After a long absence (and more than a little brainstorming), I have finally returned to the world of Charlotte. The reviews on the previous chapters were simply inspiring-thank you all for your kind words and praise! You will all receive cookies (virtual ones, if that's all right). Believe it or not, I am actually going from the beginning this time...I will attempt to work all the way through, even if it takes me several years. Which it very well might.
Enjoy-reviews, as always, are very welcome.
Prologue
I lost my parents first.
I was so young, though, that I'm pretty sure I didn't realize it. Many times I've wondered how things would have worked out if God had dealt me a different hand—if I could have remained an ordinary toddler with a mommy and daddy, blissfully living in a one-bedroom rental in Connecticut. But once His cards are given out, there's no giving them back.
I was two when my parents, Charles and Emma Bell, became numbers in the national statistics of drunk driving victims. I have no memories of them, and that should be almost a blessing—no memories, no pain, right? Wrong. It stings more this way, I think. My time with those two smiling faces in the family albums was snatched away from me before I even knew it was in my hands.
I was placed in the care of my father's brother, James, owner of a general store in the blink-and-you'll-miss-it town of Blakewell, Massachusetts. Him, I remember. Tall, strong, with huge hands and a face so much like my father's that I sometimes have trouble telling them apart in my mind.
He had three children of his own—Jack, Isabel, and Georgia—but he made no secret of the fact that I was his favorite. He'd bring me special treats from the store, stay up late into the night spinning fantastic tales for my ears only, make me feel like I was the only one in his life who mattered.
I suppose Isabel's piano teacher must have mattered a bit as well—she and Uncle James ran off together a few weeks before I entered the first grade. He didn't forget about me, though; he applied for custody, hoping I could come and share in his new life. The judge found my uncle disgusting: a man who would abandon his wife and children, but not his niece.
Needless to say, I stayed with my Aunt Ramona, now a divorcee and single guardian to four children. Even in my uncle's presence, I had never felt part of their family—now, in his absence, I was a total outsider. If any visions of a tortured Cinderella figure come to mind, please push them aside. I was never forced to do all the housework, never dressed in dirty rags, never locked in the basement without dinner.
But I was ignored. At every meal, every game my cousins played—I was invisible. For years, I tried to make myself noticed, talking loudly and cheerfully or following one of them around. Nothing worked—my only rewards were a sharp reprimand or a "leave us alone!" So I stopped.
I found some relief from their maddening exclusion at school. I wasn't a social butterfly, but I had friends, companions who made recess and PE tolerable. I never told them about what happened at home, not even when Aunt Ramona's boyfriend would come over, watching me when he thought I wasn't looking, or the crisp autumn day when he stole my childhood and made sure I never saw the world through the same innocent eyes again.
I began pouring my soul into art—my life became a whirl of colors, perspective, lines crossing over each other and bending into the world around me. I pored over books on the great artists in my high school library, attempting to reproduce their works in my own cheap sketchbook. Art class became my salvation, and my grades in other subjects began to drop as I spent hours upon hours on every drawing, every painting. I slowly retreated into myself, deeper and deeper down a dark stair leading to a place where no one could reach me.
I almost made it there-and then Hannah saved me.
