Parvo

“Do you think Shay cried when she realized you weren’t coming back?” I heard the voice in my head I’ve named Jessica ask me. I was confused. What was she trying to get at? I tried to remember how unsteady she felt in her relationship with Meghan currently. Sure they had just spent a romantic night together and ofcourse I knew Meghan, my husband, had woven whatever tales she needed to in order to keep the little spit fire she so adored around. I tried to remember with my next words exactly who I was talking to. The unstable, insecure, former drug addict who may or may not have lied about having HIV but expected monogamy from my lithario husband….I still felt that she deserved a truthful answer. “No. I don’t think she cried. I believe she was happy we were gone. She may have waited for us to appear from the woods for some time but eventually she moved on. She was most likely thrilled to not have a dirt covered, worm eating, pest who constantly had to go for “checks” at the hospital because she knew nothing about stds or why sex shouldn’t be given to anyone who asked for it. At some point that little girl became a memory for Shay. And then eventually not even that. Shay moved on. Shay grew up. Shay forgot. And in a lot of ways I’m glad she did. Could you imagine what it would be like to be an adult and having the knowledge that in your childhood your adoptive mother was left with an unwanted child and let that child roam the woods freely and do whatever she wanted? Every hospital check that came back said we had worms, ringworm, fleas, lice, exhaustion, hallucinations, emaciation….at one point they found non human sperm in me. Wouldn’t you want to forget something like that?” “Well yeah...but what about the day you left?” “It was just another day in the woods for me to Shay...”