Etched in Sand by Regina Calcaterra Page B

affidavit
    I, Regina Marie Calcaterra, do swear that the information provided is a true description of my time with my mother, Camille Diane Calcaterra. The truthfulness of this affidavit is supported by my older sisters Cherie and Camille. Dated, November 1980.
    Then Ms. Davis tells us the rest of the affidavit will be in our own words. At first we search one another’s faces for memories and details . . . but it doesn’t take long before it’s all flowing so fast that my pen can barely keep up with our words.
    July 4, 1971
    Four years old
    M AMA JUST GAVE us each our own watermelon slice and sent us out to the picnic table, promising she’ll bring sparklers when we go into town to watch the Fourth of July parade. I take my watermelon under the redwood picnic table to see how many ants I can attract to our picnic. Mama always teases me, saying I’d prefer to live in a mud-pie mountain with ants, beetles, crickets, and lightning bugs as my neighbors over living with clean knees and fingers any day. Four white-sandled feet—Cherie’s and Camille’s—swing in my direction from the bench above. All their talk about this new mom and a new home distracts me from my ant collecting.
    “If they adopt her, then we won’t see her ever again,” Camille says.
    “They can’t adopt her,” Cherie says, “because Mom won’t let them. Either way, it’s bad for all of us.”
    “How can Mom say what happens to Regina? Regina doesn’t even know Mom.”
    “I know, Camille.”
    “Mrs. G is her mom. I mean, how do you take a baby away from the person she thinks is her mom? She even calls Mrs. G ‘Mama.’ ”
    “Camille, knock it off. Mrs. G is not her mom. And Regina’s not a baby—she starts kindergarten this year.”
    “She shouldn’t even be in kindergarten yet, she’s only four!”
    “Well, it’s that or she stays home with Mom all day!” Cherie says. “It’s safer for her to be at school! Stop arguing with me, wouldya? Regina belongs with us.” Cherie pauses from all her insisting to sigh. “I wish Mrs. G would adopt all of us,” she says. “I wish we could stay here.”
    “Me too,” says Camille.
    “Me too, me too!”
    From above, my two sisters laugh at how I’ve chimed into the conversation. Cherie’s nicknamed both Camille and me “Me Too” because everything our older sister says, we younger sisters agree with. “You learned ‘Me Too’ at the Happy House,” Cherie says, leaning down and brushing dirt off my face. “Do you remember the Happy House?”
    I shake my head. “What’s the Happy House?”
    For as long as I can remember, I’ve lived with Mama, Papa, and their teenage daughter, Susan. I love my mama and papa, but I spend every minute I can around Susan. She reminds me of a princess in her long, flowery dresses. I like to snuggle up with Susan and play with her silky light brown hair or let my tiny fingers get tangled in her long necklaces of leather and wood.
    Cherie picks me up. She and Camille take my hands, and we walk to the house to find Mama. “This is the Happy House,” I tell Cherie.
    “No, Gi, this is the Bubble House.”
    “Huh?”
    When we walk inside, Mama and Susan are crying in the kitchen.
    “Why you cry?”
    “You’re going to go live with your new mom now,” Susan says through her tears.
    My head tilts with confusion. “I have a mama . . . you mean I have another mama?”
    “You have two mamas. And a little brother, too!” Mama says.
    “His name is Norman,” Cherie says.
    I sort of remember calling someone else Mommy because she wanted me to call her that. I visited her house last Christmas. Mama dressed me like a princess in a crimson velvet dress, patent-leather shoes, and clean white stockings. Susan called the other mommy my Christmas Mama, because she wanted to give us Christmas presents. But I don’t know why I have to see her now—you don’t get gifts for the Fourth of July. “Is it Christmas Mama?”
    They all start laughing until it