Categories > Celebrities > My Chemical Romance > Orphan Two

At 3.23AM, Jennifer slipped out of bed and quietly got dressed. She emerged from their bedroom with a small overnight bag and crept down the hallway, slowly so that she didn't make a noise. She opened the door to Eva's room and went inside. Eva was fast asleep in her bed. Jennifer made her way towards it and just as she touched the covers, a light turned on in the corner of the room. Jennifer turned to look. It was Penina. She'd been sitting there in the dark "Going somewhere Jennifer?" She asked, raising an eye-brow. Jennifer was startled and quickly checked on Eva "She's fine. Let's not wake her."

"What are you doing in here?" Jennifer asked.

"I couldn't sleep." Penina said "I was afraid you might take Eva, Mia and Jude away."

Jennifer stood still, frozen and angry "Go back to your room."

Penina laughed "Please. We're past that now, aren't we?"

Jennifer shook her head in disbelief "I'm not going to let you hurt my children."

"Me?" Penina asked "I'm not the one who passed out drunk and nearly let Eva drown in the pool. I hear the first step is admitting that you have a problem."

Jennifer was confused "Who told you about that?"

Penina smiled and held up Jennifer's journal. Jennifer was pissed off and Penina said "It's in your journal. I found it a few weeks ago. It's very intimate. I learned so much about you. Your marital troubles, your drinking problem. Where you hide your wine bottles. You have lovely handwriting by the way. Would you like to hear my favourite part?" Penina had a page marked and flicked to it then started reading aloud "'Eight weeks before my due date Jessica died from several undiagnosed birth defects. I hadn't felt her move for days, but now I knew she was dead, I started to feel her kick again. It's called phantom fetal movement, like the pain felt in a missing limb. I was an amputee and the baby was the lost part of me. Because of other complications, Doctor Kosgrove didn't want to induce. So I had to wait to go into labour. For sixteen days I carried Jessica's body and felt her ghost now kicking in my belly, my womb coffin and inside me slept a corpse.'" She looked at Jennifer "How perfectly hideous. No wonder you turned into a nasty, smelly drunk."

Jennifer was shocked and trembling with rage "Jennifer." Penina said "You don't know how lucky you are. I'll never have children of my own. My Father saw to that while I was still in diapers. I actually don't remember a time when he wasn't fucking me." She sighed "I don't want your pity. He did it to make me strong. So I wouldn't turn out weak and pathetic like you."

"I'm not weak." Jennifer hissed.

"Please." Penina snorted "You're soft. Like a worm. Losing your baby could've made you stronger. But for you it's always more pills and more therapy and more booze. Anything so that you don't actually have to face the state of your miserable existence. And why should you? You've got Gerard to carry your dead weight around. But you know something? You don't deserve him. And sooner or later, he's going to figure that out." Penina stood up to leave. Jennifer blocked her path "What are you going to do?" Penina asked in an amused tone "Hit me?" Jennifer looked tempted. There was a long pause. And then she put her hand out for the journal. Penina gave it to her with a small smile "Good night." Penina said. Jennifer moved out of her way and she went back to her bedroom. Jennifer glared at her back as she left.



The next morning Jennifer made an angry phone call to the orphanage "I need to know where she came from and I need to know now." She hissed down the phone.

"I'm sorry. We've called every orphanage in Moscow to try and find out." Sister Judith told her.

"We adopted her from you! How can you not know anything about her?"

"The Wallaces could've adopted her illegally." Sister Judith said in a patient voice "Are you sure she doesn't remember anything that could help us?"

Jennifer paused "I'll call you back." She said and then hung up before she could reply.

Downstairs, Valeria was playing with Mia, Eva, Jude and Penina while Gerard and Frank were out at work. The mood was tense and awkward but Valeria didn't seem to notice "I say Professor Plum did it in the conservatory with the candle stick..." Valeria said.

Jennifer went into Penina's room and started going through her things. Then she found a piece of paper on the floor from the scrapbook that they had been going to make together. It was the one that said 'Penina joins the family.' But Penina's face had been cut out. It looked scary so Jennifer let it fall to the floor.

Jennifer chucked a large teddy bear onto the floor and it made a loud thunk. She turned around. The teddy bear shouldn't have made such a loud noise. She picked it up and started messing around with it. There was a slit in the side of it and she put her hand inside. She pulled the bible that Penina had been carrying around with her. Jennifer flicked through it and found all the same photo's but there was one new addition.

It was a mising page from Penina's life book, the picture of Jennifer and Gerard at their wedding day. But the face that Penina had cut out from the old picture was stuck over Jennifer's face. The caption still said 'Mommy and Daddy get married'. Jennifer shuddered and whispered "Jesus Christ..." She flipped through the bible until she found a little caption at the end saying 'Saarne Institue.'

Downstairs, Jude got up "Where are you going?" Valeria asked.

"Bathroom." Jude told her. Penina watched him as he walked away, still suspicious.

Jude went towards Gerard's den but then froze as he heard the tapping at a keyboard. He peered round the door and saw Jennifer tapping away at the laptop. There was no way he could get the key to the tree house without getting caught by his Mom. He sighed and slipped away.

Jennifer googled 'Saarne Institute.' All the sites that appeared were in the same language as Penina's bible. She sighed, frustrated and then she saw something. A photo of a gothic mansion with the words 'Saarne Institute' on the front. It was the same gothic mansion from Penina's paintings. She clicked on the website and found a phone number.

In the garage, Jude looked around for something and then he found it. A tire iron.

Jennifer tapped the phone number into her mobile and listened to a woman answer it "Saarne Institue, kuidas ma teid aidata saan?"

"Uh, hello? I'm sorry, do you speak English?"

"Vabandust mida?"

"Do you speak English?" Jennifer asked again "Does anybody there speak English? This is very important."

"Ma ei sac aru. Dote Like silmapilk."

Jennifer was about to say something else but then she heard hold music.

Jude ran outside and towards the tree house. Every so often he stopped and looked around just in case someone was watching him but they weren't.

Jennifer was still on hold. Finally, someone picked up and said in an accent the same as Penina's "Hello?"

"Is this the Saarne Institute?"

"Yes."

Jennifer finally smiled and relaxed a little "I need to talk to someone about one of your children. She was adopted by an American family. She's a girl."

"This girl, she is not come from here."

"Can't you at least check?" Jennifer begged.

"No, I am sorry."

"Look, please. I know that she at least spent some time there."

"No, you do not understand. Saarne Institute is not an orphanage, it is a mental hospital."
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