A box. A black wicker box that came to only my calves. That's all I had of them, of my biological parents. Inside of it were only a few items and from them I tried to piece together their lives.

A brown trench coat and a pair of silver cross earrings of my mother's and a pair of strange combat boots with metal toes and three buckles and a black shirt with a white Z? on it which was my father's.

A paint brush with dried red stuff on the end of the handle which was my mother's and a small knife that's blade has a shining silver and a onyx wood incrusted in emeralds handle that was my father's, it's sheath is pure black with vines of decorative dark green.

A die-ary of my father's and a flash drive full of journals from my mother. This doesn't help much since my father's handwriting is awful and my mother's journals are all so spread apart they create more questions than they answer.

Two toys, a doll with screws in it's eyes and a stuffed bunny with a nail going through it. I've named them Sickness and Nail Bunny. Nail Bunny wasn't very original but his, like Sickness, the names just felt right.

And the last one, the one I feel gives me the best idea of them, a photo album filled with pictures. A scrap book really, it had been one of the presents from my mother's best friend, Tenna, during the baby shower. The whole party had doodled in it also, it was one of the stories I got from my mother's journals.

It was easy to tell who's was who's. My mother was a professional artist, my father drew a comic character he made, a Happy Noodle Boy, the boy, Squee-I'm pretty sure it's a nickname, drew not half bad pictures of puppies and Tenna drew little skeleton squeaky toys for the puppy.

There are pictures of them to in here, of Tenna who was like a sister to my mother, of Squee who was in a sort of brother/son/being mentored by my father. And mostly their were my parents. Their first date under the stars, I look a lot like my mom, but I have my dad's brown eyes that are so dark they appear black, and my hair appears to be black but if I wear a certain color or under a certain light, often times the moon, you can see the blue in my hair.

My parents each had a sign to, my father's was a Z? and my mothers a circle with a dot and a line like they do with a radius in math class and a kind of weird squiggly line coming down from it. They gave me a sign when I was born, a circle with a Z in it each corner of the Z touching the circle and the question mark coming from the circle.

There is all of their photos which I have spent countless hours studying these pictures. The last one is the only one of me, them smiling both holding me, barely a baby even, in their arms smiling for the camera looking like such a happy new family.

That is the last picture in the scrap book. I have pictures of myself but it never felt right to put them in, the only thing I have ever added to this was my adoption papers. The deep yellow, brownish paper looking unpleasantly offsetting on the pale paper that stood waiting to be filled with pictures and doodles that would never come.

Jenifer C, daughter of Devi D nee C and Johnny C. Adopted by Sarah and Paul Madison, child's name is changed to Raven Madison.