2
Chapter 1
Kayla and her new legal guardian were in the parking lot of one of their four local grocery stores. She noticed that Diana was looking for something in the floor of the car as soon as she got out of the car. They‘d been frozen in the parking lot, without going anywhere else for the next twenty minutes. It got to the point where Kayla really thought that they would never get into the grocery store and get their grocery shopping done. Annoyed, she blurted, “What did we come to the grocery store for, to loiter in the parking lot?”
Angry, Diana responded, “Can‘t you be just a little patient, Kayla Michelle? I‘m looking for my car insurance papers!”
Kayla didn‘t know whether to laugh or scream in utter ennui. “Aren‘t you a slob? I thought that your car insurance papers were supposed to be in the glove compartment!”
Diana got out of the hole she‘d figuratively put her head in for a few moments, looked Kayla in the eyes and said, “Don‘t dare to call me names ever again, Kayla Michelle Brown!” “That‘s right,” said Kayla, smiling evilly, “I am Kayla Michelle Brown - Lovett, and I
hope that you don‘t go to court and file for a name-change for me, because although I can‘t support me economically, I am an adult, and I‘m the only one that should decide what name to carry. Furthermore, I decided to keep my name. I don‘t want your name. God forbid that I ever become one of your kinds!”
“Excuse me?”
“You‘re excused, although I didn‘t hear you pass gas or belch,” Kayla said.
Kayla was handicapped. She had mild cerebral palsy. The only things that she couldn‘t do were to walk and to talk coherently. She wouldn‘t talk normally. If she didn‘t talk too quickly, she would talk too slowly. It wasn‘t her fault. Her late parents never imagined how badly she needed speech therapy. Besides her legs and her mouth, the rest of her body was fully functional. She could perform the basic tasks completely on her own: bathe, dress, cook for her and anyone that lived with her, do the dishes, do her own laundry, drive to the store to get her guardian and anyone else that lived with her; whatever that he or she needed. Right now, however, Kayla‘s feeling of independence crumbled when her parents died, and, thinking that she could live on her own; thus she didn‘t need anyone to do anything for her, she lived at her parents‘ house, after their horrible and deadly car accident, for six months. Kayla quickly learned that she could do everything for her, except support her financially. She couldn‘t administer her disability-benefit money on her own because a cruel and severe depression broke her down, and she was desperate. Sick of feeling abandoned, Kayla called 911 and asked to be taken out of her house and placed in a hospice where age didn‘t matter for a person to live there.
“I don‘t know what I was thinking when I took custody of you.”
“You were probably drunk, Diana,” Kayla fired back, “but that‘s not for you to worry. You‘re not the only human being that‘s ever done something as stupid as accepting to live with someone that he or she abhors!”
Diana grabbed Kayla by her neck and said, “You wait ‗till you get home, bitch! You have no notion of what‘s coming your way from this day forward. You‘ve just given me the green light to give you a life of even more suffering!”