I wince at the harsh reality of that. But my repressed mommy issues and my potential daddy ones—given that I don’t even know a name—are not the point of this story. The point is the Calloway family adopted me when I was two years old, meaning I spent approximately two years in foster care.

Aren’t babies supposed to get adopted instantly? What was wrong with me that I wasn’t picked right away?

Well for one, I had colic and trouble eating and sleeping and doing anything cute that would make a couple think “that’s who we want to add to our family.”

Secondly, I wasn’t blonde-haired and blue-eyed. Or brown-haired. Well, okay, my hair was dark brown, I guess, but so was my skin, and in Mississippi, there weren’t too many people out there looking to adopt a baby that looked like me.

But the Calloway family traveled all the way from Connecticut to meet me, and as my mom says, she fell in love with me instantly.

For the record, by then my colic was gone.

They had two children already and were struggling to conceive a third which is where I come into the picture. James was their oldest, thirteen, and moody as hell. Then there was Monica; she was ten, and quite frankly, God’s gift to my parents—besides me, of course. She was outgoing and charming but well behaved with stellar grades and on the fast track to Ivy Leagues. The good kid to James’ bad one as she liked to say.

James wasn’t bad per se, he was just going through that classic teenager stage where he hated everyone and everything except getting into trouble with his friends. But I’ll rephrase that, he hated everyone but me.

In the beginning, they told me how he’d be the first to my crib when I cried. He’d pick me up and bounce me around the room and try to get me back to sleep. Sometimes it worked and he’d sit next to my bed for the rest of the night in case I woke up again.

He helped feed me and allegedly was a pretty decent babysitter. I mean I’m eighteen now and still alive, so it’s safe to say he didn’t do a terrible job.

As I got older, I followed him around like a shadow, and he never minded it. Of course, there were nights he wanted to go out with his friends and I threw a whole ass tantrum over not being able to go with him. But he always promised to make it up to me the next day.

He always delivered.