Full Summary:
Katy Olsen is the older sister of two mentally challenged teenagers. She's moved out of her parent's house and is living and working in Toronto where she is a Rookie Cop. When her parents are killed in a car accident, the responsibility of raising her siblings falls to her. Will she be able to handle them and her job? And how do they change her life for the better?
A Change In Address:
Big Nickel, Ontario:
I grew up in Big Nickel with my mother, father and my twin brother and sister, both born with Down Syndrome. I was the only one that was normal in my family. Growing up with siblings born with Down Syndrome was hard, but it gave me an understanding I probably wouldn't have gotten had they not been born. Though many people tended to make fun of them and though I sometimes wanted nothing to do with them, I learned that having two mentally challenged siblings was something most people took for granted. Sure, they were different, but they also saw the world differently as well.
Jason and Jackie were the opposite of you and me. They didn't see the ugly in the world. They saw the beauty in the world. I learned at an early age that I had to be careful around them, yet they seemed not to care when I wasn't careful around them. Middle school and high school were spent learning to cope with what others thought about my siblings and learning that sometimes, it was nice to have someone that understands everything you are going through.
We got used to our parents acting the way they did. Our father was and still is an alcoholic who was never around and our mother, well she was just that. Our mother never really helped out with anything, especially when it had something to do with what my brother and sister wanted. I got used to taking care of them while I was growing up. When I got my license at sixteen, it was I who drove them to their doctor's appointments, to their aftercare appointments with their counselors. It was I who got them their jobs at the local grocery store. It was I who took them to school and made sure no one teased them.
When I graduated from high school and went to the local community college, my major was law enforcement. I did four years at the local community college earning a degree in forensic science before changing my career in forensic science to becoming a cop. I thought at least this way my siblings would always have a roof over their head. Shortly after graduating from the Academy, I bought a house in Toronto, so just in case my siblings ever came to visit they would have a room to stay in. I knew that my being a cop angered my father and I knew that with me out of the house, my brother and sister would have no one to watch over them, but I didn't have much of a choice. I needed to branch out on my own.
Toronto, Ontario:
A week after I moved into my newly bought house, I started working at the 15th District Barn. Personally, I was a good cop and knowing certain things about certain crimes got me respect from my Training Officer who just happened to be Oliver Shaw. He seemed to see that I had a knack at getting certain details of certain crimes right. Even the forensic scientists that worked the certain crime scenes we worked were surprised at my knowledge. I became known around the station as Dr. Olsen, a nickname that was all that far off from what my degree in forensic science said, I just wasn't going to tell anyone that.
The first month my brother and sister came to visit was just after Christmas. They seemed to be at awe with what their sister was doing for a job. I brought them to the station on my day off because they wanted to meet everyone. My TO was surprised to see me but when he and the other officers saw the smile on my face as my siblings looked everywhere, they seemed to understand me a little better. That month was one of the busier months of my rookie life. The officers were kind to me while my sister and brother were staying with me. During my days off I would take them to the local shopping center where they would buy things for the rooms they had at the house. They loved to decorate and if it hadn't been for the fact that they had Down Syndrome, you never would have known that they were different.
Jason and Jackie were my life growing up. I protected them and they helped me see the world in a different light. It was funny to think that your life could be the same one moment and so different the next. I remember times, before they were born, where my mother and father would take me to the fair and we would spend time on the Ferris wheel as well as eating carnival food. It was one of the better memories I had of my parents, before the twins were born. After the twins were born, when my father saw what my sister and brother looked like, well things seemed to go downhill from there. He started to drink, heavily. He would come home drunk most of the time. Though he wasn't abusive towards any of us (his kids) our mother never helped out when he did start yelling. I would take my siblings into my room, making sure to grab some food and water and lock the door.
Those memories were what kept me to continue to brighten my brother and sister's lives. They were, in one word, a miracle to everyone and anyone that got to know them. They always brought some kind of light to other people's lives. It amazed most people that kids like this could be so kind and generous. When I took them back to Big Nickel after the third month that they stayed with me, I had to stay a few extra days because the snow made it impossible to get back down to Toronto. And that's when the accident happened.
The Accident:
Our parents were on their way home from a church event, something my mother had taken up after I had moved to Toronto. I was with Jason and Jackie because they weren't allowed to stay home alone. I had just gotten off the phone with Gail, who was staying at the house while I was in Big Nickel. I had told her that I wouldn't be back in the city for a few days because of the weather and that if she could communicate that with Staff Sgt. Best then it would be appreciated. Gail had told me that she would relay the message. I settled into a night with my siblings playing a game of Monopoly. It was always our favorite game when we were growing up and despite the amount of time we played; none of us had ever won the game. It was never about winning to us, it was just about playing, we did it for the fun and it passed the time.
A knock on the door brought my attention to the fact that our parents were still not home. I told my siblings to continue playing without me but not to steal any of my properties and got up to answer the door. Upon opening the door, I noticed the local Chief and stopped smiling. The look on the Chief's face told me all I needed to know. Our parents weren't coming home that night or the rest of our lives. I looked back towards my brother and sister and to the cell phone that was still in my hand. I knew I had to call Gail again but knew I had other phone calls to make first. I watched as my brother and sister laughed, continuing to play the board game as if nothing had happened. I turned back towards the Chief as he told me what my heart already knew.
My father had been driving. He'd picked my mother up from the church after leaving his local spot at the local bar. They had been arguing about something and my father hadn't kept his eyes on the road. When he heard the sound of a horn and looked back at the road, the truck in front of him was already slamming on the breaks trying to stop. My father swerved to get out of the way but there was no place to swerve to. The truck hit the back end of the car, flipping it over four times before it came to a rest on the roof. The truck and other drivers weren't able to get to the car before it exploded, killing both our father and mother. The Chief told me he would be in contact with me at a later date but that the children were now in my care. I looked back towards my siblings. They were still laughing, oblivious to what had just occurred.
Moving On:
When the Chief left that night, I went back to the board game and told Jason and Jackie that it was time for bed, that mom and dad couldn't get home because of the snow. They accepted the answer and went to their respective rooms. They got ready for bed, told me good night and then went to bed. I stayed up another hour looking through my parent's bills and everything I knew was worth something. I would have to sell the house and get the kids moved into my house permanently. I would have to get rid of some of the belongings our parents had acquired over the years. The rooms needed to be emptied out and as much as I didn't want to, I knew I had to. I fell asleep that night silently crying. How was I going to tell my siblings that our parents were dead?
In the morning, around the time I knew that Gail was in Parade, I called her cell. When she picked up, a little mad that I had called her in the middle of Parade, I told her that I would be staying a little longer than a few days. When she asked why, I left the kitchen where my brother and sister were eating breakfast and went out to the back porch. I told her that my parents had been killed in a car accident the night before due to the fact that my father had been driving drunk. Her inhale of breath told me that she would let the others know what was going on and that she would drive up in a few days to help out.
When I got off the phone, I headed back into the house to tell my siblings what had really happened to our parents. I sat down at the table with a cup of tea and looked at their smiling faces. When I told them that I needed to tell them something serious, they looked at me and asked what was wrong. When I told them that mom and dad had been in an accident the night before, they asked if we were going to visit them in the hospital. I had to wipe away a tear and Jackie told me that I didn't have to cry. I told them that we weren't going to be going to see them in the hospital because they weren't in the hospital. When they asked why not, I told them that our parents had died, that we were going to have to bury our parents that following Wednesday.
Jason and Jackie were sad the rest of the day and the weekend. When Monday came around so did a knock on the door. Gail had driven up from Toronto like she had promised. Though she said that the others would be up after the funeral, she had thought I could use a friend now. I invited her in and she helped with some of the packing. I was moving my siblings down to Toronto because we needed to be out of the house by Friday. I wanted the transition from our parent's house to my house to be as painless as possible. The twins were already having a hard time about not having their parent's around anymore. Moving to my house was the only way I could make sure that they were getting along okay. Gail understood.
When Wednesday came around, we got ready for the funerals and headed to the local funeral parlor. The funeral itself lasted only thirty minutes, but while they buried our parent's and we said our final goodbye, I could tell it was going to be harder on Jason and Jackie more so than on me. I had said goodbye to our parent's the day I had left for Toronto. When Thursday came around, the rest of the officers that I worked with at the 15th showed up to help me move everything we were keeping down to Toronto. Now it was just about the packing the rest of our family's things up and getting it back to the house.
More to come in the next chapter…