out of the other. I tried to muster up the courage to ask my own mother if I could live with her. Fearing the answer that we all felt coming, my foster mother, social worker, and foster father stared at me anxiously awaiting the inevitable. The looks on their faces urged me forward, pressing me to ask the question that sat at the tip of all our tongues. Finally I managed to pull the words from my mind to my mouth, “Momma, they want me to ask you if we can come live with you. We have all been separated and I have not seen Donna, Tommy, or Ginny in a long time. Can we please come live with you Momma?”

The silence that followed spoke volumes of what was about to be said. I could not stop myself from gulping down my saliva repeatedly. The sound was deafening. I remember thinking, she is going to think I am a pig if I can’t stop myself from swallowing so hard, but the water was building up in my mouth and suddenly I felt like I was going to be sick. “No Angie,” she finally managed to say. “I am sorry you cannot come live here.” I heard anger in her voice instead of the sweetness that had just resided there. She was cruel beyond my understanding. Looking back, I think she was trying to be tough, and stay tough so that I would never ask her that question again, and to this day I have not. I remember feeling as though I had played a role in a deliberate trick. Ultimately, it felt more as though the joke had been played on me. For just a brief second I felt guilty, as if I had somehow caused every emotion that we were all feeling. All I could do was sit there in silence, trying to swallow the lump in my throat until it would no longer stay down. The tears started, falling like thick waves of rain, and then I vomited all over myself.  I could no longer hold the phone to my ear; it just lay at my side, clutched in my hand. My foster mother pried my fingers loose from the phone as my foster father carried me to the bathroom, sobbing beyond control. As the bathtub filled, I buried my head in the wash cloth I had been handed and let out all that I was feeling. I then sat inside the bathtub very still, afraid to think too much, afraid to move.

That night the three adults that pushed me to make that phone call sat around me apologizing. I could no longer feel the anger; I felt dirty, unworthy of love, and attention. They told me that they were sorry and that they had made a big mistake by asking me to make that phone call. My foster mother tried her best to console me, but I had already shut down. I just sat there staring through them in silence. I was stuck inside my head, with thoughts that felt as though they were colliding and smashing into each other. One second it was their fault, and in the next my mothers. The worst of all was the feeling that it was my fault, it kept creeping in my mind, and I felt guilty for putting my mother in that position. It is very hard to explain the emotions that a child feels for their parents. In those moments I became who I would always be. I am a woman who is only a phone call away from absolute despair. Some things are too painful to face, some questions are just better left unasked. Some phone numbers better left not dialed.