Dreams
I got into the nationals team. I was so happy about it. I had finally found something that I was good at, and it required so much concentration that my mind didn't wander back to Josh, or to Liam. I missed him. It had been five months since we'd last spoken and I was beginning to think that I might never talk to him again. I tried talking to Frank too. It wasn't the same but at least we could talk. Apparently he hadn't seen much of Liam either, so he clearly had new friends.
I hadn't realized that mam was pregnant again. It must have happened just before Rhyd left, but she told me that once the baby came and it was established we would move away. It was the first time we'd spoken properly for a while. She had retreated into herself, but the baby seemed to be giving her hope. It was a month till it was due. She had the scan, and it was a girl. She decided to call it Hannah.
That was when it struck me. I have 5 siblings or half siblings. That was weird. I'd always thought of it as a small family, but really it wasn't. The next month crawled by. I was looking forward to mam having Hannah because I thought it might bring us together. Mam certainly seemed less hostile to me. I was learning to like her too. Even though she was going out and leaving me, she seemed to be changing.
I guess it was the drinking that did it. At a month to go, the baby was healthy, and it looked as if the world was going to gain a Hannah. I'm not really sure that anything worse could have happened. Hannah was still-born. Mam cried for days on end, and she never left the house. She would stay in her room, and she wouldn't eat or sleep. She was wasting away and there was nothing I could do.
I started to face the fact that I would never be able to get mam to come out of her room, when she told me that she was going out, and she left. I waited for her to come back completely drunk, and for me to have to make sure that she didn't do something stupid, but she didn't. When she still hadn't come back a week later, I was worried.
Then the man came. He had a key to the house, and he was looking around when he spotted me. He shouted at me for a while, but I couldn't understand his accent much, so I just stood there. When he finished his rant, he asked why I was there. I realized that I'd probably have to make up a reason that mam wasn't home, but I just told him that I lived there.
I got scared when the man said that the resident of the house had died the week previously. I thought he must have made a mistake. He would be at the wrong number, or the wrong street, but he had a key to our house. But mam couldn't be dead. He took my silence as submission and took me to the police station.
The police showed me the case file for mam. There was her photo and a short piece of writing saying that she had had a husband, who left her, and another one who also left her. It said that my dad took me away with Amelia. I told them that it was wrong, and they took a DNA test to make sure. They then officially told me that mam was dead.
I didn't know what to think or fell. I didn't know what questions to ask. I knew that I wasn't as sad as when Josh had died, but I was disappointed that I wouldn't get the new beginning that I was hoping for with mam. Then I asked how it happened. They told me that they had no idea, and that there was an investigation going on. They said that they found a minivan crashed into the wall with mam's body inside, but they didn't know what caused the van to crash.
I felt responsible. I was sure that it wasn't an accident. Mam had been messed up since Hannah was still born, and I should have seen how depressed she was. I'd forgotten to be angry that mam had said that dad took me away, and I was consumed in sadness and guilt.
I asked the policeman what would happen now, and they said that they would contact social services. I spent the rest if the day at the station, waiting to hear from my new social worker. I still don't know what I was feeling back then. It's like what they say about the survivors of terrible accidents. They can't remember anything about how they were feeling because they were so terrified and upset. That's how I felt.
When the social worker called, she said that she had bad news. She said that they had contacted Rhyd, and he said he didn't want me. They had contacted my mam's family, who didn't want anything to do with me because of mam's outrageous affair. They had tried to find dad, but they had no records of him since 5 years ago, so they didn't know where he was. She told me that I was going to go into care.
It took a minute to realize what she had said. I was going to go straight away, because there was a care home with room nearby. There was only one care home in the area. Elm Tree House. I thought that it was only a dream, but now I was going to live in my dream home. I was going to be with the people who loved me for who I was and didn't think that who my dad was mattered.
Of course I had mixed emotions. My dream was coming true because mam had killed herself and Rhyd hated me. Of course that was bad, but my dream was finally a reality. Liam wasn't my ticket to the dumping ground. It was mam.
Author's Note: Hey everyone! In future chapters it's gonna be about Kai's life at the dumping ground. Any ideas? I have a few to start with but contributions would be welcome. Thanks for reading! Please review and be nice ;)