At first, I thought he'd committed a verbal typo. I asked again; he replied, "Your new mothers will be here to pick you up in five days." After that, I stopped asking questions. Sure enough, right on cue, Janet and Lisbeth walked through the big double doors, collected my hands in each of theirs, and led me to my fate.
I met my sisters in the car, wearing their Sunday's finest, immense grins plastered on their faces. They all ran the gamut of, "Pleased to meet you," to "thrilled to have a little brother," to "Welcome to the family!" I acknowledged each of them with the best underwhelmed smile I could muster as I sat in the middle back seat, clutching my backpack, bracing myself for the questions.
"What's it like in there? What does it feel like to be adopted? What do you mean this isn't the first time? Why'd they all abandon you? Was it because they didn't love you? Was it because you're a bad son? Have you ever met your real parents? Do you realize how lucky you are that we came along?"
But, the questions never came. They all sat in silence, not showering me with unwanted attention. They left me alone for that car ride and I did likewise.
While Lisbeth and the rest of the girls started preparing the vegetarian feast in honor of my arrival, Janet led me to the first upstairs bedroom on the left. The foreboding barren white walls and the shadows created from the blinds left me with a bleak feeling in my stomach. Janet told me we'd go out and decorate the room tomorrow; then she left me to unpack.
Natalie, the youngest of the three girls, who appeared to be about my age, came in five minutes later and sat on my bed. "So, what do you think?" she said. I shrugged my shoulders. "Well, to be honest with you, once I got past all the teasing at school, this has been the greatest situation I've ever been in."
I knew what she was talking about. Over the years, I'd become proficient in ignoring the taunting of the mindless rabble. Sure enough, the following Monday at school, the remarks commenced. Some were convinced that I was some sort of criminal; others wondered aloud which of my moms was the groom at the wedding; and the rest figured I had some sort of disease that made me inherently different from everybody else and shied away accordingly.
At the end of the day, when Lisbeth picked us all up from school, there were a few kids standing out in front with their parents, and they were shouting how my family was going to Hell. Their parents just smirked and turned their backs. One thing about my mother, though, she didn't say a word. Lisbeth simply rolled up the windows, put the car in Drive, and asked me how my first day of school was.
I replied, "It was okay."