Dear Evie: The Lost Memories of a Lost Child Read Free

determined I needed to ward off starvation. A vision suddenly popped into my mind. I can’t say it was a memory because it was a total shock, and I had no clue who the lady in the vision was. The figure of Vanessa Tipton was, for only a fast moment, replaced by another lady doing the exact same thing. I didn’t see her face exactly, but I knew she was making something for me. As if on cue, my mother’s voice pulled me out of my daze, and it reminded me that this kind of thing was exactly why I needed her advice. I had wanted to see if she still had the name of the psychiatrist she had suggested to me a few weeks back.
     
    I had mentioned that I was having nightmares and had even wet the bed several times. Before I could say another word she was looking in her kitchen junk drawer for a card from a doctor she thought I needed to talk to. When I noticed the card was for a psychiatrist, I couldn’t hide my surprise or hurt that she had been so fast to imply that I needed that kind of help.
     
    “I’m sorry, Katie. I didn’t want to upset you, but it is nothing to be ashamed of. Sometimes it helps to talk things over with someone who can be impartial and objective.”
     
    I was adopted by Bill and Vanessa Tipton when I was almost eleven years old. They had been my foster parents for six months, and a week before my birthday the adoption was final. It seemed fitting that I became this new person so near my birthday. It was as if I had been born a second time. Not like the Bible talks about, but it felt as if I had become someone new and the person I had been never existed. My new parents had a beautiful cake made to celebrate my birthday. The three of us were the only ones at the celebration that year. I was not ready to be around a lot of people at that time.
     
    Vanessa Tipton was an attractive woman with short spiky red hair and blue eyes. She was a very animated woman who was always cheerful. She used her hands a lot when talking and made faces when emphasizing the details of her story. My mom was the queen of optimism, so when she suggested that I go see a doctor; it was enough to make me think I really did need help. My dad would always just say, “WhateverMother thinks.”
     
    Bill Tipton was a quiet man who kept to himself most of the time, but he always made me feel loved and special and truly his daughter. He was husky and tall, kind of the gentle-giant type. The top of his head was almost completely bald with the exception the short cropped gray on the sides and a few very long strains of hair that he combed over the top as if that would hide the baldness. The skin that he was trying to cover under that thin layer of hair was so shinny I expected to see my reflection. It looked as if he waxed and buffed it. His eyes were a soft brown and I saw in them a tenderness that just assured me he would never do any harm.
     
    There was no physical resemblance between the Tiptons and myself, but in my heart they were my parents. I couldn’t imagine feeling any closer to the birth parents I had lost. It was strange not to have any memory of them. If I had been a baby when I was adopted, it would have made sense; but I was ten when I lost my parents in an accident. No one had ever elaborated on the details of the accident, but I assumed it was a car crash. All I did know was that I woke up in a hospital bed with bandages on my hands and my body covered in bruises and cuts. They told me my hands had been badly burned in the fire that killed my parents. It felt like I’d awakened from a nightmare, but I couldn’t remember the nightmare at all. I had no idea what my name was, how I had gotten there, or any memory of the years leading up to age ten. I do remember going to live with the Tipton’s and going back and forth to doctors a lot, but then it all just blended into normalcy and I never looked back.
     
    “You look exhausted, Katie. You just need to talk this out with someone, sweetheart.”
     
    My mother was