When I was like 9 I had a friend named Amanda
Amanda and I did everything together, we rode the same school bus and were in the same class at school so we took turns having sleepovers at each others houses
Her mother was kind of strange, I rarely saw her and when I did she rarely ever said anything but Amanda seemed to adore her mother more than most kids I've seen
One day Amandas mom calls my mom and asks if Amanda can stay with us for exactly one week while she goes to New York on a business trip.
My mom said okay and we went on with our usual sleep over routine
A week came, no sign from her mother
Then two weeks
Then two months
No word from her, my mom didn't want to inform child protective services because she would have been thrown into Foster care which my mom spent her entire life in
A year and a half goes by, my mom is in trouble because she won't be able to enroll Amanda in middle school the next month
Just when my mom was about to tell Amanda that she's going to have to make the call her mother shows up at the door
My mom demanded answers but she said she couldn't explain why, she said she was in a hurry and need ed to go. I hadn't seen Amanda so happy in the last year. My mom tried to get her to talk but she knew she couldn't hold this child against her mother's will do Amanda went with her mother.
I never saw her again.
The weird thing is that all of these v years I had forgotten about her
And I have so many questions
I'm going to call my mom in the morning to ask her more, I never asked my mom how she felt taking care of a child that wasn't even hers when we were already struggling to get by
I never heard my mom complain about Amanda, she welcomed her with open arms
I never asked how she felt when she left either.
How fast she left our lives leaves me with this unsettling feeling