Profile of M - Week 7, Revision 1

She flips back her ebony hair and yawns, looking forlornly at her mother. She is obviously weary. Her sad eyes glance at yet another tuft of hair dance across the floor.

She hasn't been here her whole life - they had adopted her when she was six and being put back into the system. It had been her last chance, at some level she had known that.  She was getting older, and even she understood that it was more difficult to get adopted as you aged.  But, she was happy to be with her new family, even if the current situation was...uncomfortable.

M. had been born into a family of seven.  Her birth was solely to increase the amount of income coming in to the family - nothing more.  On a sticky summer's day, it had been determined that her home was unfit - and a handful of people from the county took her away.  While she was happy to be clean, warm and fed, she knew that her freedom was at the whim of strangers, and it terrified her.

Not long afterward, she had been placed in a foster home in Bangor.  The older woman lived alone, and in a moment of melancholy had decided this is what she needed - some youth and vigor to keep her grounded and feeling loved. At first, things were great.  M. was clean and well fed, and the center of attention.  As the days progressed, she discovered that her new guardian liked to drink and gamble.  A lot.  She began coming home very late, very broke and very, very stumbly.  She would 'forget' to feed M. and more frequently than not, didn't have money left to buy food.  Eventually, she was gone for days at a time.  M. was brokenhearted. At four years old, she learned how to sneak food from the cats and the garbage. The old woman came and went, and M. was merely furniture, subsisting on scraps she scavenged from throughout the house.

One sunny August afternoon, she had been playing alone in the back yard. A strange man came over - he was much bigger than her, and it was unnerving. She panicked when he came close and reached over to touch her hair.  She had looked furtively toward the house - no mom, no escape.  M. spun her head around and did the only thing she could think of - she chomped as hard as she could on his nicotine-stained fingers.  The man yelled and hollered, and the old woman packed her up and shipped her off without so much as a goodbye hug.

Four years seemed like a lifetime ago now.  M. had been adopted by a wonderful family who took very good care of her and truly loved her. She had her own bed, clothes and toys; she played, ate and snuggled every day.

And yet...every year, beginning in August, she begins to itch and lose her hair.  A skin condition, the doctor had said, caused by nerves - an unconscious remnant of her history. None of the sprays or special shampoos seems to help much.  Tufts of hair float across the wood floor and stick to the rug in spite of daily vacuuming.  She is scratching again, but M. can't help herself - it's constant and maddening. Her mom smiles understandingly and pats her shoulder. Another dose of Benadryl and just a few more weeks, and the itch will go away til next year.