Indaia Whitcombe

Linda Leforce has moved around a lot in her life.
“This is the most settled I’ve ever felt,” she says of living in Berea. “This place feels like home.”
It has been her favorite town so far, even though things have not been easy lately. 
Linda married young, had a job and two daughters, both of whom went to college.
“Then it all fell apart,” she said, “and now I have some more babies to raise.”
Linda’s older daughter was arrested on drug charges soon after the birth of her first child, Brielle Lemaster, now 6. Two years later, Linda’s daughter gave birth to twin girls and tested positive for methamphetamine at the delivery. She has been in and out of jail ever since. Linda, already caring for Brielle, also gained custody of the infant twins, Karmen and Delaney, now 4. She took the girls home from the hospital and has had them ever since.
“I thought my life was getting easier before I got them. I wonder what it would’ve been like if that didn’t happen,” she says. “I probably would’ve been lonely. Now I don’t have to worry about being lonely.”
Linda, 53, hopes more than anything that she’ll live long enough to see the girls become young women. She fears it&#8217;s unlikely. 
“That’s the hardest part,” she says, “knowing that they’re going to have a big loss at a young age. I keep pushing them to grow faster and faster because I’m running out of time.”
Linda doesn’t see herself leaving Berea anytime soon. 
“I feel like it’s opened its heart, more than any other place has. That’s the one thing with the kids. I want them to stay here.”

Then We Were Four