“It was an older couple from Louisiana. And there were a lot of red flags, they weren’t even approved to adopt in their own state. But my sister and I were hard to place in a home. We’d already been in foster care for two years, so the agency decided to be more lenient with their rules. Our new house was out in the country. It was so isolating. And inside those walls we were put through every sort of physical and emotional abuse. I remember every Friday afternoon when the school bus dropped us off, my stomach would sink as it drove away. My only protector was my big sister Lacy. Right away our adoptive parents moved us into separate bedrooms to keep us apart, but we still found ways to communicate. Even today when I hear Lacy clear her throat, I’ll look to her for a secret message. She did what she could to shield me from punishment. She’d take the blame when I made a mistake. Our father was a very sick man. And Lacy did what she could to keep me from being alone with him. Even if that meant putting herself in harm’s way. Our mother would only take one of us on errands, and Lacy would volunteer to stay behind. She’d say: ‘Take Katie. She can go.’ We lived in that house for ten years, until the school therapist found out what was going on. Our mother got so mad. She called our father and told him to come home. Lacy and I climbed out the window and started running through the woods. I remember looking back and seeing our father’s truck speeding down the long dirt road. We knew there’d be no turning back. And we never saw our childhood home again. Some wounds will never heal. Both of us have struggled as adults. We’ve struggled with our self-worth, and shame, and making healthy decisions. And we’ve each had our own ways of coping. But I’ve finally reached a place where I have a house, and a career, and stable relationships. Every once in awhile people will say to me: ‘Look how far you’ve come,’ as if I’m the one who overcame our past. As if I’m the one who made it. But I wish they knew. I wish they knew about that little girl who would do anything to protect her little sister. And how anything I’ve become today, is because of what Lacy did for me back then.”
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