When Joy Came to Stay by Karen Kingsbury

Author:Karen Kingsbury
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Adult, Fiction
ISBN: 9781590527511
Publisher: Multnomah
Published: 1999-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

Long after Kathy was gone, Amanda sat wide-eyed in bed, staring at shadows on the ceiling…wondering about her mother.

She had to be somewhere, didn’t she? And wherever she was, she had to remember she’d given a little baby girl up for adoption, didn’t she?

Amanda studied the shadows, trying hard to imagine her mother’s face, her eyes. She would be beautiful and kind and gentle, just like Kathy.

Amanda smiled. Just wait! When her mother found out about her and what had happened to her and how much she needed a family, she would come for her. She would take her home and love her forever. Amanda was sure of it.

Then, like they did every night since the beating, the shadows changed and began moving on the ceiling. Suddenly they became terrifying shapes, looming figures with pointed teeth and claws and horns. And in the midst of them was Mrs. Graystone’s face. The woman was moving in closer, coming after her, trying to kill her.

“No!” Amanda clasped her hand over her mouth. She didn’t want a pill or a shot like she’d gotten the other nights. She bit her lip and lay still, as quiet as she could. But she kept her eyes wide open, and felt her arms and legs tremble as the Graystone shadows came closer.

Please, God, make her go away! Suddenly the shadows were still again.

In the silent darkness, other thoughts began to take shape in her mind. She was seven years old, and no one wanted her. No one at all. Oh, Kathy loved her. She believed that with all her heart. But Kathy didn’t have room for her.

Sometimes on nights like this she thought about all the people in the world—or just in Ohio—and how many families could take in a seven-year-old girl. There were lots of families. Lots of them! But no one had come forward to claim her.

Because no one wanted her.

There must be something in me that people hate. Especially people like Mrs. Graystone. It had been different when Amanda was little, when she lived with Mr. and Mrs. Brownell, before they went to heaven. But now that she was older, there must have been something in her smile or her eyes, something she couldn’t see when she looked in the mirror, but something other people saw. Something that made people turn away from her.

Otherwise why had she spent time in so many different foster homes? People traded her in like a doll no one wanted to play with anymore. When they didn’t get tired of her, they hurt her. Like the farmhouse boys and that awful Mrs. Graystone.

The girl squeezed her arms around her ribs and winced in pain. It still hurt, and that made her mad. She had something wrong with her for sure. Something other people wanted to beat out of her.

The girl thought about it long and hard. It was probably something deep inside her, maybe something that came from her heart. The longer she thought about it the more the shadows began to move again, taunting, threatening…

Mrs.

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