Third Time's A Charm

By Kyleigh Marie Cowles

In this heartbreaking but ultimately uplifting memoir, Kyleigh Marie Cowles was first adopted by a horrible family where she was trained to be a nanny and a maid by the age of five. They then put her in foster care, and she finally felt loved by three different families. But when she was forced to pick a family to adopt her, she picked the third

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
• Release date: Jan 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685156114

Kyleigh Marie Cowles

Kyleigh Marie Cowles has been married to her husband for nine years. Together they have two cats and two dogs. She loves being outside, hiking, camping, and photography. But most of all she loves spending time with her big family.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

The McKinneys

F

or as long as I can remember, I have known that I was adopted at the age of three years old. My very first adoptive mother, Lisa McKinney, was the one who told me that I was adopted. I did not understand what adopted meant at the time. I remember being around five years old when she explained to me that my birth mom and dad were mentally retarded, and that was why they were unable to take care of me. Lisa also told me that my birth dad molested me when I had visitations as a baby. I don’t remember many things from when I was five years old, but I do remember these words.

At the age of five, Lisa told me that I was old enough to start cleaning the house. I recall the McKinneys teaching me how to clean the kitchen. I remember finding the little blue step stool. It was kept in the small bathroom between the playroom and the kitchen. I’d have to push it all the way up to the sink. My job was to wash dishes, dry them with a towel, and then put them away. After I got good at doing the dishes, we moved to teaching me how to do the laundry. Now at five years old, I was responsible for not only doing the dishes but also sorting, washing, drying, and folding all our laundry. I recall having to do all the whites, and I absolutely hated them the most, so I would hide them or just keep washing them over and over. I even started hiding socks and underwear in hiding spots.

Before I knew it, I was cleaning the whole house. Meanwhile my younger siblings were out playing, while Lisa was constantly taking naps or talking on the phone. My siblings, Dawn and Richard, were three years younger than I was. They were also adopted by the McKinneys. The McKinneys had four biological children, but they were all grown up and had their own families. However, Richard was Lisa’s favorite out of the three of us, probably because Richard was the youngest. He was the only one who was brought straight home from the hospital as a newborn. Dawn was only two months older than Richard, which made them close.

As I got older, it was like I was the real-life Cinderella. And I only knew that because Cinderella was my favorite movie. See, the McKinneys were also foster parents. This meant we had three to five new kids every few months. We had about eight kids in the house at a time. I was so used to it I came to just accept it. Not only did I clean the house every day, but I also was responsible for taking care of the infants and toddlers when we had them. I was also homeschooled because the McKinneys decided to pull me out of school after first grade. So I didn’t get to go out of the house much. Taking care of the kids and doing housework were really what my life consisted of back then.

In the mornings it was my job to get the younger kids up then get them dressed and fed. I often slept in the baby room on the floor. After I got them ready for the day, Lisa would then tell me to do three pages in my schoolbook, which never got checked to see whether I did it right. When I finished my schoolwork, I would be given my list of chores I had to do. If I wanted to play, I would go beg Richard to ask Lisa if I could play with him. However, as soon as he got bored with me, it was back to being Cinderella.

Many times I would just watch the other kids play from the windows, and I would daydream about what it would be like to have a different life. I love to sing I would make up songs and just sing when I was all by myself, as I didn’t ever want anyone to hear me. I always felt like an outsider when it came to family things.

Anytime something bad happened, I was usually blamed for it. For instance one of the foster girls took down Dawn’s baby box out of the closet, which had pictures of her birth mom. See, Dawn did not know she was adopted, so her baby box was a secret. Although I did not know what it was or was not tall enough to reach her baby box, I was the one who caught the blame for her finding it. Another time, after we just had new carpets put in, the McKinneys’ eldest sons were changing the car oil outside. Someone had tracked it inside. I had some on me, so I took the blame for it even though I did not do it. Lisa always went out of her way to set me up for failure. Anything that could or did go wrong, she would find a way to make it my fault. The McKinneys found a king-size Sharpie and said I colored the floor with it. I will never forget that I had all my toys taken away, and I was locked in my room for Christmas more than once.

I also was marked as a liar because I had to lie so I would stop getting cold showers. They would take me into their bathroom and ask me the question I was lying about. If I answered wrong, they would put me in the shower fully clothed and turn on the water on the coldest water and then would turn it off and ask again. This went on until they got the answer they wanted. However, sometimes they would switch it up and use a belt or a switch, a small thin stick off a tree.

There was this one time that I had a dream that I was in a ballet class when I was about four years old, and Richard came in after class. When I went to ask Lisa about my dream, she yelled at me and told me I was listening to her phone conversations. I tried to tell her I had a dream about it. She said that I was a liar and to go to my room until she told me to come out. This was not the first or only time this happened.

Eventually I just learned to take the blame. I realized at that point no one believed me anyway. It was not only cold showers, but there were also the belt and them locking me in my room as punishment. I also had to stand in the corner on my tippy-toes for hours. And when Lisa was bored or when she was done with me, she would have John come over and watch me. He would produce chores for me to do. As he had been in the military, I had to clean the house like a soldier had to clean, as he put it. One time he drained the hot tub and had me scrub it for one hour.

When I was ten years old, Richard decided to be mean and color on the couch, and when it was found, of course I got the blame. I had to write an R on paper, and since the one on the couch did not match, I was not in any trouble this time. However, Richard’s R did match, so he got in trouble. Richard was so mad at me for not being blamed for it. He started saying that I was not part of the family because I was adopted. Confused, I informed Richard he was adopted too. Of course he did not believe me and did not like what I had told him, so he ran to Lisa. Lisa was on the phone with her youngest biological son, John. She was so mad I saw her face turn red. She quickly got off the phone when she realized Richard was upset. She started yelling at me then told me to get the belt.

A couple of days later, John came over. He came over that day to teach me that I was a bad person for telling Richard he was adopted. John told me that the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City were all my fault because not only was it my birthday but also because I told Richard he was adopted. I was told I was going to get put back in foster care every time I did something bad. Foster care meant I would not have a family anymore. So after John said the war was my fault, Lisa threatened me once again that she would put me in foster care if I did not tell Richard that I was lying, that he was not adopted. So I went to talk to him; I told Richard that I lied.

Right before I turned eleven, we moved from North Topeka to Denison, Kansas. We were out in the middle of nowhere we did not even have any neighbors close to us. The McKinneys had retired from doing foster care, so it was only Lisa, Kevin, and the three of us kids. Kevin was Lisa’s husband. He was always working. When he was home, he was just as bad as Lisa. Of course I was still their Cinderella, but at least it was a smaller house. At this time Dawn and Richard were seven years old, but they still never had to clean or do chores. They were the favorites and could do nothing wrong in the eyes of Lisa.

On my eleventh birthday, I got a Kim Possible doll. But I lost one of Lisa’s necklaces she let me wear. It fell through a crack on the front porch. So she took back all my birthday presents.

When I was doing laundry one day—whites, of course—all I wanted to do was go play in the snow. So I decided to hide the clothes between a wall and a big cylinder thing. Then I went on with my day. I got Richard to ask if I could play in the snow outside with him and Dawn. Well, later that week, Lisa yelled my name from the laundry room, so I went running toward her. It turned out that the cylinder thing was the hot water heater. She had found my hiding spot. She was on the phone with Jill, her eldest biological daughter, yelling that I was trying to burn down the house. I was not because I didn’t even know what it was or that it would catch anything on fire. She told me that the voices had come back into my head. My first thought was, What voices? so I asked what she meant. Lisa said that when I was three, I heard voices in my head. I was confused because I never heard voices, but I let it go. Arguing meant punishment, and I was going to be punished enough as is.

The next morning after we woke up, Lisa told us we were going to John’s house. I was so happy that we got to go to his house. So we piled into the car. We were halfway there, and as I was staring out the window, Lisa asked me if the voices were back. I told her no, but of course she did not believe me. When we get to John’s, she told me to stay in the car as she took Dawn and Richard into the house. They all stayed in the house for about ten minutes, and then Lisa came out by herself. When she got in the car, I asked her where we were going. Lisa responded we were going to the hospital. I wanted to ask why we were going, but I knew she would not tell me, so I said okay and then went back to looking out the window. When we got to the hospital, Lisa looked at me and told me to behave and do what she said.

We walked up to a desk, and a lady asked, What can I help you with today? Lisa said, This is Kyleigh and she is hearing voices, and she is trying to burn the house down. The lady turned to me and asked if that was true. I turned to Lisa, and then the lady and I knew better than to tell the truth. So I just nodded yes. After that there were a lot of questions for Lisa, and I was just sitting there for what seemed to be hours.

After what seemed to be like five hours, we got back into the car and drove to a different building. It looked like a big house but was a building. As I was trying to figure where we were, I was starting to get scared. We got out and went in, and they took some of my stuff, and we went through a lot of locked doors. And then when we were in an area with lots of