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I’d like to imagine that my birth parents weren’t the kind of people who shopped at superstores. That they were artsy and liberal. They didn’t think that the definition of “weekend trip” was an excursion down to the local Costco at which they bought all of the processed food that they could find and stopped to eat a delicious lunch of hot dogs and oversized sodas in the food court on their way out. I’d like to think that my mother was a musician—a singer, maybe, or a cellist, like me. My father was a writer, perhaps, or maybe he owned a restaurant. I’d like to believe that they’re the people that haunt my dreams, the voices in my memories. However, all of these traits are just figments of my consistently overactive imagination, and all that I know for certain is that I was their child, and, at some point in time, they had loved me.





There’s a sign as you enter the city limits of Lanehurst, Illinois, that reads “Welcome to Lanehurst, Home of the Soaring Eagles”, although an accurate sign would read “Welcome to the dead end in the road, home to some of the dullest people you’ll meet…and Amélie Elkins”. Amélie Elkins. That’s me.

Unfortunately, my parents belong to the formerly specified group: the dullest people you’ll ever meet. They aren’t my birth parents, but still. I live with them, just as I have been doing for the past seven years. I was adopted when I was nine, but conveniently cannot remember anything from my past beyond meeting Mr. and Mrs. Elkins at an adoption agency in Chicago. Don and Tracie are nice people, don’t get me wrong, but they’re not exactly my cup of tea. I mean, I’m smart. I’ve read medical journals in my free time since I was eleven. I’m the only sixteen-year-old senior in my high school. At the end of the school year, I’ll be graduating at the top of my class with enough credits to start college as a junior. Don and Tracie, however, are not exactly intellectuals. He’s an overweight, overzealous car salesman, while she’s a secretary at the local elementary school. Even without the memories of my past, I know that whoever raised me wasn’t anything like these people. I didn’t identify with them whatsoever until I’d been living in Nowheresville, Illinois, long enough that I’d forgotten what life might have been like without them.



“Amé!” I heard Tracie call from downstairs. My name was pronouncedly French, and most people got it wrong on the first (or second, or third…) try. ‘Ah-may-lee’ was always my patient response when substitute teachers, soccer referees, or anyone else screwed up the foreign-looking accent. Somehow, most of these people managed to drag the word ‘Amelia’ from those letters, but it always came out kicking and screaming, sounding like an excuse, since they knew that they’d gotten it wrong.

“I’m coming! Hold on!” I yelled back. I sat at my bedroom window, watching across the neighborhood, as a storm rolled in from the west. Despite the sweltering heat of the summer afternoon, I had the window open so that I could listen to the thunder as it lowed across suburbia. The house was dark at this time of day, which made it feel at least a little cooler. Once downstairs, I could see a sizeable box on the kitchen table. Tracie, who was busy rinsing ground beef for hamburgers, pointed without looking up at the box. “Fed-Ex guy dropped that off for you a bit ago. You’re not ordering anything online with my credit card, are you?”

“ ‘Course not. I’m going to go upstairs and read…There’s a storm coming in by the way. We might want to be getting the hanging baskets off of the porch.” Not that they were really worth saving, but….

“Ah, never mind them. They were dead weeks ago.” She immersed herself once again in rinsing patties, and I took that as my cue to leave. As I climbed the stairs, I heard the pitter-patter of rain starting to come down on the roof. I hurried to close my window, tossing the package on my bed in the meantime. Just then, a cold breeze came through the screen. It felt so good after the heat of the day, but I knew that it was part of the massive cold front that was about to clobber my house.

“Amélie! Come help me shut the windows!” Tracie called again. I rolled my eyes, leaving the box for later. A strong summer storm, at least, was a blip on the radar, a sign of life in the ultra-repetitive routine that was daily life in Lanehurst.



Don was home fifteen minutes later, meaning it was time to help with dinner. By then, the storm tore at the house, sending deck furniture skidding across the patio. Rain came down in torrents, and the thick layer of clouds blocked out the sun. It was completely dark by seven o’clock. The weather had ruined the hamburger plan, so Tracie turned instead to a frozen pizza for dinner. I decided to make a salad to go along with it, making dinner seem at least a little bit planned.

This is how most dinners work at the Elkins home: Choose a protein (usually some sort of red meat), choose a starch (mashed potatoes, friWhat do you think of my story?
I really loved it. I read the whole thing and it's really good. You should e-mail me the next chapter most definitely. I't totally intrigued and wanting more.