The Girls' Home in the Mountains (18)

That highway into the unknown, led into a small town north of Asheville, just on the other side of the Black Mountain, a town called Old Fort. Old Fort was indeed a small town, it’s closest to a town a bigger called Marion. Old Fort which was settled into a few mountains, was home to a small, independent girls home. The home was somewhat similar to the Home I just left but it was just for girls and it only had a handful of girls. The home sat on a few acres up in the mountain, the building looked like an old inn or retreat center. It was a long, one story building that had two wings and a kitchen and common area in the middle. The girls and the girls’ staff lived on one side and Mr. Dave and Ms. Desiree (a staff member) lived on the other side. There were just a few girls there, Mrs. Watkins (who’ll I just refer to as Mrs. Dave), another staff lady named Dorothy who had a little boy, a toddler.

Upon arriving at the home, I was very unclear as to what my responsibilities would be, I was even more perplexed as I discovered that there seemed to be several people there to help with just a few girls. All I knew was that a ‘deal’ had been kind of made between Mr. Dave and myself, he had ‘promised’ to help me get into Pensacola Christian College and help with my financial aid, if only I would commit to help him with the home for the summer. The plan was only to be there for the summer and then go to college and study nursing and music. But, I would soon find out that he was just lying and using me.

When I arrived at the girls home, it was in the middle of May and by the time June came around, social services and law enforcement had forced Mr. Dave to shut the home down. The girls had ran away from the Home and had gone and told officials that there was abuse going on there which sparked an investigation. It was rather blown out of proportion but there was nothing anybody could do. By the time the investigation came to an end, I would be investigated by Social Services, Dorothy would have her son taken away from her and the home would be forced to return the girls to their parents. Eventually, all the people there who were on staff left, Ms. Desiree would move into Marion, Dorothy left to try to get her son back, and I just kind of stayed around. I had no place to go. Mr. Dave thought, he would figure out a way to get the girls back and reopen the home, how he would do this, I had no clue but he would do something.

Before I knew it, my birthday had approached and I was turning 19. It had been one heck of a year being 18, I felt like I had lived a few years in one and I pretty much had. If you remember, when I left home and went to the Home in Corpus Christi, I had the mentality of a 12-13 year old, so in one year I had done a LOT of growing up and maturing. But, as I turned 19, there was nobody around except for Mr. Dave and his parents who had come from Ohio to visit and his son Paul. Paul was just a couple years older than me and we kind of became friends, I guess because we were the only ‘young’ people there. Mr. Dave and his friends and family had bought me a cake and they had made a nice dinner there at the Home and that was the extent of my 19^th birthday. No calls from the adopted mother, she really hadn’t gotten in touch with me. I was exchanging mail and once in a while phone calls with Jonsey but that was it.

While Mr. Dave was trying to figure out what and how to get the girls back, the adopted mother had found me. All of a sudden she was interested in my life and she would do everything to convince me to go to College so I wouldn’t mess around with Jonsey. She knew I was still falling for him and now she was encouraging me to go school. It was rather interesting, when I was at home, going to college was evil for a girl but now it was okay, now she wanted me to go. But, as time was quickly passing that summer, the reality of going to College was starting to become very dim.  Paul, Mr. Dave’s son was starting to visit frequently from his college at Crown University in Tennessee. Every time Paul would visit though, I would learn more and more about his college situation. He was working 2 jobs to get ‘himself’ through college, he barely had money for himself and from the looks of it, it didn’t look like his Dad was helping that much. So, I started wondering how in the world Mr. Dave was going to help me go to college? He had made it sound like the girls’ home would sponsor me but when the Home was opened, we barely had money to buy groceries. We were having to pinch every penny that we had and the meals were barely big enough to feed everyone. I just didn’t understand how this was going to help me and any time I would ask Mr. Dave about helping me with my financial aid application for the college he would somehow blow me off or tell me he would get to it soon. It didn’t look like I was going to College but school didn’t start until September, so I figured I had some time but I would be wrong.

In July of 2001, Mr. Dave decided to take the girls that were in the home there in N.C. and take them to his other girls’ home in Milton, Florida. Somehow it would be okay to have them there. So, Mrs. Dave and I would ride in the Home’s van, Mr. Dave would follow us, we would pack up what we had, which for me wasn’t much, it all fit in a suitcase and a backpack and we would start driving down to Florida. Along the way, we would meet up with the girls and their parents and pick them up and we would take everybody down to Florida. It was such a long drive and I got to really know Mrs. Dave really well, well enough to know I didn’t like her. She was short with everybody, crude, never smiled and acted like being kind would kill her if she had to be. Needless to say when we got to Milton, myself and the girls were thrilled to get out of the van and away from her, well, as far away as we could.

The Home in Milton was smaller, much smaller. It was an old brick home that had been added on to in order to accommodate the make shift wing for the girls. It was small and I didn’t really like small. I would be the only ‘staff’ member there working with the girls, for some reason Mrs. Dave didn’t really feel the need to do much with girls except to discipline them or scold them. Looking back now, it seemed like she enjoyed it too. She was not one to hug you or go out of her way to be nice or pay you a compliment. She was a very odd person. But, since I was the only staff member, it would be my job to cook, do the girls’ schooling and anything and everything in between. We only had 3 or 4 girls and they weren’t bad, we actually kind of bonded and to this day, I have notes and cards from them. I don’t know where they are now but I think about them often.

Well, the situation with the girls there somehow didn’t work out and I can’t remember why but for some reason Mr. Dave decided to take the girls back up to N. C. It didn’t make sense to me knowing that the girls weren’t supposed to be there. The authorities had told us, well, Mr. Dave that he could not operate the home there anymore. But, it wasn’t the worst idea, in fact it would be a good thing. Mrs. Dave and I were not getting along, she was becoming a very difficult person to get along with. She decided it would be a good thing to contact the adopted mother and find out what she knew about me. Instead of dealing with me as one of their staff members, she decided to treat me like one of the girls there and she insisted on telling me what my problem was and that I was a troubled girl myself who had rebelled against my parents and had caused my own heartache. Not only had she interfered with the adopted mother but she was holding back mail and even phone calls from Jonsey. I had wondered why he hadn’t tried to contact me but in reality he had, she just thought she was  doing me and the adopted mother a favor by interfering. I had finally had enough and told Mr. Dave that if he didn’t do something, I was going to have a problem. He was never around, for some reason, he was always traveling, doing what, I’ll never really know. Finally, he showed up and offered to take me back up to N.C. with him and get the building set up again and get it ready for the girls to come back.

So, once again, I found myself in a car with this older man who had very poor hygiene and we were driving back to N.C. It was kind of awkward but he never did anything to me. I didn’t know about men who did that at the time. We eventually made it back to N.C. and were back in the building with two wings. I was back in my original room, and we were the only ones there. It was kind of scary. I would have to fend for myself, there wasn’t a lot of money to go and buy sufficient groceries. I would have to make my own meals with what food was stocked in the donation pantry. Mr. Dave would offer me a TV dinner a time or two but it didn’t sound that great. It was so quiet there and dark, I would find myself in my room a lot and even would have to sleep with the radio on.

Soon the girls would be there and the place was up and running again. But, I was doing anything and everything there. I was doing laundry, doing the cooking and watching out for the girls. We tried to make the most of it there, the girls and I would go hiking in the woods on the mountains. We would go on adventures and see what we could find and do. I remember on one of our hikes we actually came across a tree bride, it wasn’t that far off the ground but we had all dared each other to cross it. I was quickly reminded why I didn’t like heights. We found an abandoned house in the woods one time and as we walked around it and through it we found old postcards from a world away. The girls and I would have fun, we would sit around the front porch and listen to the coyotes howling in the mountains. Sometimes we would just sit around and talk like we all had known each other for a lifetime. We would get as involved as we could with the church we went to in Morganton, which was a town north of Marion. Shining Light Baptist Church, was our home church and I would become more involved with the church later. The church loved the girls, the pastor known as ‘Bro. Danny’ loved the girls too and would do what he could to make them feel special.  

But, soon the adventures and all the good times would come to a halt. One day in August, social services showed up, somehow they had learned the girls were back and the girls got scared and ran away. It was a bad day. I had to go find them and went hiking through the woods to find them. By the end of the day, the girls would be found and brought back to the home where by now the police had now shown up. I remember distinctively the investigator that was there pointing his finger at me and saying I was going to jail, after he pointed it at Mr. Dave and told him the same thing. I remember being so scared. By now, I had figured out that Mr. Dave was not running the home the right way, not only that but was supposed to be paying me something to be working there and he hadn’t paid me a dime. After being interviewed by child services, I had convinced them and the investigator that if he would just let me leave, I would never come back. I told them, that I didn’t want to be there anymore and clearly they knew that I had been forced to work there under other motives. I told them that I was supposed to be going to college and they made it aware to me that the Mr. Dave barely had enough money and that he never intended to help me get to college.  I was stuck there that day, not knowing what to do, or where to go. The adopted mother had stopped talking to me after she figured out that she couldn’t force me to leave Jonsey alone. I didn’t know anybody up there except for the people at the church, but I was still getting to know them.  I had no place to go. One of the social workers had told me that there was a women’s shelter in Marion that I could go to and that they would take me there. So, I packed up everything that was mine, said my goodbyes to the girls that were once again being forced to go back to their parents and went to a women’s shelter. The social workers had forced Mr. Dave to write me a check for the work that I had done there and I guess I had only done about $200 worth of work in about 3 months. That was all the money I had to my name.  I actually had never had that much money to my name ever so to me it was quite a bit but in reality it wasn’t.  I was now on my way to a shelter, a shelter I knew nothing about or the ladies there. I didn’t know exactly what kind of women were there but I would soon find out. As I sat in the back seat of the silver car that belonged to the social worker and headed out the drive way, another chapter was closing and a new one was about to start, a chapter into the unknown.

Until next time, be blessed and inspired to make a difference!
~The Adopted Child