AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Not particularly. I remember being bored a lot.” My chuckle makes me sniffle, and I dab my eyes with a tissue. I don’t want to break down on national television. “I think that’s fairly normal in childhood, though. But she homeschooled me enough to get me to secondary school, and she taught me how to cook. I fell in love with cooking.”
“And you’re a chef now?”
“Yeah, I graduated last year from Vancouver Culinary Academy.”
“Congratulations, I hear it’s quite a prestigious culinary school.
“Thank you.”
“What about your name? You kept your nickname.”
“I did. She called me Elizabeth, but eventually accepted that I wasn’t losing Birdie. It made her angry in the beginning, but I knew I was Birdie. Even as a child I wasn’t willing to give her power over my name. It was a nickname that was given to me by my real family. It was my connection to them. I let go of a lot of memories but not my name.”
“And what about the real Elizabeth?”
I look over to my lawyer, and she nods. “I’ve been told she has been given a burial in Ontario with extended family. But I’m not allowed to say much more since the case is still in progress.”
“Do you feel like you have given Elizabeth justice?”
“No, I think the police and the people who decided to landscape their backyard gave her justice. I can’t take credit for that. I’m so happy she was found. She deserves to have her story told.” What happened to that little girl is vile, and my stomach turns when I think of an innocent child being hurt by their mother, the person who is supposed to protect them above all else.
“Let’s talk about the moment you discovered you weren’t Elizabeth. You find a website, see your picture all over it, then what?”
“It was wild.” I shake my head, thinking back only a few months ago when I received the results from that genetic test. “I found the website and thought I was losing my mind. It was too far-fetched to imagine but the pieces all fit. So, I decided to go see them in person.”
“And what did you say when you finally saw them?”
I laugh and look over at my parents. “Oh god... it was really emotional for everybody.”
“Jack, what was it like hearing your sister was back again?”
“Honestly, at first, I thought it was a hoax. But then we saw for ourselves the genetic test match. When she used my childhood nickname, it got real.” We all laugh a little. “I thought... this is it.” His voice breaks at the end of his sentence.
“Dude, stop,” I say, trying to make him laugh.
“Lori and Ken, what was it like for you?” Charlotte smiles.
This is the happy part of the story. I’m smiling too. I haven’t heard about it from their perspective before.
“Oh, wow, I remember my hands shaking, and I just broke down on the floor. Then I called Ken and started yelling, ‘She’s home!’”
“What was that like that, finally having your daughter back after such a long time?”
“It was the best day of our life. We were whole again,” Dad says.
I smile through the tears.
We discuss the social security snafu and what my goals for the future are, and they want to know where I’ve been hiding since I got back. I was with a “family friend.” It’s so hard not to bring up Lonan, he’s been such a huge part of my story since coming home, but I don’t want to create a media circus for him. It would only lead to more questioning, and he doesn’t deserve to be made a spectacle of.
“It sounds like things are finally getting put back together. What has been the hardest thing for you to overcome?”
“Trusting people. I’ve made a lot of mistakes and have hurt people that I care about most. I have regrets. I had been programmed most of my life to believe I was unwanted, and it has taken a big toll on how I viewed myself. At first, I was scared to trust anyone because I thought that love was conditional. I’m in therapy now and working hard to break those cycles. It’s a journey.”
At the end, they ask me something I hadn’t thought about before.
“Do you forgive Julianne Fournier?”
I pause for a long time.
