My Parents Wanted Me And My Siblings To All Look Identical. I Had No Idea How Far They’d Go And What Horrible Thing They Would Do…
The first thing I remember about my childhood was the sound of scissors.
Not laughter, not bedtime stories — scissors. The sharp snip of steel slicing through strands of hair, the sound that woke us, marked us, and defined us. Every morning before school, Mom lined us up in the kitchen under the fluorescent light and trimmed each of our bangs to match. “Uniformity,” she called it. “Beauty in balance.”
We were four sisters, born two years apart, but you wouldn’t have known it. She made sure of that.
Same haircut. Same dresses. Same shoes, sometimes the same size, even if they didn’t fit. We weren’t daughters — we were a single reflection, replicated four times.
I was six when it started to feel wrong. Violet was the oldest at eight, Hazel was four, and Ruby was barely two. I still remember the morning Mom pressed my head still against the counter and said, “Hold still, darling. You’re an inch longer than Violet.” She trimmed my hair to the precise millimeter, her ruler tapping against my ear, her face tight with focus.
When she finished, she stepped back, looked at the line of our heads, and smiled. “Perfect,” she said. “Now you all match again.”
It didn’t seem dangerous back then — just strange. We looked like catalog models for a family that didn’t exist. But when we got older, matching became more than an obsession. It became survival.
By the time I was twelve, the kitchen had turned into a laboratory of symmetry. Mom tracked our weights with a scale, our hair lengths with measuring tape, even our teeth with old dental molds she kept in a box labeled Uniform Progress.
If someone gained or lost a pound, the rest of us had to catch up.
When Violet hit puberty early, everything changed. I remember her crying in the bathroom because her body was growing faster than ours. She didn’t want to tell Mom, but Mom noticed anyway.
“You can’t ruin the image,” Mom said, her voice almost trembling as she wrapped Violet’s chest tight with Ace bandages. “You have to match your sisters. You’ll thank me one day.”
She didn’t.
Violet fainted in gym class a week later.
When the school nurse called, Mom said Violet just “got overheated.” The next morning, she made all of us wear bandages, too.
To balance things.
The dye came next. Our natural hair colors varied — Violet’s was deep chestnut, mine a shade lighter, Hazel had golden streaks, and Ruby’s was soft auburn. But “different” wasn’t allowed. Every two weeks, Mom bleached and dyed us the same ash brown tone. The chemicals burned, and scabs formed across our scalps. Hazel cried until her lips trembled.
Mom said pain meant perfection.
Dad didn’t intervene. He watched, detached, like someone observing an experiment he didn’t understand. Sometimes he helped — measuring, photographing, documenting our appearances as if recording data. “For your own good,” he said.
We weren’t individuals. We were variables.
Ruby’s voice stayed high while ours deepened. Mom noticed. She gave Ruby a metronome and made her speak lower, again and again, until she lost her voice completely for nearly a month. I still remember the silence that followed, how Ruby’s mouth would open without sound, her eyes wide, desperate.
Mom told her, “See what happens when you resist improvement?”
Everything had to match. Clothes, smiles, even interests. When Violet said she hated sports, I had to quit soccer, even though it was the only thing that made me feel free. Ruby was gifted at violin — the only one with real talent — but Mom forced her to stop. It wasn’t fair that one sister stood out.
“Talent divides families,” she said.
By the time I hit eleven, my body betrayed me again. I got my period before the others. I hid it for two years, using toilet paper instead of pads, terrified Mom would find out. I remember sitting in math class, feeling the warmth of blood soak through my jeans, and forcing a smile when my teacher asked if I was okay.
I wasn’t.
Hazel grew five inches one summer. Dad made her slouch until her spine curved unnaturally, muttering, “You can’t ruin the photo line.” Ruby was small, too small, so they stuffed her shoes with lifts that made her ankles swell.
Then our faces started to change. Violet’s nose broadened, Hazel’s cheekbones sharpened, Ruby’s eyes stayed rounder. We were becoming individuals despite their control.
Mom panicked. She found “face-shaping masks” online, made us sleep in them every night, tight straps pressing against our temples. She said they’d “guide our bones.” We woke up with headaches and red lines across our faces.
At fifteen, I tried to run.
I made it to the bus station with fifty dollars and my school ID. I was shaking, terrified, but certain I couldn’t live like that anymore. I called a friend from a payphone, told her I was coming over.
Then I felt a hand on my shoulder.
Dad.
He didn’t speak on the ride home. Just stared at the road while the dashboard clock ticked. When we got back, the locks were already installed. On the outside of our bedroom doors.
We were prisoners.
Cameras appeared next. One in the hallway, one in the kitchen, one in each bedroom corner. We had to “check in” every hour during the day. If one of us took too long in the bathroom, Mom would pound on the door screaming, “You think you can hide your differences from me?”
She withdrew us from public school and started homeschooling. No more teachers. No more outsiders. Just lessons about conformity, control, and “family unity.”
That was the year she found the doctor.
He was from Tijuana — someone who’d lost his medical license in the States but still operated privately. His name was Dr. Castillo. He came to our house once, examined us like property, and took notes while Mom spoke about “corrections.”
He talked about measurements, angles, symmetry ratios. He said he could “adjust” our faces — Violet’s nose narrower, Ruby’s wider, Hazel’s cheekbones shaved down, my ears pinned. He could even alter our hairlines. “Surgical harmony,” he called it.
Mom looked euphoric. Dad wrote him a check for $20,000 that same day.
The surgery was scheduled for two weeks after my sixteenth birthday.
I remember Violet sitting on the edge of her bed that night, whispering, “I can’t do it. I can’t let them cut us.”
She meant it.
A week before we were supposed to leave, she swallowed a full bottle of sleeping pills.
She survived. But at the hospital, when the doctors saw the bruises and the binding scars, questions started. Mom told them Violet had “body dysmorphia.” Dad nodded, saying she was “mentally fragile.”
And somehow, they believed them.
Our parents used Violet’s suicide attempt as justification. “She’s broken because she isn’t perfect,” Mom told us. “This will fix her. Fix all of you.”
They moved the surgery up. Three days. No time for the hospital to investigate.
The night before we were set to leave, Mom handed us all white pills. “To help you rest,” she said.
I didn’t swallow mine. I hid it under my tongue, spat it out when she turned away. I lay awake listening to my sisters’ breathing — slow, uneven, fading. My heart pounded so loud I thought it would wake them.
At 3:45 a.m., the van pulled into our driveway. Headlights cut across the blinds.
Dad carried Violet first, limp in his arms. Then Ruby. Then Hazel. He came back for me last. I went limp, pretending to sleep. My mind screamed run but my body froze.
As he lifted me, I felt the cold air hit my face. Then a sharp prick at my neck.
Mom stood beside the van, a syringe in her hand, smiling.
“Did you really think we’d trust the pills alone?” she said softly. “You’re not like them, but you will be.”
The world blurred. My body went heavy, but my mind didn’t fade completely. I stayed half-conscious as they loaded me next to my sisters. The hum of the van engine vibrated under me. I heard Mom rehearsing her story aloud — “special arts camp in Mexico” — over and over.
Dad corrected her about the flight details. She snapped at him to “get it right or we’ll lose everything.”
I counted highway signs through half-open eyes. Exit 9. Exit 11. Exit 13.
Then the airport lights appeared.
Dad parked near the terminal drop-off and started unloading us like luggage — arranging our bodies on a cart, fixing our matching pink hoodies, smoothing our hair. Passersby looked, then quickly looked away. No one asked.
Inside the terminal, the fluorescent lights felt like fire behind my eyelids. Mom wheeled us toward the counter. The airline agent’s voice broke through the fog, asking for passports. I heard the hesitation in her tone — something was off. She called her supervisor.
They both stared. Whispered. Pointed.
A flicker of hope lit in my chest.
The supervisor leaned closer to me, her face inches away, checking for breath. I forced one tear to slide down my cheek.
Her eyes widened.
She straightened fast, picked up the phone, called for security.
Within minutes, Officer Hayes appeared. His voice was calm but firm as he questioned my parents. They smiled, rehearsed, perfect. “They’re nervous travelers,” Dad said smoothly. “We gave them something mild to help them sleep.”
Hayes knelt beside me. His hand brushed mine gently. “If you can hear me,” he whispered, “squeeze my thumb.”
I focused every last ounce of strength into that one motion. My fingers twitched, barely — but he felt it.
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When I was six and my youngest sister was barely two, my parents started forcing us to match perfectly. Same weight, same haircuts tracked with a ruler, same clothes, even though we were different ages and sizes. Every morning, we’d line up while mom measured our hair.
And if someone’s was even a tiny bit longer, she’d cut it right there. The matching got dangerous once we hit puberty. Our sister Violet developed early, and mom wrapped her chest so tight with Ace bandages that she passed out in gym class. Then mom stuffed the rest of us with padded bras so we’d match. We had to dye our hair the same shade every two weeks and the chemicals burned our scalps so bad we had scabs.
Then Ruby’s voice stayed high while ours got deeper. So she had to practice talking lower until she lost her voice completely for a month. Teachers couldn’t tell us apart and we weren’t allowed to correct them. I wanted to try out for soccer but Violet hated sports and if one of us did something, we all had to. Ruby was amazing at violin but had to quit because the rest of us sucked and it made us different.
I got my period at 11 and had to hide it for 2 years until Violet got hers. Using wadded up toilet paper because asking for pads would reveal we weren’t developing identically. The shame of bleeding through my pants in class while pretending nothing was wrong still makes me sick. Our bodies kept growing differently because that’s what bodies do.
Hazel shot up 5 in one summer and dad made her slouch constantly until her spine got messed up. Ruby stayed tiny so they put huge lifts in her shoes that made her ankles swell. Then our faces started changing. Violet’s nose got wider. Hazel developed sharp cheekbones. Ruby’s eyes stayed rounder than ours. Our parents tried everything from face exercises to sleeping in masks that were supposed to reshape our bones.
When I turned 15, I tried to run away. I made it to the bus station before they caught me. And after that, they installed locks on our bedroom doors that only locked from the outside. They put cameras in every room and made us check in every hour we were awake. If one of us went to the bathroom too long, mom would bang on the door screaming about secret individuality.
They pulled us all out of regular school and started homeschooling so nobody could corrupt us with ideas about being different people. I felt like I was drowning in sameness, losing track of where I ended and my sisters began. That’s when they found a doctor who lost his license in America but still operated in Mexico.
He examined us like livestock, taking measurements while talking about fixing us. He’d shave down Hazel’s cheekbones, widen Ruby’s nose, narrow violets, pin back my ears to match Rubies. He’d even alter our hairlines and lips to be exactly identical. My parents paid him $20,000 upfront and scheduled everything for 2 weeks after my 16th birthday.
A week before we were supposed to leave for Mexico, Violet tried to end her life by swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills. She survived, but the hospital asked questions about the scars on her chest from years of binding. Our parents lied and said she did it to herself because she had body image issues.
They used it as proof we needed the surgeries to be happy. They moved up our surgery date to 3 days later before any social workers could investigate. Mom packed while dad lectured us about how Violet’s selfishness was just fear of becoming perfect. They’d already told everyone we were going to a special camp.
The van to the airport was coming at 4:00 a.m. That night, they made us take sleeping pills so we wouldn’t try running. I pretended to swallow mine but spit it out when mom looked away. I stayed awake listening to my sister’s breathing, knowing that in 12 hours we’d be in surgery. Mom had shown us the final plan, and it included things she hadn’t mentioned before, like removing ribs to make our torsos identical and altering our vocal cords to match our voices permanently.
At 3:45 a.m., the van pulled up. They carried my drugged sisters out one by one while I pretended to be asleep. As dad lifted me, I stayed limp, waiting for my chance to run once we got outside. My heart was beating so loud, I was sure he’d notice. But as he reached the van, I felt something sharp prick my neck.
Mom stood there with a syringe, smiling. Did you really think we’d trust the pills alone? She asked as my vision blurred. We’ve been planning this for years. The drugs hit fast and my body went truly limp as they loaded me in next to my sisters. The last thing I saw was the airport sign as we merged onto the highway.
Knowing that none of us would wake up from those surgeries as ourselves, except the drugs didn’t knock me out completely. My body went limp like mom wanted, but my brain stayed awake enough to know what was happening. I kept my eyes almost closed, just tiny slits so I could see the dashboard lights and the dark road passing by.
Mom sat in the passenger seat running through their story out loud, practicing how she’d tell airport staff we were going to a special arts camp in Mexico. Dad corrected her twice about which city we were flying into, and she snapped at him to get it right because one wrong detail could ruin everything. My sisters breathed slow and heavy next to me.
Actually knocked out by whatever pills they took. The van smelled like the vanilla air freshener mom always used and that chemical smell from the hair dye we’d used two days ago. I counted the exit signs we passed, trying to stay focused and not let the drugs pull me under. Exit 7, exit 9, exit 11.
My heart beat so hard I worried they’d hear it in the quiet van. Dad merged onto the airport exit ramp and the big blue sign with the airplane symbol lit up in our headlights. This was it. This was actually happening unless someone at the airport noticed something was wrong with four unconscious teenage girls. Dad pulled into the departure dropoff lane where all the other early morning travelers were unloading their bags.
He got out and opened the van sliding door and cold air rushed in, making me want to shiver, but I forced myself to stay completely still. He grabbed a luggage cart from the rack nearby and wheeled it over. I felt his hands under my arms as he lifted me out and placed me on the metal cart, my head loling to the side.
He loaded Violet next to me, then Ruby, then Hazel, arranging us like we were cargo instead of people. Mom came around and started fussing with our matching pink hoodies, zipping mine up higher and smoothing down Hazel’s hair. She pulled at Ruby’s sleeve to make it match the others exactly, muttering about how we needed to look perfect even now.
Through my barely open eyes, I saw other people walking past with their rolling suitcases. A woman in a business suit stared at us for a long moment, her face confused. A man with two kids slowed down to look, but then they all kept walking, pulling their bags toward the terminal doors. Nobody stopped. Nobody asked questions.
They just looked away like we were something uncomfortable they didn’t want to deal with. Mom pushed the cart through the automatic doors into the terminal, and the bright fluorescent lights hit my closed eyelids like knives. The sudden brightness made my eyes water, but I couldn’t wipe the tears away. I heard the echo of announcements bouncing off the high ceilings.
Something about unattended bags and security alerts. The wheels of the cart squeakaked on the shiny floor. Dad walked next to us carrying our four passports and a folder with all the Mexico paperwork. My head bounced slightly with each push of the cart, and I had to concentrate hard on keeping my body limp and my breathing steady.
The terminal was mostly empty this early in the morning. Just a few tired travelers scattered around. We passed a coffee shop that wasn’t open yet, and a closed gift shop with its metal gate pulled down. The overhead lights were so bright they hurt even through my eyelids. Mom’s shoes clicked on the floor in that fast rhythm that meant she was nervous.
She was pushing the cart faster now, heading toward the international check-in counters at the far end of the terminal. The airline agent looked up from her computer screen as we approached. I could see her through my eyelashes. A woman maybe in her 30s with her hair pulled back in a bun. She glanced at her screen, then at us, then back at her screen.
Her eyebrows pulled together and she tilted her head slightly. She typed something on her keyboard and her frown got deeper. She picked up her phone and made a quick call and within a minute another agent in a supervisor vest came over. They had a quiet conversation while looking at us and the supervisor pointed at something on the computer screen.
The first agent nodded and gestured toward us on the cart. I felt a tiny spark of hope flicker in my chest. Someone was noticing. Someone was seeing that something was wrong with four identical teenage girls who weren’t moving or responding. The supervisor leaned closer to get a better look at us, and I saw her mouth move in a question to my parents.
I knew this was my chance. I forced my eyes to focus, even though the drugs made everything blurry. The agent leaned down closer to check if we were breathing. Her face coming into clear view just inches from mine. I gathered every bit of control I had left and let one single tear slide down my cheek. It rolled slow and obvious down to my jaw.
Her eyes went wide and she jerked back fast, her hand reaching for the phone on the counter. She said something sharp to the supervisor and pointed right at my face. The supervisor’s expression changed completely and she grabbed the phone too. Mom started talking in that sweet voice, explaining something, but the agents weren’t listening anymore.
They were making calls and looking at us with concern and alarm instead of just mild confusion. 3 minutes later, an airport police officer walked up fast, his hand resting on his belt. He was tall and black with kind eyes that looked at us first before turning to my parents. His name tag said Hayes, and he pulled out a small notebook.
He asked my parents why four teenagers were completely unresponsive at 4 in the morning. Dad launched into the story they’d practiced, his voice smooth and reasonable. He explained we were anxious flyers who got nervous about traveling. He said mom had given us some medication to help us rest for the flight. He smiled that charming smile he used with teachers and doctors, the one that usually made people trust him and stop asking questions.
Mom jumped in with more details, her voice sweet and concerned like she was the most caring mother in the world. She talked about the special arts camp in Mexico we were attending. She said we’d been so excited we couldn’t sleep for days. She explained how she’d given us something mild and safe to help us rest for the long flight.
She used words like responsible parenting and their best interests and just want them to be comfortable. She was using that exact tone she’d used with the hospital staff. When Violet tried to die, the voice that made her sound like a devoted mom who only wanted to help her daughters, the voice that usually worked on everyone. Officer Hayes crouched down next to the cart, his face level with mine.
He gently lifted my hand in his, his skin warm against my cold fingers. He spoke quietly, just loud enough for me to hear. He said if I could hear him, squeeze his thumb. I gathered every bit of strength I had left in my drugged body. I focused all my energy on my hand. I squeezed as hard as I could, which wasn’t very hard because of whatever mom injected in my neck, but I squeezed.
His whole body went completely still. His eyes locked on my face and his grip on my hand tightened slightly. He’d felt it. He knew I was conscious. He knew something was very wrong here. Hayes stood up fast and pulled the radio from his belt. He called for EMS in a voice that was calm but urgent. He told my parents nobody was boarding any plane until medical personnel checked us out.
Within 2 minutes, two paramedics rushed over with their equipment bags. They started checking our vital signs, one taking my pulse while the other checked Violet. The first paramedic lifted my eyelid and shined a light in my eye, then did the same to Ruby. He said something to his partner about our pupils being way too small.
The second paramedic checked our breathing with a stethoscope and said it was too shallow for normal sleep. They looked at each other and then at Officer Hayes with expressions that said this wasn’t right. Mom’s voice got higher and tighter. She insisted we were fine and we were going to miss our flight.
She said they were making a big deal out of nothing. She kept talking about the camp and how we’d be late and how this was all unnecessary. Dad put his hand on her arm, probably trying to signal her to calm down, but I could see the panic starting to crack through their perfect parent act. Mom’s sweet voice had an edge to it now.
Dad’s smile looked forced and tight. The paramedics kept checking us and talking to Officer Hayes, and I knew our parents could feel control slipping away from them for the first time in years. The first paramedic leaned closer to check my pulse again, and his fingers brushed against my neck where mom had stuck the needle.
He froze for a second, then gently turned my head to get a better look. His partner came over fast, and they both stared at the small red mark with the tiny bit of blood still fresh on my skin. The first one pulled out his radio and called for his supervisor, while the second paramedic moved to check Violet. He found the same mark on her neck in the exact same spot.
Then he checked Ruby and found another one, then Hazel. All four of us had identical injection sites that were still red and fresh. The supervisor’s voice crackled back over the radio, asking for details. And the first paramedic said something about multiple minors with signs of forced sedation and possible non-voluntary medication.
He looked straight at Officer Hayes and said, “This didn’t look like anxiety medication given by a parent. This looked like someone deliberately drugging kids who didn’t want to be drugged.” Hayes wrote something in his notebook and his jaw got tight. He walked over to where my parents were standing together near the check-in counter and asked Dad to step aside with him to verify our identification documents.
Dad’s face showed surprise, but he followed Hayes a few feet away while another officer moved closer to mom. Hayes pulled out his own notebook and started asking Dad questions about our trip. Where exactly in Mexico were we going? What city? What was the name of the facility? Dad answered quickly, saying we were going to a camp in Tijuana.
Hayes wrote it down, then walked back to mom and asked her the same questions. She said we were going to Mexalei for a special program. Hayes looked down at his notebook where he’d written both answers and his eyebrows went up. He asked mom again to confirm the city name and she said Mexali. Definitely Mexalei. He showed her what dad had said and her face went white.
She started talking fast about how they were both right. The program had locations in both cities. They were just confused about which facility we’d be starting at first. But Hayes kept writing and his expression said he didn’t believe her at all. He pulled out an evidence camera from his belt and came back over to where I was lying on the cart.
He took several photos of the injection mark on my neck from different angles, the flash bright even through my closed eyelids. Then he photographed the marks on all my sisters. He stepped away and spoke into his radio using codes I didn’t understand. But I heard the word trafficking twice and something about possible abuse codes.
Mom heard it too because she started crying immediately. But these weren’t sad tears or scared tears. Her face was angry and her voice was high and tight when she said they were being ridiculous. We were just a family trying to take a trip. How dare they suggest something so horrible? The tears were running down her face, but her eyes looked mad, not sad.
A woman in a gray pants suit came walking fast across the terminal toward us. She had a badge clipped to her belt and a phone pressed to her ear. She finished her call and introduced herself to Hayes as Christina Owens from CPS on call. She said she’d gotten the alert about our case and she needed to tell him something important.
There was already an open report from two weeks ago when Violet was in the hospital. The hospital had flagged concerns about injuries on her chest from binding materials, and they’d wanted to do a full evaluation, but our parents had removed Violet from the hospital before the social worker could finish the assessment.
Christina said the case had been assigned to a worker who was trying to schedule a home visit, but now here we were at the airport about to leave the country. Hayes showed her the photos of our injection marks and the notes about our parents giving different city names. Christina looked at the photos for a long time, then looked at my parents, then back at Hayes.
The airline supervisor came over and said our boarding was officially denied. We would need full medical clearance before any travel would be approved and that clearance would have to come from the airport medical staff and CPS. Hayes and Christina started walking toward the airport medical clinic and told our parents to follow with us.
Dad immediately started arguing about our rights and how they couldn’t force us to go anywhere. Mom was still crying and saying they were being persecuted for their parenting choices, but Hayes just kept walking and gestured for the paramedics to bring us along. Dad and mom had to follow or be left behind. We got halfway across the terminal when dad suddenly grabbed mom’s arm and they both turned toward the parking garage.
Hayes saw it and moved fast to block their path. He said very clearly that if they attempted to leave with us or interfere with medical evaluation, they would be detained immediately. Dad’s face went bright red and he started yelling about false imprisonment and illegal detention. But two more officers appeared from somewhere and stood on either side of Hayes.
Dad stopped yelling and his mouth snapped shut. Mom kept crying, but she didn’t try to leave again. The airport clinic was small and bright with white walls and the smell of cleaning chemicals. A nurse in blue scrubs met us at the door and directed the paramedics to wheel us into separate curtained areas.
Another woman came in wearing the same blue scrubs with a badge that said her name was Albina Maher and she was a forensic nurse. She started with me pulling the curtain closed around my exam area. She spoke softly, asking if I could hear her, explaining what she was going to do. She checked my vital signs first, then gently lifted my shirt to examine my torso.
Her hand stopped moving when she saw the scars across my chest. Long red lines where the binding materials Violet had to wear had rubbed against my skin, too. When mom made me wear the same things to match her, Albina’s face stayed calm, but her eyes got sad. She pulled my shirt back down and then carefully parted my hair to look at my scalp.
She found the chemical burns from years of hair dye, the places where the skin was still rough and damaged. She took photos of everything with a medical camera, documenting each injury carefully. I heard her moving to the next curtained area to examine one of my sisters. Christina Owens pushed aside my curtain and came in.
She pulled a chair close to the exam table and sat down so her face was level with mine. She explained very gently that she was starting emergency protective custody proceedings. That meant we wouldn’t be going home with our parents today. We’d be staying somewhere safe while the investigation happened. The relief hit me so hard my whole body started shaking. I couldn’t control it.
Just trembling all over like I was freezing even though the room was warm. Albina came back in and wrapped a warm blanket around my shoulders, tucking it in carefully. Through the curtain, I heard mom’s voice, sweet and concerned, talking to Christina. She was telling stories about how dedicated she was to us, how she just wanted us to reach our full potential, how she’d sacrificed everything to help us become the best versions of ourselves.
Christina’s voice came back calm and professional. She said the medical evidence spoke for itself. The injection marks, the binding scars, the chemical burns, the custody decision wasn’t negotiable right now. Mom’s voice got higher, more desperate, but Christina didn’t change her tone at all.
Two nurses came in with wheelchairs and started getting us ready to transport to the main hospital for full evaluations. They wheeled us out one by one through different doors. I ended up in a hospital room by myself. The door closed and suddenly I was alone in a space without my sisters right next to me. For the first time since I was 6 years old, I was in a room by myself.
The space felt huge and empty and wrong. The silence was so loud it hurt my ears. I almost called out for them, almost yelled their names to make sure they were still close. But then I remembered that this separation, this awful lonely feeling, might actually be what saves us.
So I stayed quiet and let the space stay empty around me. A soft knock pulled me back from the empty feeling, and Alena came through the door carrying a large black camera with a flash attachment. She asked if it was okay to take pictures of my injuries for the court case, and I nodded because showing proof felt like the only power I had left.
She started with my scalp, gently parting sections of my hair to photograph the rough patches where years of chemical dye had burned the skin until it scarred over. The camera clicked and flashed as she moved methodically, documenting each area of damage with the same careful attention she’d used during the initial exam. She asked me to lift my shirt and photograph the red lines across my ribs where the binding materials had rubbed my skin raw, even though I wasn’t the one who needed binding.
Each flash felt like it was freezing the evidence in place, making it real and permanent in a way that scared me, but also made me feel. Albina moved to photograph my arms next, capturing the bruises from where dad had grabbed me when he carried me to the van, then the injection site on my neck that was already turning purple.
She thanked me quietly when she finished and said these photos would help keep us safe. Christina came in right after Albina left, pulling the chair close to my bed again and asking if I felt ready to talk about what happened. I tried to explain about the surgery plans and the Mexican doctor, but the sedative was still making everything fuzzy and my words came out wrong and slow.
I got frustrated trying to make my mouth work right, trying to tell her about the rib removal and the vocal cord changes, but the sentences kept falling apart halfway through. Christina reached over and squeezed my hand gently, telling me it was okay, and we could talk more when the drugs wore off completely.
She stayed sitting there even though I couldn’t talk right, just being present while I struggled through the fog. Outside my door, I heard mom’s voice getting louder, demanding to see me and insisting she had a right to be present for any interviews. Dad’s voice joined hers, angry and sharp, and the sound of it made my chest go tight with an old fear that lived in my bones.
Hospital security must have been blocking the door because I heard a calm male voice explaining that only authorized personnel were allowed in patient rooms right now. Dad started yelling about his rights as a parent and how this was illegal detention. His voice rising to that dangerous pitch that used to make us all freeze.
The security guard’s voice stayed level and firm, not moving from his position, and I realized he wasn’t scared of Dad at all. Christina looked toward the door and then back at me, asking if I felt safe with the guard there. And I nodded, even though hearing Dad’s anger through the door made me want to hide under the bed.
Hayes appeared in my doorway about 20 minutes later, nodding to the security guard before coming in to talk to Christina. He said he’d secured warrants to search our house for the bedroom door locks, the surveillance cameras, and any other evidence of what our parents were planning. The judge had signed off in less than an hour once he saw the photos of our injection marks and heard about the Mexico trip.
Christina asked about timeline and Hayes said his team was executing the search warrant right now, collecting the cameras and the locks and mom’s measurement logs. I felt this weird mix of relief and guilt knowing strangers were going through our house and documenting all the ways our parents had controlled us. A nurse suddenly rushed past my door fast, almost running, and I heard her calling out a code for a psychiatric emergency.
My heart stopped completely because I knew that code was for Violet’s room and she’d already tried to die once and now we were separated and she was alone with her fear. I tried to sit up, but Christina put a gentle hand on my shoulder and told me to stay put, that Violet had a whole team with her and they knew what they were doing.
I lay back down, but my whole body was shaking. Terrified that Violet had found another way to escape. And this time, nobody would catch it in time. Christina left to check on what was happening, and I was alone again with just the sound of people moving quickly down the hall and the beeping of my monitors.
Albina came back about 30 minutes later looking pale and shaken, sitting down heavily in the chair next to my bed. She explained very carefully exactly what procedures the Mexican doctor had been planning to do to us, using clinical words that made it sound like a medical textbook. Facial bone reduction to shave down Hazel’s cheekbones and reshape our faces to match.
Rib resection to remove ribs and make our torsos the same size and shape. Vocal cord modification to alter the pitch and tone of our voices so we’d sound identical. She listed each procedure with its medical name and its risks. and hearing it all laid out like a chart of planned surgeries made my stomach turn over hard. I asked if Violet was okay and Albina said she was stable now that it had been a panic attack, not another attempt, but they were moving her to a more secure unit for better monitoring.
Christina returned carrying a folder full of papers and sat down to show me printouts of emails between mom and the Mexican clinic. Her digital forensics team had pulled everything from our parents’ phones with the search warrant. The emails included detailed measurements of each of our faces and bodies with notes in mom’s handwriting about which features needed to be corrected to achieve perfect matching.
I saw my own measurements listed there, my nose width and ear angle and jaw shape, all marked as needing adjustment. There were photos attached showing each of our faces from multiple angles with lines drawn on them marking where the doctor would cut. Christina asked if I recognized the clinic name and I told her yes.
I’d seen it on paperwork at home when mom was organizing the trip. She immediately pulled out her phone and called someone about international medical licensing and crossber patient safety alerts. Her voice urgent and professional. She squeezed my hand while she talked and said I just helped protect other kids who might have been taken there.
That the clinic would be flagged and investigated. Now, the weight of that felt huge, knowing other families existed who might do the same thing our parents tried. Christina explained that a court hearing was scheduled for this afternoon to determine temporary custody and a lawyer named Bridget Ainsworth had been appointed as our guardian adletum to represent what was best for us.
I didn’t fully understand what guardian adm meant but Christina said it was someone whose only job was to figure out what we actually needed and tell the judge. She said Bridg would probably come talk to me before the hearing to get my input. I felt overwhelmed by all these new people and systems and legal terms, but at least they were asking what we needed instead of just deciding for us like our parents always did.
I lay there trying to process everything when I heard a faint sound through the air vent near the ceiling. A whisper that sounded like my name. I held my breath and listened harder and heard it again. Ruby’s voice and damaged, but definitely hers. Whispering my name through the connected ventilation system.
I whispered back and we figured out we could hear each other through the vents if we talked quietly. We couldn’t have a real conversation, but we started tapping simple patterns on the wall between our rooms. Three taps for I’m here and two taps for I’m scared and four taps for I love you. We kept tapping back and forth. this basic communication that felt like a lifeline, proving we were still connected even though we were in separate rooms for the first time in 10 years.
A nurse knocked and came in carrying a plastic bag with my name on it. She pulled out my phone and handed it to me, explaining they’d gotten it from the things dad was carrying when he was separated from us at the airport. I turned it on and saw 17 missed calls from mom’s number and three voicemails. The most recent one was from dad’s phone.
I pressed play and heard his voice tight and angry, telling me this was all my fault for being ungrateful and tearing the family apart when they were just trying to make us special. He said we could have been perfect together, that we could have been something amazing that nobody else in the world was. And I threw it away by causing a scene at the airport.
The guilt hit my stomach like a fist, hot and sharp, making me feel sick. But then I touched the injection mark on my neck, still sore and slightly swollen, and thought about the surgery plans with the rib removal and vocal cord changes. The guilt cooled down fast, turning into something clearer and harder.
They weren’t trying to make us special. They were trying to make us the same, and there’s a huge difference between those two things. Christina came back a few hours later carrying a plain spiral notebook and a pen. She sat down next to my bed and explained she wanted me to write down what happened in my own words, just for my own record that nobody else had to see unless I wanted them to.
She said it might help me process everything, and it would also be there if I ever needed to remember details later. I took the notebook and started writing, beginning with the morning they told us about the Mexico trip. But as I wrote, I noticed I kept using we and us for everything, like we were one person instead of four.
We felt scared. We didn’t want to go. We tried to hide. I stopped and stared at the words, realizing I’d lost track of where I ended and my sisters began. Christina noticed me staring and asked what was wrong. I showed her the page and she nodded slowly, then suggested I try rewriting it using I and my own name.
It felt strange and wrong at first, like I was lying by claiming experiences as only mine. But I forced myself to do it. I felt scared. I didn’t want to go. I tried to hide. Seeing my individual experience written out separately for the first time made my chest feel tight, but also somehow lighter.
That evening, Christina came back looking concerned, holding her phone. She showed me a local news website that had posted a brief story about an incident at the airport involving possible child endangerment. The article didn’t use our names or give many details, just said four minors were taken into protective custody after concerning circumstances at the international terminal, even though they kept us anonymous.
Fear shot through me, thinking someone might figure out it was us. Our neighbors knew we were supposed to be going on a trip. Kids from our old school might remember us. What if people started talking and sharing the story and eventually someone connected it to our family? Christina must have seen the panic on my face because she sat down and explained very clearly that juvenile cases are sealed by law.
Our identities are protected and the news outlets aren’t allowed to publish information that could identify us. She promised me over and over that we were safe from exposure. But the fear still sat heavy in my chest like a weight I couldn’t shift. Christina spent the next several hours on her phone and I could hear her through the door talking to different people about foster placements.
Most homes aren’t set up to take four teenage girls all at once. Some had space for two, others could take three. But nobody had room for all four of us together. The possibility of being split up after everything we’d been through made me feel physically sick. We’d been forced to be identical for 10 years.
And now that we finally had a chance to be separate people, we might actually get separated for real. I wanted to be my own person, but I didn’t want to lose my sisters completely. Christina came back into my room later and promised she was still trying to find a placement that could keep us together, but I could tell from her face that it wasn’t looking good.
The next morning, Hayes and his team executed the search warrant on our house. Christina showed me photos. They texted her as they went through each room, documenting everything. They found the locks on our bedroom doors that only opened from the outside, installed so we couldn’t get out at night. They found cameras in every single room, including the bathroom, all feeding to monitors in our parents’ bedroom so they could watch us constantly.
They found mom’s detailed logs going back years, tracking our hair measurements down to the millimeter with notes about who needed cutting. They found the ACE bandages she used to bind Violet’s chest and the padded bras she made the rest of us wear to match. They found the notebook with our class schedules from when we were still in regular school, the one mom had sent to the Mexican doctor, so he could plan the surgery timing.
Hayes and his team took photos of everything and loaded it all into evidence bags. Christina said the amount of documentation they found was actually helpful for the case because it proved this wasn’t just strict parenting. It was planned and systematic control. While Hayes was searching the house, other investigators went door to door interviewing our neighbors.
Christina got copies of their statements and read some of them to me. Multiple neighbors confirmed they never saw us outside separately, always as a group moving together. One neighbor said we always wore matching outfits and walked in a line like little soldiers. Another mentioned we never played with other kids in the neighborhood.
The statement that made me angriest was from the woman who lived three houses down. She told the investigator she thought it was cute how coordinated we were, like we were a matched set or a synchronized swimming team. That word cute made me want to scream. Nobody questioned whether cute was actually control.
Nobody wondered if four teenage girls moving in perfect unison was maybe a sign something was wrong. They just thought it was charming and different and moved on with their day. Bridget Ainsworth came to meet me in the afternoon. She was a woman probably in her 50s with gray hair pulled back and direct eyes that looked at me like she actually wanted to hear what I had to say.
She introduced herself as my guardian admitt and explained that meant her job was to figure out what was actually best for me and my sisters, then tell the judge. She pulled a chair close to my bed and asked me a question nobody else had asked yet. She wanted to know what I actually wanted to happen, not what I thought I was supposed to say or what would make adults happy.
I thought about it for a long time before answering. I told her I wanted to feel safe and I wanted my sisters to be safe. I didn’t want to punish my parents as much as I just wanted them to stop. I wanted them to understand that what they did was wrong, but I didn’t know if that was possible. Bridget wrote down everything I said without judging or trying to convince me to feel differently.
She said my feelings were valid, even if they were complicated, and it was okay to want safety without wanting revenge. The emergency custody hearing happened that afternoon in a small courtroom that felt more like a conference room. Just the judge behind his desk, lawyers on both sides, Christina, Bridg, and my parents with their attorney.
I wasn’t required to be there since it was just about temporary custody, not the full case. Christina recorded it on her phone so I could hear what happened later if I wanted. My parents lawyer spent most of his time arguing that CPS was persecuting a family for their homeschooling choices and traditional values.
He kept saying things about religious freedom and parental rights, trying to make this about belief systems instead of what my parents actually did to us. He claimed the airport incident was a misunderstanding, that we’d voluntarily taken medication, and my parents were being responsible by monitoring us. He said the planned procedures in Mexico were cosmetic choices that lots of families make, like braces or acne treatment.
Listening to him twist everything made me feel crazy, like he was describing a completely different reality than the one I lived. The judge let the lawyer finish, then started going through the evidence. He looked at the photos of our injuries, the binding scars and chemical burns and injection marks.
He read the emails about the surgery plans out loud, including the parts about rib removal and vocal cord alteration. He listened to Albina’s testimony about the serious medical risks we were facing, how some of the planned procedures could have caused permanent damage or even death. When he finally spoke, his voice was firm and clear.
He ordered us removed from our parents custody temporarily, said they could only have supervised visitation at approved facilities, and scheduled a full hearing for 3 weeks later. I listened to the recording in my hospital bed and felt like I could breathe a little easier. But I also felt guilty for the relief, like being glad to be away from my parents made me a bad daughter, even though they’d literally drugged us and planned to surgically alter our bodies without real consent.
Christina came to my room after the hearing, looking tired but determined. She sat down and explained the placement situation honestly. She’d found a foster home that could take three of us together, but not four. She asked if one of us would be willing to go to a separate foster home so the other three could stay together since that was the best option available right now.
I volunteered immediately. The words coming out before I even thought about them. I was the oldest. I was the one who got us into this by getting caught pretending to sleep instead of staying unconscious like my sisters. I should be the one to sacrifice. Christina looked at me for a long moment, then asked if I was sure or if I was just doing what I thought I was supposed to do.
I told her I was sure, even though I wasn’t completely, because somebody had to make the choice, and it should be me. That night, Christina drives me to a foster home about 20 minutes away in a neighborhood with trees lining the streets and houses that all look different from each other. A couple in their 60s opens the door and introduces themselves, but I’m so tired, I barely register their names.
They show me to a small bedroom on the second floor with pale blue walls and a window that looks out at the backyard. The woman opens the closet and shows me three different sets of pajamas hanging there, asking which one I want to wear tonight. I stare at them for a long time because I’ve never been asked to choose before.
And finally, I point to the middle one with small flowers on it. She smiles and leaves me alone to change, and I notice the door has a lock, but it only works from the inside. Nobody can lock me in. I sit on the bed after I change, and the house is so quiet. I can hear the clock ticking downstairs.
Without my sisters breathing nearby, the silence feels huge and wrong, like something important is missing. But it also feels lighter somehow, like I can breathe deeper without matching my breath to theirs. I lie down and pull the blanket up, and for the first time in years, I fall asleep without listening for mom’s footsteps in the hallway or checking if my sisters are still there.
The next morning, Christina picks me up and drives me to my first therapy appointment with a man named Ephraim Johnston, who has an office in a building downtown. He’s maybe 40 with a calm voice, and he doesn’t try to shake my hand when I come in, just gestures to a comfortable chair and sits down across from me.
He explains that we’re going to work on very small realistic goals. Things like getting through each day and starting to figure out who I am as a separate person. He doesn’t promise he’ll fix me or heal me or make everything better. Just says we’ll work on coping and surviving. That feels more honest than false hope would and I nod to show I understand.
He asks me what I’m feeling right now and I tell him I don’t know. Everything is too mixed up to separate. He says that’s okay and we’ll work on that too. Learning to tell one feeling from another. Later in the session, Christina joins us and they discuss school re-entry plans, talking about whether I should go back to regular school or continue homeschooling or try online classes.
I mention that I always wanted to try soccer but couldn’t because Violet hated sports and if one of us did something, we all had to. Ephraim writes this down in his notebook and says we can explore that, but he explains the timing might not be right yet while everything is so unstable with court dates and adjustments to foster care.
I feel disappointed, but I understand what he means. There’s too much chaos right now to add more new things. A few days later, Bridgette comes to visit me at the foster home and asks me to start keeping a journal of memories that are specifically mine, not shared experiences with my sisters. She wants me to document how our individual identities got suppressed.
Write down moments that belonged only to me. I sit with the blank notebook that night and try to think of memories that are just mine, but everything is tangled up with my sisters because we were forced to do everything together. I can’t remember the last time I did something alone or had a thought that was only my own.
I write this down and show Bridg the next time she visits. and she says that struggle itself is evidence of what our parents did to us. The fact that I can’t find individual memories proves how thoroughly they erased our separate selves. About a week after I start the journal, Christina calls with news about the Mexican clinic.
She tells me they got word that the clinic has either shut down or moved locations and the lead on the unlicensed doctor has gone cold. My stomach twists when she says this because it means he’s still out there somewhere doing this to other kids and I feel guilty even though I know it’s not my fault.
Bridg reminds me later that I’m 16 and stopping international medical criminals isn’t my responsibility, but the guilt sits heavy anyway. I keep thinking about other girls who might end up on that surgery table because we didn’t catch him in time. A week after the custody hearing, I’m scrolling through social media on my phone when I get a message request from an account I don’t recognize.
The profile picture is blank and the username is just random letters and numbers. I open it and the message says, “We can still fix you. We can still make you perfect. We love you.” I know immediately it’s from my parents violating the no contact order and my hands start shaking so bad I almost drop the phone.
I screenshot the message like Christina taught me to do and send it to her right away. Then I block the account and delete the message request. Christina calls me back within an hour and tells me she’s forwarding it to Hayes and the prosecutor. 2 days later, Christina calls again to tell me that Hayes traced the fake social media account back to dad’s work computer using the IP address.
He’s filing a motion for contempt of court since my parents violated the no contact order. Christina says, “This proves I was right to report it and that consequences are happening, which helps calm the panic that flared up when I first saw their message.” The next week, I have my first supervised visit with my sisters at a neutral visitation center, a plain building with meeting rooms and cameras everywhere.
As soon as we’re in the same room, we start arguing about whose fault this is and who should have done what differently. Violet says I should have stayed quiet and we’d all still be together, and I snap back that together meant drugged and heading for surgery. Ruby starts crying and saying she just wants everything to go back to normal.
and Hazel yells that there is no normal to go back to. The supervisor sits quietly and lets us work through it instead of shutting us down. And eventually, we’re all crying and hugging each other and admitting we’re scared and grieving even though we’re also safer. We hold on to each other for a long time.
And I realize this is the first time we’ve touched in weeks. The first time we’ve been close without being forced to match. A few days after that visit, Christina takes Hazel to an appointment with an orthopedic specialist who examines her back and takes X-rays. The doctor confirms that the forced slouching damaged her spine in ways that will require physical therapy and might cause chronic pain for the rest of her life.
Hazel sits in the car afterward looking angry and sad at the same time. And I don’t know how to help her accept that some of what our parents did can’t be undone. She keeps asking why they would do this to her, why they couldn’t just let her be tall, and I don’t have any answers that make sense.
The following week, Ruby sees an ENT doctor who looks at her throat and does tests on her voice. He diagnoses vocal nodules from the forced voice training and explains she’ll need months of vocal rest and therapy, and even then, her voice might never sound exactly the same as it did before. Ruby cries in the examination room because she was amazing at violin and singing, and now her voice might be permanently damaged.
I hold her hand while she grieves what was taken from her, and I think about how our parents stole so many things from us that we’ll never get back. Two days after Ruby’s ENT appointment, Christina calls to tell me Violet had another crisis at her foster home and they’re moving her to an inpatient psychiatric program where she can get more help.
I ask if I can visit her and Christina says not yet, but I can write letters. So, I start writing Violet every single day about completely normal stuff like how the weather is sunny or rainy, what I had for breakfast, what show I watched on TV. I tell her about the foster family’s cat who sits on my lap while I do homework, and how the neighbor’s dog barks at squirrels every morning.
I write about the little things because I want her to know there’s a regular world out here waiting for her when she’s ready to come back to it. I never mention mom or dad or the surgeries or any of the bad stuff. I just give her normal boring details that prove life can be simple and safe. A week later, Christina comes to my foster home and sits down at the kitchen table with me to explain that the prosecutor has formally filed criminal charges against me, charges against our parents for child neglect and endangerment. She shows me the
paperwork with all the official legal language and tells me the court process will take months, maybe even a year to work through the system. I feel this weird mix of relief that something’s actually happening and exhaustion because it’s not over yet, and guilt because they’re still my parents even though they hurt us.
Christina must see it on my face because she tells me to talk to Ephraim about it. At my next therapy session, I tell Ephraim about the charges and how I feel relieved and exhausted and guilty all at the same time, and he says that’s completely normal. He explains that having mixed feelings about people who hurt you doesn’t mean you’re weak or confused.
It just means you’re human and the situation is complicated. That helps a little bit, but the guilt still sits in my stomach like a rock. The following week, Bridget comes to the foster home and tells me we need to start preparing for the extended custody hearing where I might have to testify in front of the judge.
We sit in the living room and she asks me practice questions like, “Why didn’t you tell anyone sooner?” and “Why didn’t you just run away?” I try to answer calmly at first, but the questions make me so mad because they sound like she’s blaming me. My voice gets louder and I tell her I was scared and controlled and I did try to run away and they locked us in.
Bridg nods and says, “Good. That anger is good. I need to be able to access it to protect myself on the stand.” She explains that my parents lawyer will try to make me doubt myself and get confused, so I need to practice staying strong and clear even when I’m upset. We do the practice questions over and over until I can answer them without my voice shaking too much.
A few days later, Christina forwards me a legal document that my parents attorney filed with the court. I sit on my bed and read through it, and the words make me feel like I’m going crazy. Their lawyer argues that homeschooling rights and religious freedom protect their parenting choices. He’s trying to reframe everything they did to us as a family’s private educational and spiritual decisions.
The motion talks about parental authority and traditional values and family autonomy, like those words somehow make the chest binding and forced sedation. Okay, I read it three times and each time I feel more disconnected from reality because they’re describing a completely different world than the one I actually lived in.
It’s like they took all the facts and twisted them into something unrecognizable. I show the document to my foster mom and ask her if I’m the crazy one, if maybe I’m remembering wrong. She hugs me and says, “No, I’m not crazy.” And sometimes people in power use fancy words to hide ugly truths. That weekend, I’m unpacking a donated bag of clothes in my room, sorting through shirts and jeans that someone dropped off for me.
At the bottom of the bag, I find an old photograph that must have gotten mixed in by accident. I pull it out and my hands start shaking because it’s from before the matching started, from when I was maybe four or 5 years old. The photo shows four little girls who actually look like four different people. One has curly hair, one has straight hair, one is taller, one is smaller.
They’re wearing different colored shirts and smiling different smiles. I stare at my younger face in the picture and try to remember who that girl was, what she liked, what made her different from her sisters. But the memories are so faded and buried under years of forced sameness that I can barely find them. I put the photo in my nightstand drawer because looking at it hurts too much, but I also can’t throw it away.
3 weeks later, the extended custody hearing starts on a cold morning in February. Bridg picks me up early and we drive to the courthouse together. She reminds me to look at the judge when I talk, not at my parents, and to take my time answering questions. The courtroom is smaller than I expected with wood paneling and fluorescent lights that buzz quietly.
My parents sit at a table with their lawyer, and when I walk in, mom starts crying. I force myself to look away and focus on the judge’s desk. The baiff calls me to the witness stand, and I put my hand on the Bible and swear to tell the truth. My voice shakes when I start talking, but Bridgette was right. It gets steadier as I go.
I tell the judge about the surveillance cameras in every room, including the bathroom, about the chest binding that made Violet pass out, about the forced sedation the night before the airport. I describe the surgery plans and the Mexican clinic and the $20,000 my parents paid up front. I look at the judge’s face instead of at my parents and that helps me keep talking even when my throat gets tight.
When I finish my testimony, my parents lawyer stands up for cross-examination. He’s an older man in a gray suit and he smiles at me in a way that’s supposed to look kind but feels mean. He suggests that maybe I manipulated my sisters into being afraid that maybe I made up the surgery plans to get attention because I was jealous of their bond.
He says it in this smooth voice like he’s just asking reasonable questions. I feel anger flare hot in my chest and I remember what Bridgette taught me about using that anger. I look right at him and give him specific details. I tell him the clinic’s name was Centro Demotific in Tijuana. I tell him the exact amount was $20,000 paid by wire transfer on a specific date.
I list the exact procedures that were planned, the bone shaving and rib removal and vocal cord alteration. I watch his face change as he realizes I have way more concrete information than he expected. He tries a few more questions, but I counter each one with specific facts and dates, and eventually he sits down.
After a break, Albina Maher takes the stand as an expert witness. She’s wearing professional clothes, and her voice is calm and clinical as she describes the medical evidence. She explains the binding injuries on Violet’s chest, the chemical burns on all our scalps from the hair dye, the injection marks on our necks from the forced sedation.
She uses medical terms and shows photos on a screen, and talks about the serious health risks we were facing. Her testimony is so factual and scientific that it’s harder for anyone to dismiss what happened as just strict parenting or cultural differences. She doesn’t get emotional or dramatic. She just presents the evidence like the medical professional she is.
Then Hayes takes the stand and describes the airport intervention in clear chronological order. He talks about noticing us unconscious on the luggage cart, about the airline agents concerns, about finding the injection marks. He describes searching our house and finding the locks and cameras and logs. He presents the evidence chain showing how everything connects together.
His testimony shows how many systems failed to catch this earlier. How many people saw us and didn’t question why four teenage girls always looked exactly the same. He talks about how close we came to being on that plane to Mexico and what would have happened if that airline agent hadn’t noticed something was wrong.
When he’s done testifying, the judge takes a short break to review all the evidence. We sit in the hallway waiting and I can hear my parents talking to their lawyer through the door. Mom’s voice is high and angry. When we go back in, the judge looks tired. He reads from his notes for a few minutes about the evidence and the law and what his responsibilities are.
Then he announces his decision. He’s extending our removal from our parents custody for a full year. He orders psychological evaluations for both mom and dad before any custody can be reconsidered. He limits them to supervised contact only at approved facilities with trained monitors present.
I feel this wave of relief wash over me so strong I almost cry. But mixed with the relief is this strange grief that sits heavy in my chest because even though they hurt us, they’re still my parents. Some part of me wanted them to fight for us differently, to admit what they did was wrong and promise to change. But they just sit there looking angry and betrayed like we’re the ones who hurt them.
Bridg squeezes my shoulder and Christina smiles at me from across the room. The judge bangs his gavvel and says, “Court is adjourned.” And just like that, it’s over for now. Two weeks pass before Christina calls with news that makes my hands shake. She found a foster family willing to take all four of us together. A couple in their 50s who fostered sibling groups before and have a house with enough bedrooms for everyone.
We move in on a Saturday morning and the foster mom shows us each to our own rooms, which feels weird and wrong at first, but then I hear Violet’s voice through the wall and Ruby’s footsteps upstairs and Hazel humming in the bathroom and the world stops feeling so tilted. That night, we all end up sleeping on the floor of the living room anyway because being apart in separate rooms is too much too fast.
The foster parents don’t make us go back to our rooms. They just bring down extra blankets and say, “We’ll figure it out at our own pace.” Ephraim starts coming to the house twice a week for group sessions where we work on what he calls boundary practice. The first exercise is picking snacks from the pantry and we all reach for the same box of crackers before catching ourselves.
Ephraim makes us go back and each choose something different and it takes me 10 minutes to decide between chips and cookies because I keep looking at what my sisters are picking. We practice choosing different TV shows and different seats at the table and different times to take showers. It sounds stupid and simple, but my chest gets tight every time I make a choice that doesn’t match theirs.
Ruby picks grape juice and I pick orange and Violet picks water and Hazel picks lemonade and we all just stare at our different drinks like we’ve done something dangerous. The foster dad says it’s the bravest thing he’s seen in years. I sign up for a community soccer clinic that meets Tuesday and Thursday evenings at the park near our house.
The first night I show up in borrowed cleats that don’t quite fit and shorts that are actually mine, not matching anyone. The coach puts me through basic drills and I’m terrible at it, tripping over the ball and kicking it in wrong directions. But when I run down the field chasing after it with nobody matching my steps or my speed, something in my chest loosens up like a knot coming undone.
I’m slow and clumsy and my lungs burn, but it’s mine. This awkward learning belongs only to me. After practice, I text my sisters about how bad I was. And they send back laughing emojis, and that feels good, too. Being able to suck at something without dragging them down with me.
The visitation center hosts a music hour on Wednesday afternoons, and Ruby brings her violin for the first time in months. Her hands shake when she lifts the bow and her first notes are scratchy and off key. She can’t sing along anymore because her voice is still damaged and horsearo, but she plays through a simple song anyway.
When she finishes, the supervisor claps and tells us this is what healing actually looks like. Not perfect or erased, but moving forward anyway. Ruby’s eyes fill up, but she’s smiling, and I realize I haven’t seen her really smile in years. We have our first supervised visit with our parents the next week in a small room with cameras and a monitor sitting in the corner.
Mom cries the second she sees us, and dad’s voice breaks when he says our names. They beg us to forgive them and say they only wanted us to be special and loved. Mom reaches for my hand, but I pull back, remembering what Ephraim taught us about boundaries. I tell them we need them to accept responsibility for what they did before we can talk about forgiveness.
Violet says the surgeries would have hurt us permanently. Hazel mentions her spine that still aches every morning. Ruby touches her throat where her voice used to be strong. Our parents faces change like they weren’t expecting us to stand firm or speak up for ourselves. Dad starts to argue, but the monitor cuts him off and says, “Our time is up.
” Walking out, I feel guilty and relieved and sad all mixed together. 3 days later, Christina calls with news about the Mexican clinic. Authorities flagged the information in a federal database, and an investigation is starting, which means other families might be protected from what almost happened to us. I exhale this specific fear I’ve been carrying around about other girls ending up on that surgery table, other sisters being cut apart to match.
It doesn’t fix what happened to us, but it means something that maybe we stopped it from happening to someone else. 4 months after the airport intervention, we’re sitting around the foster family’s dinner table eating tacos that we each made differently. Hazel mentions she’s thinking about cutting her hair shorter, like really short, maybe even buzzed on the sides.
Ruby says she wants to grow hers longer, past her shoulders for the first time since she was little. Violet wants to try a completely different color, maybe red or purple, something that doesn’t look like the rest of us at all. We look at each other and start laughing because we’re choosing different looks on purpose, claiming our own faces back one decision at a time.
The foster mom offers to take us to the salon on Saturday, and we spend an hour looking at pictures on her phone of different hairstyles, each of us picking something totally separate. The final custody hearing happens on a cold morning in November. The judge reviews all the evidence again and listens to updated reports from Christina and Ephraim and our doctors.
He grants long-term guardianship to the state with our foster family as permanent placement. He orders individualized education plans for each of us and separate medical care and therapy. He issues an injunction barring our parents from any decisions about body modification or medical procedures for us.
It’s not a fairy tale ending where everything gets fixed and everyone’s happy. But it’s real safety with legal protection behind it, and that matters more than perfect. 5 months after everything changed, I walk into the drugstore by myself to buy pads. I don’t hide them under other items or pretend I’m buying them for someone else. The cashier rings them up like it’s normal, because it is normal.
I text my sisters a dumb meme about period cramps on my way home and they respond at different times with different reactions. That afternoon in Ephraim’s office, I admit the road ahead is still long and hard. I tell him about the nightmares where I wake up thinking I’m still in that van heading to the airport.
I mention how sometimes I still reach for the same things my sisters pick without thinking. But I also tell him we won’t be forced into identical bodies ever again. We’re learning to be four separate people who choose to love each other. And that’s harder and better and more real than anything we had before.
And that’s my side of it.
