An excerpt from "The Journals"

[An imaginary happening]

Imagine Goldilocks, who learned to explore and survive among bears suddenly being transported to Ken and Barbie's dream house. Well that's me. It's wild. And I still can't believe it.

But here I am. Living with Carroll and Paisley Johnson.

Now when I first heard I'd be living with a man named Carroll I thought it was the funniest thing I'd heard. I'd never met a man named Carroll before. I imagined a man with a squeaky voice, horn-rimmed glasses, and a bow tie. Instead Carroll is a newly retired man. He is tall, but not too tall, and thin, but not pencil-thin. White hair, but not ghost white, mostly gray. A youthful face with kind eyes. He just left the software industry selling some software for some company I don't understand, and he and his wife are saving up to serve a mission for the Mormons. Carroll likes to correct me and say “We are going to be missionaries for The Church of Latter-Day Saints.” But I like to annoy Carroll and so I call them Mormons when I can.

I really didn't know what a Mormon is. Mom, or Clarissa, never really had a religion. I guess she believed in God, cause I remember at least one night where she stayed in the bathroom all night crying “Oh, God....Oh, God.”

For me, the verdict is still out whether God answered her prayer, cause the next morning I took my first ride into foster care. Since then, I've been in and out, twelve different homes and counting. Meanwhile Clarissa's been in and out of jails, halfway houses, and crazy hospitals. I have a sister, but she has a dad, so she lives with him when things get bad. I don't have a dad.

But for this round I have Carroll. And his wife, Paisley too.

Paisley is an odd name, it belongs next to a chalkboard, where someone can run their fingernails down the board as they say the name – Paisley. It gives me the chills. Maybe because paisley belongs on wallpaper, or a dated shirt, or a businessman or a Mormon's tie. I wonder what Carroll thinks when he puts on a paisley tie and takes his wife Paisley to church. Does she ever get lost in the wallpaper?

So I didn't want to like Paisley, but it was hard not to.

She bakes fresh bread ever day, cause Carroll likes it. I have to admit, I've never had home baked bread, only cheap loaves when Clarissa could afford it, which was hit and miss at times.

How can you not like a women who daily fills her Barbie doll house with the smell of fresh bread?

As a consequence, Paisley got a bit round there for awhile. They have seven children, actually eight, but one died when it was born. So Carroll and Paisley raised seven children in their home. Then hit empty nest zone when they were in their early 50s. Turns out Paisley missed having children around, and they also felt (felt is a common word that Carroll uses a lot) like they needed to open their home to kids like me. Kids who have contracted the awful disease of belonging to foster care.

Carroll and Paisley chose to be the place where short-term cases come. Usually for a year at a time. In the last fifteen years they have housed twenty-five children. Apparently they really love kids in general.

But then they were all done with the foster care thing, cause they were using this last year to prepare for their mission. They were busy doing other things, when they got the call about me.

Recently my mom went to jail for supporting her boyfriend, Ethan, who built a meth lab in our apartment. Plus mom had been forging stolen checks. Not smart of her, but thinking's never been her top quality. The day I was heading back to foster care, I met a guy named John Sanders. I wanted him to help me, but he couldn't. He had his own set of problems.

But every once in a while somebody shocks you. And it so happened, Mr. Sanders shocked me. Four months of uncertainty, and the guy tracked me down. He says he still couldn't help me, but he had reached out to someone who could, and together they had found a good home for me for the next year.

Then some magic happened. Carroll likes to call it a miracle (that's another word Carroll uses a lot, miracle) but I don't understand that stuff. I do understand that sometimes while life seems incredibly unfair, every once in a great while, some magic does occur. And this was magic.

Carroll and Paisley had lived in California all their married life, and Carroll had known Mr. Sanders at some juncture in their careers, so Mr. Sanders knew he took in foster children. But what he didn't know was that Carroll and Paisley had sold their home and moved to a town called Lehi, Utah. Apparently back in the early 60s, Carroll grew up in the rural town of Lehi, but Lehi's not rural anymore. Still Carroll chose to come back.

Maybe cause of their eight, I mean seven children, three of them live somewhere in Utah and the rest live in California, Texas, Washington DC, Germany, and Singapore. Plus Carroll and Paisley wanted to save money for their mission, so they could teach others about what it means to be a Mormon.

So that's where the magic came in. See Carroll and Paisley were no longer taking foster children. And their license was for California state but they lived in Utah. Yet somehow they drove to California, picked me up and we drove to Utah. Of course there was the lengthy paperwork and the meetings. But Carroll, my social worker, and some other people, took care of all that. I wasn't a part of none of that stuff. Which was fine by me.

Now, for the next year, I live in Utah. I won't get to see my mom, but that's okay with me. I don't really need to see her at the jail. And she writes me letters. Basically warns me that the Mormons will try to convert me. I don't like the word convert so I'm not too worried about the Mormons, but Carroll really wants me to go to church with him and Paisley, so I think I will say yes. I figure I can be a good house guest while I'm here. I do try and be good when I'm in foster care. Some times its easy, sometimes it's hard.

But back to Paisley, after she took in a couple foster children, she went on Weight Watchers and lost a bunch of weight. Now she claims she's contains healthy grandma substance. This translates to mean that her grandchildren always have an adequate lap to sit on, and she has strong arms to carry and hug them. I would call her sturdy, and I do like her laugh. So even though she has a scary name that belongs on drapery or around a man's neck, she's still a nice woman.

Oh, and the vinyl. I forgot to mention the vinyl. I didn't even know what vinyl was until I got to Paisley's house. She loves vinyl and has it everywhere.

You come to Carroll and Paisley's front door and next to the doorbell in a waterproof plaque, in vinyl, it says “Welcome Friends”. On the door in vinyl it says “Johnsons”. Then in a not to discrete but not too obvious spot, in vinyl, it says “No soliciting”.

Once you enter the home over an arch entry way, in vinyl, “Our story begins here”. Which come to think of it, I really should be writing this record over that arch. Is it bad luck to start a current memoir not underneath the vinyl lettering that states where a story needs to begin? I guess I'm a rebel, starting my story away from clear vinyl instructions.

Other vinyl says: “Don't count life by the breathes you take, but by the moments that take your breath away”, “Count your many blessings,” and “Cease the day”. Plus she has a vinyl wall with all her children and their names and photos. Which is a good thing, because it'd be tragic if she forgot one of her children's name, or her grandchildren for that matter. Tucked away in another part of the house, there is a wall where each foster child is captured in a photo. But they don't get a vinyl name that goes on a special vinyl wall, which is probably why I dislike so much the large vinyl, near the dining room table, which states “Families can be Forever”.

Carroll explained to me that families are really important to Mormons. But I greatly dislike that sign. Makes me want to ask him if I don't have a family does that mean I don't have a forever?

The statement feels like it's speaking to an exclusive club. See, I can't talk about forever when I don't even have the first step that may be required for it. Maybe I'm reading the sign wrong. Maybe forever is a dark place without families. I just don't like it. It makes me uncomfortable as I sit under it each time we eat, and we always eat under it.

Because Paisley is adamant we all eat together. Clarissa never made dinner, let alone required us to sit in the same room when she ate, or I ate, or my sister ate.

But this year I eat with Carroll, and Paisley, and I sit under a forever family sign which reminds me all this is temporary.

Still I'd rather eat fresh baked bread in Ken and Barbie's house then cold porridge in the woods...any day. In the words of Carroll, “It just feels right.”