lena goravich. d3.

My story begins with a mother that loved me very much, but not the one that I have today.

I was born the last of her family, the only thing she had left in this world but her own life. But then she lost that too. From what I can gather I've got a sneaking suspicion that I was anything but a planned child in a harmonious marriage, but it's hard to tell. My Mom - this Mom, the Mom I have now - was always honest about how she came about me. But she only knows so much, therefore I only know what I know.

Anyway, I went to kindergarten one day. My mother dropped me off. Didn't come to collect me. Strange. Old Mr. Nikolas with his tickly beard and glasses that ran the daycare looked after me that night, then the next one, and the next. But try as he might he had too many children to take care of himself and couldn't afford to feed me. I don't blame him, shit gets hard around here sometimes.

Eventually the Keepers came and declared me an orphan, my Mom dead, no family. The orphanage came knocking and Mr. Nikolas begged my Mom, who lived in the apartment above and taught us how to paint, to spare a space in her home. 23 years old and all on her own, she could have said no. I wouldn't have blamed her, either. But she said yes. Bundled me up and made me a bed on the couch and she tells me I didn't stop crying all night.

I begged and cried and screamed for my mother until I didn't miss her, until I forgot all about her, until I begged and cried and screamed for Lyana Goravich instead. She tells me she kept my first name, because she gave it to me, and my Mom wanted to respect that. I had nothing but my clothes and my name given by the woman who passed away before I could memorise her own first name - it felt wrong to take that away from me, Mom said, so she gave me a home and her last name instead.

I didn't know who Klaus Goravich was until I was older, let alone that he was of much importance. To me he was my uncle who we saw a handful of times in my youth. But for the most part it was just me and my Mom, painting the walls of our apartment and making sandwiches and lighting a candle for a lady called Marina every year. We didn't have much room, but we had each-other. I tried to read and couldn't quite understand so Mom got me glasses when the words got funny and suddenly the world was brighter, crisper, it made sense. 

Not until much later did I come to learn that we got by partly in thanks to Klaus, a little bit of money every year. His kids are adopted too, Mom said. I think he saw great sacrifice in what she did for me. I wouldn't know for sure, but I'd like to think I'm right about that. I'm pretty right about most things.

Soon enough I was teaching Mom how to read - her brain can't quite put letters in order - and she was teaching me how to draw. I wanted to dance so she put me in classes and I could use both my body and my mind to learn and grow. We'd walk home and get ice-cream and draw on the fridge in semi-permanent marker. It was a good life, mine. It is a good life, still.

Better than my Mom's, she tells me. Better than growing up in a too-small house with 5 siblings, a dead mother and a distant father like she did. Better than sending her brother off to die. Better than the life I would of had if she'd said sorry, no thank-you, when I was three years old. 

At some point Mr. Nik's kids all grew up and he semi-retired, growing too old and too slow to run around small children. I was old enough to help out after school when Mom decided to take over, hiring some more employees to help run the place. We built a sand-pit out the back and repainted the desks purple and green and yellow. Somewhere safe in this hellish world for kids to be for their first few years. 

My Mom had a temper, one I inherited, and she didn't let bad behaviour go unnoticed. But she was also kind, and patient, and paid attention to the kids struggling the most. I helped them learn letters and numbers and shapes, victors and the Capitol anthem. It felt almost wrong to teach them that song with brains so young and impressionable, but what else could we do? Sing songs of rebellion? 

I danced, still. Grew a mile a minute. I loved to write, and watch the new kiddies turn up to Mom's work, meet them, learn their names, shake their tiny little hands. At eleven I inherited a foul mouth and was sent to my room more often than not but after an argument about nothing Mom could always find me downstairs painting something new on the backs of their tiny little chairs. 

We had skipped the terrible twos so Mom got the terrible twelves instead. Slamming my door so hard the apartment walls shook violently, aftershocks of my teenage rebellion. I got her temper and we clashed, I went to bed crying and despite it all I didn't even know what I was mad about in the first place. Maybe it was abandonment issues ten years late, a delayed reaction to the beginning of my story.

That thought just made me feel guilty so I cried some more until crying didn't solve anything, words did. Apologies after more apologies, I spent more time at the dance school than ever before. Mom wanted me to focus on school, I argued that she never needed it, she argued that I didn't have a sibling to win the games for me. She wasn't wrong.

I was too smart for my own good but I was also thirteen and didn't know what I knew so I took her advice and promised to read a book a week, in turn writing my own stories down in notebooks. They're nothing special, mere retellings of stories already happened, but they've got my own spin on them. Maybe I'll get them published someday. Writing it all down seems to help, even on my bad days, so when I can't dance it out of my system I write it down just for me and it makes me feel better. I'm still sad some days, but for the most part I'm okay.

On my fifteenth birthday I learned about Marina. Her red hair, her freckles, Penelope's mom. My own Mom looked the saddest she'd ever been so I held her close and whispered sorry, sorry for being awful. Sorry for being a brat. Sorry, sorry, sorry, until we were both crying over my birthday cupcake and then afterwards, laughing. Marina Goravich deserved better. All of my aunts and uncles deserved better. Even Klaus, up in that house, so far away from us two. If they couldn't have it, yet still give us kids a good life, then I feel like anything's possible.

I suppose I've always been angry, despite everything. It's selfish, I know - but I have a lot of questions left unanswered and I'm not sure I want them answered. Who were my biological parents? Who gave me straw-coloured hair and big hazel eyes, skin that sears in the sun and leaves freckles for winter? How about my good balance, straight posture, wide legs, broad nose? Did they have aching knees and chubby fingers, too? Did they stop growing when I did, or did they just outgrow me? Dangerous questions. Questions I'd be okay with leaving unknown. I've got a good life. A happy life. A Mom that loves me. That's my story. 

My story is far from over, but it's got pages left blank and a rushed introduction. 

I suppose I'd rather have that than a tragedy.