Present Day

“Miss, we’re ready for you,” says a voice dressed in white scrubs, jerking me out of my thoughts. I stare down at my hands, sigh, and then follow her out of the waiting room.


Australia—1887


They call us the Stolen Generation. Not lost. Stolen. I’m not black. I’m not white. I’m a creamy half-caste—half-aborigine, half-white. They stole me from my mother when I was only eight. I never saw her again.

I still remember the day I was taken. I was playing with the doctor’s children when they came. The sher-iff and my mother’s cousin drove up in their dusty truck, sending dirt flying behind them. Dust to dust, they say, when we pass from one life to the next. I would have known my life was over if I’d read the signs, but I was too young. The fellow who looked like me was a traitor to our people—a trader of human beings.

He greeted my mother, “Kele mwarre, how are you?” She smiled and welcomed him to sit at the kitchen table as she brought him some tea. She was cooking for the doctor’s family. He fidgeted with his cup, and then asked about me, “How is the little fellow? I bet he has grown quite handsome, following in the footsteps of our grandfather.” He looked at my mother as he absentmindedly rubbed the circle of rope attached to his pants, “I’d love to see him.”

So she called me. Asked me to come in to see our cousin. She didn’t know he was an enforcer for the so-called Aborigines Protection Act. She was naive. She didn’t think one of our own was capable of such horror.

As soon as I came into the house he jumped up and grabbed at me. I ran. I ran as fast as I could. He chased me down the street as I tried to get away from him. I heard my mother screaming, “Run! Run! Run!” as the traitor lassoed me like a calf in the middle of downtown. He drove by the doctor’s house after that, sneering and waving to my mother. He yelled that he’d take good care of me . . .