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St. Agnes Orphanage had exactly six VHS tapes; The Ten Commandments (1956), Ben-Hur (1959), The Sound of Music (1965) , The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), Godspell (1973) and, lastly, the only (technically) non-religious movie and only animated movie they had - An American Tail (1986) . They were all well worn and were bound to break on any given viewing. Every Saturday night the kids gathered around the playroom, fighting for pillow space on the floor on their stomachs for the special treat of Sister McKenna’s special popcorn (made with collected bacon grease from throughout the week of cooking), buttered and sprinkled with the powdered from a packet of Ranch Dressing mix.
Skye was one of the few kids who didn’t want to join in the movie watching. She didn’t want to fight for space by the TV while it blurred the video or, if it was malfunctioning while it turned it black and white. They watched the movies in the same order, rotating through them to the beginning every six weeks. Tonight they would be watching An American Tail . Normally, this was Skye’s favorite week to watch the movies. She had been watching this movies for Four and a half years. The only time she had missed any of the movie nights had been, according to Sister McKenna, when she was nine months old and had been placed with her first foster family, the Roberts family. She had lasted almost three weeks with them. One of the other nuns, Sister Gertrude, had stopped in to check on them and discovered that, upon deciding the baby was crying too much for attention, had been locking her in a playpen in a closet until she’d stop crying. Sister Gertrude had immediately removed Skye from the premises and contacted child services to let the social workers know.
When she was one and a half, the county was incorporated with the city and new child service social workers were assigned to the orphanage. Skye - officially known as Mary Sue Poots at the time, a name given to ther by the nuns themselves - was placed with the Campbell family. Skye remembered them vaguely. They had their own kids, a boy and a girl who were four and six years older than her respectively. They had two dogs, little Jack Russells that loved to follow and play with the kids. The Campbell kids didn’t get along with Skye. She was too young to understand, but she knew now that the Campbells sent her back because she ‘wasn’t a good fit,’ for the Campbell family, whatever that meant.
It took a whole year of movie nights before Mary Sue Poots was placed with another family. She been insisting for two months by that point that her name was Skye and she was sure to inform anyone of this whenever they called her Mary. She hated that name. The third family she was placed with was the Brody family. Skye loved the Brody family. There were six of them in total; A mom, a dad, three sisters and a brother. Two of the children had been adopted, the two oldest were biological. They were very nice. They all made Skye feel welcome. For the first month with them, Skye was scared of everything she did. She was afraid that any one thing would make them send her back. She wanted to stay. She wanted to love them. She wanted them to love her .
Six weeks with them and one night while Martha, her potential new mom, was tucking her in, Skye had blurted out a hasty, ‘ I love you, mommy. ’ She had just wanted to test it, to see what it was like. She had heard the others say this to Martha and it usually made her smile. Martha’s eyes were filled with tears when Skye hazarded opening her eyes in the dim light of the nightlight in the corner. Skye’s forehead had scrunched. She had just been preparing to take it back, convinced she had done something wrong, when Martha had kissed her forehead and told her she loved her. She had said goodnight and quickly left the room then.
A week later, Skye was back at the orphanage. Martha and Daniel brody were being transferred overseas for his job. They said they cared deeply for Skye/Mary Sue, but they weren’t quite ready to make her a permanent part of their family and they didn’t have time to go fully through the adoption process before they had to move. Martha cried. Daniel had to pull her away and drag her by the arm to the car. Skye watched them from the end of the driveway, tears streaking her cheeks, as they drove away.
Skye hadn’t spoken to anyone for almost three full weeks after that. After that first day, she never let the others, even Sister McKenna who she had grown very close to, see her cry about it. If the families didn’t want her, she didn’t want them! It was the only attitude she could adopt that would protect herself. One the rare occasions couples came out visit the orphanage, Skye found places to hide so they wouldn’t see her. If the nuns found her and forced her to make herself present, she made sure to make herself as undesirable as possible in the eyes of two adults looking to expand their family. As far as she was concerned, it was a lie. They didn’t really want her. They just wanted to send her back, whether she cared about or loved them or not.
Skye hadn’t been placed since the Brody family. It had been almost two years. Skye was four and a half years old. She wanted a family. She wanted a family that actually wanted her. She didn’t understand why she didn’t have a family. She knew the story, about how she had been left on the doorstep - no note, in the December, wrapped up in her baby bag and her warmest clothes. She didn’t know why and that was an answer the nuns didn’t have. They usually told her God works in mysterious ways, Mary Sue. She hated that name.
Skye didn’t want to watch the movie tonight. This one only seemed to upset her after the Brody family returned her. She was forced to sit through it. She knew she couldn’t leave the living room area until it was done, though, so she climbed into the bay window, a bit of a distance from the television and the two and a half dozen kids of varying ages as they crunched on popcorn and watched. Some of them quoted aloud to their favorite lines. Some of them sung along to their favorite song. Skye laid in the bay window on her stomach, leaning her elbows on the sill and her chin against the heel of her hands, watching as it began to snow and land on the yard and the walk outside. The clouds were intermittent, covering and freeing the moon every so often as Skye’s favorite song from the movie began to play.
--
Somewhere out there
Beneath the pale moonlight
Someone’s thinking of me and loving me tonight
Somewhere out there
Someone’s saying a prayer
That we’ll find one another, in that big somewhere out there
--
“What's new, Mary Sue?”
Skye blinked and quickly wiped her cheeks off. “My name’s Skye ,” She snapped, looking over at Matt. Matt’s hands reached out, feeling the air for the edge of the bay window’s sill. Skye knew he couldn’t see it but she also knew that the older boy hated when people acted like he needed help with everything almost as much as she hated being called ‘Mary Sue.’
“Sorry,” Matt said before his hands hit the sill’s ledge.
Skye moved so sit up and drew her knees to her chest. She watched as Matt pulled himself up into the windowsill just to make sure he didn’t fall and then looked out the window again. She knew he couldn’t see her cry, so she stopped wiping her cheeks, but she couldn’t stop sniffling. “You ain’t gonna watch the movie?”
Matt shrugged his shoulders. He was only seven or so months older than her but he had had less family placements. Parents didn’t want a kid with ‘special needs.’ Some of the bigger kids like to push Matt around and he liked to ‘accidentally’ trip them with his cane. When he was caught unawares, if Skye was around to witness it, she was quick to throw herself into the fray even if it meant missing snack time before bed for misbehaving. “I’ve seen it,” He said.
“Nu-uh!” Skye said. “You can’t see,” She waved her hands in front of his face as if she were trying to make sure this was still true.
Matt smiled. He shrugged again. “I heard you sniffling,” He confessed.
“I wasn’t,” Skye insisted, self-consciously wiping her cheeks again.
“You’re missing Sister McKenna’s popcorn,” Matt said instead of apologizing.
“M’not hungry,” Skye lied.
Matt gave her a half smile. “Me either,” He lied back. He turned as if he was looking out the window too even though he couldn’t see anything. He had lost his vision in a car accident that had killed the rest of his family when he was just a baby. He would have died if it hadn’t been for a doctor that happened to be involved in the accident as well. Matt didn’t quite know all the details about it, but the newspaper clippings about the accident were in his file. One of the older kids had told him about it once. “What do you see?” He asked.
“It’s snowin’,” Skye told him as she looked back out the window and spotted the waning moon through the clouds dotted by a few stars almost twinkling around it.
“What are you trying to see?” Matt asked.
“A family that’s all mine,” Skye answered softly.
“They're out there somewhere,” Matt said, still angling his head as if he was looking right at the moon shining through the snow clouds at them.
Skye nodded and then remembered who was sitting with her. “Yeah…” she answered in a whisper.
--
And even though I know how very far apart we are
It helps to think we might wishing on the same bright star
And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby
It helps to think we’re sleeping underneath the same big sky
Somewhere out there, If love can see us through,
Then we’ll be together, somewhere out there
Out where dreams come true.