Spoiled in the Valley (Ch. 23)

The electricity got shut off at the little apartment next to Newmark Park and we fell behind on the rent.  If my mother wasn't spending all the welfare money on drugs, then she was gambling it away at the nearby casino.  We called it Bingo, but what she really played there were slot machines.  My mother wanted a better life, but she was only willing to invest money in slot machines to acquire it.  I hoped the dollars she put in the machines were like throwing pennies in a wishing well.  Maybe all the wishes she made were for me.  I wish I could get a house for my daughter, I wish I could buy my daughter new clothes, I wish the electricity would get turned back on...

One day she went to play "Bingo" and she met a man named Larry.  Larry was a large white man with tiny teeth, thin hair and clear blue eyes.  My mother bewitched him, and we were soon packed up and on our way to the high desert of California.  I was ten years old

Larry

Larry gave us a house to live in and took us to pick out all new furniture for it.  I had my own room!  All the furniture in my room was painted white and my bedspread was bright yellow with white flowers all over it.  The fridge was full of food, I had clean clothes and there were talks of taking me to Disney Land!  Meeting Larry at the casino was better than winning the jackpot.  Maybe my mother wished for him... maybe I wished for him.  No matter who it was, our lives changed.... for a little while.

Larry was a good man.  He made sure I was taken care of and showed me what "normal" was.  He taught me about what it meant to be responsible, honest and hard working.  He put me in etiquette classes, dance classes, and piano classes.  I went from having to wash my clothes with shampoo in the tub to having shopping sprees in Pebble Beach.  I went from begging my friends to let me come over for dinner, to having my friends beg to come over my house because I had a brand new PlayStation.

Just like a chameleon I adapted to my new situation and became a spoiled child of the valley.  I adjusted so well you would have thought I had been born with a silver spoon in my mouth.  In my first year of middle school I ran for class President and won.  I started my own club called "Community Helpers" and we went around cleaning up parks and reading at nursing homes.  I joined a drama team; I won spelling bees and was a challenger on the debate team.   The weekends were spent going to the ocean, museums, amusement parks and shows.  He took me to my first Broadway show and we saw Dancing in the Rain.  It was a nice life.  

Me at 10

Meanwhile, my mother slept.  Drugs were hard to come by in the area we lived and Larry didn't like them.  Larry didn't live with us and when he had made a date to come over I would be wound up with anxiety.  I had to get my mother up, showered and looking decent before he arrived.  I'd yell at her, "Get up.. get up, get up, get up!"  I cut her hair myself and did her makeup.  I made her coffee.  I would beg her, "be nice to him mom, please!..."

I could not lose what I had.  Larry wanted my mother... and I was going to give him what he wanted.  I could tell she hated Larry.  She would kiss him and then turn around and make a disgusted face at me.  Join the club.  Been there done that, I thought.  Now it's your turn!  I was an adult stuck in the body of a 10 year old.  I felt like it was my responsibility to make sure things kept going the way they were.  I started to prefer it when my mother could get her drugs.  At least then she would do her own hair and get out of bed.

Larry would come over and I would send them off on their date and go to the living room to give them privacy.  I'd turn the TV on and watch documentaries on Area 51 till midnight or read till I was so sleepy I couldn't hold my eyes opened anymore.  I wanted to stay up till the date was over so I could make sure everything went all right.  I was generous with my hugs with Larry and always tried to make myself look nice and well mannered.  Please keep us!  I'll be good, I'll be good...  It was hard work living in the Valley, but I wanted it.  I wanted it so bad.

At school and all my activities it wasn't hard for me to pretend to be normal.  I created another place inside of myself just like I did when I became nothing.  I shoved my past and my memories in this new place.  I had a "nothing" place for Giraffe Knees, a place for my mother's daughter and her memories, and on the outside I was a normal, spoiled, 10-year-old girl.  I was always my mother's daughter at the end of the day though. 

Deep down, part of me will always be my mother's daughter.  What has been seen cannot be unseen, what has been learned cannot be unknown.  You cannot change the past, but you can learn from it.  You can grow from it.  You can be made stronger.  You can use that strength to change your life, to change your future.

The Bad Secret (Ch. 22)

It wasn't long until John, the manager of Newmark Park noticed me.  I picked up trash there twice a day and hung around all day mooching off the other kids, and he soon began to pay me special attention.  He was an older man in his late 60's, thin, very tall with short gray hair and a trimmed mustache.  He let me help out around the park and taught me how to clean off the bases and turn on the lights.  I became his little assistant and in return he would give me money and buy me food.  He knew I needed help and offered his.  I took it.  He called me giraffe knees because he said he loved how my thin legs made my knees poke out.  

 Me at 10 years old

John came over and met my mother and then he started taking me around  to run errands with him in his car.  He took me to his house to meet his wife.  All of the staff at the park soon befriended me and looked at John with approving eyes.  He bought me new school clothes and I started wearing clean socks.  

Parts of this chapter have been hidden due to mature content.

On the outside I became rebellious.  I started smoking cigarettes again and spent a lot of time with an older girl who liked to start fires.  She had convinced me once to light a fire in the girls bathroom at the ballpark.  We each made a fire in separate stalls.  I used one square of toilet paper, she used an entire roll.  John caught us.

I started stealing wine coolers and drinking them with my new older friend too.  During an evening game in the late summer I stole an entire 12 pack and got drunk while keeping score.  I had to announce the names of the players into a microphone for the crowd and kept slurring my words.  "Nest ut to bat numbler thidy linnne Richlllard Jones."  I laughed and laughed!  John came in and took over.

I felt like destroying something, 

Parts of this chapter have been hidden due to mature content.

I am nothing, I am nothing, I am nothing........ I am bad. 

The Game of Surviving (Ch. 21)

Half way through 4th grade my mother managed to get welfare services to give us a housing voucher and we moved into a studio apartment right next to Newmark Park.  Our little apartment had the smallest kitchen I had ever seen and an old style fridge from the 70's.  It was what my mother called a ca ca green color.  In front of our duplex there were these enormous dips in the road because of a rain-wash.  When you drove through them it was like you were on a roller coaster.   There were two dips.  I was beyond excited to have our own home.  This was the first time we had ever lived on our own.

The first week my mother bought groceries and invited Fred over and cooked dinner for us.  Our fridge was FULL of food.  I couldn't stop opening it and rearranging it.  We had our own house and our own fridge and it had food in it!  I could go in there whenever I wanted to get something to eat or drink.  The happiness I experienced made me overly excited and I lost the ability to walk anywhere, I could only run!  I ran from the kitchen to bathroom and from the bathroom to the living room.  If my mother asked me to get something I jumped five feet off the sofa to get it.  I was on top of the world and my grin reached from ear to ear.

The next week my mother didn't go grocery shopping, instead she took me with her to the gas station where she sold all of her food stamps for half the cash they were worth.  She did not spend the cash on food.  I hated her.  She saw my expression and said, "don't worry!  I'll get food later... you are such a worry wart!"  She didn't get food later.  When the money ran out, her drugs ran out and Fred didn't come by because they had gotten into a fight.  Without drugs, my mother did nothing but sleep and I was left to fend for myself.

Newmark was a baseball park and at night and all day on the weekends they held little league games there.  I hung around to play with the other kids and sometimes their parents would buy me snacks from the snack bar not knowing they were really buying me what would be my dinner.  The manager of the field was a man named John.  After each game John would pay all the kids a dollar for every bag of trash they picked up from under the bleachers.  I took advantage of this opportunity as much as I could.  The other kids were bigger than me though and most of the time they beat me to the trash before I could snatch it up first.  So when the bags were handed out and all the kids ran to the bleachers I waited till no one was watching and got all my trash right out of the trash can.

I filled two bags of trash everyday and got two dollars.  Then I walked more than two miles to Burger King and bought two whoppers for .99 cents each.  I was always a dime short, but they let me slide.  On the way home I would stop at the grocery store and steal two king sized Symphony candy bars.  I would eat mine before I got home and then I would give the other Whopper and candy bar to my zombie mother.  Everyday I had Burger King for dinner and every day I brought home dinner for my mom.  I stole the candy bars because they reminded me of the battered women's shelter.  Maybe if my mom got candy bars she would be happy.  I remembered the lack of candy bars at the shelter seemed to cause a lot of turmoil for her...but the candy bars I brought home didn't make her happy.

It seemed like I was always having the problem of not having any clean clothes to wear to school.  I couldn't stand it!  I didn't want to be made fun of anymore.  I started washing my clothes in the tub with shampoo if they looked dirty.  I only washed the clothes you could see though.  I didn't worry about  underwear and socks since no one could see them.  My socks would get crusty and stiff with filth.  Instead of washing them I would just pull the sock down more on my foot and fold the dirty part over.   I managed.  I became a scavenger and a thief.  I mostly stole food or candy. 

I worked the parents at the ballpark to buy me hot dogs or I talked the kids at school into asking their parents if I could come over for dinner.  Children my age became a sort of pawn for me.  I needed them as a cover to get what I needed from their parents. I was in a game of survival.  You win you get to eat, you lose you go hungry.  Sometimes when I was playing with the other kids I wanted to scream at them, "I'm only playing with you because I have to!"  I was so lonely, but I didn't want the other kids companionship.  They lived in another world than me and they irritated me with their naivety.  I wanted to steal their happiness from them.  I tried to ruin Christmas for them and told them there was no such thing as Santa Claus.  I got angry when they told me about the Tooth Fairy leaving them a dollar.  There was no such thing as the Tooth Fairy, and they didn't need that dollar.  I needed that dollar...but there was no Tooth Fairy for me.

Fred would make an appearance every once in a while and would take me to Rosa Maria's when he could.  Rosa Maria's was a little taco shop that had the best taquito's you will ever try in your life.  I couldn't afford to eat there with my two dollars a day and whenever Fred came over I would beg him to take me there.  My entire life revolved around getting food and feeding myself.  If times were tough I ate Whoppers, if it was a good day, I got Rosa Maria's taquitos.

One day Fred came over and took me to get taquitos and on the way home we stopped at his house and he gave me a baby cockatiel.  My lonely days were over.  I named the bird "Bird-Bird" and he became my best friend.  I spent hours teaching him to talk and sing.  He use to sit on my shoulder and go everywhere with me.  When I got home from school I was greeted with a little high voice that said, "hey bay-be!"... "Hi Bird-Bird!"  I would say back.  I loved that bird.  One day I took my bird out side to play and had forgotten to trim his wings.  He took off and I watched him fly away down the wash... 

I screamed at the top of my lungs!  Losing Bird-Bird would mean I would have nothing to care about now... I needed something to care about, because just caring about myself was too scary...  I didn't want to be alone.  I cried and cried and fell to my knees on the ground.  My mom came out wondering what all the screaming was about and I tried to tell her in between my sobs.  Then she put her hand over her mouth and pointed at the sky, "Oh my God baby!  He's flying back to you!"   Bird-Bird tried to land right on my shoulder, but missed and hit the ground hard.  His little heart was beating so fast!  His chest was moving up and down so quickly it was like it was vibrating.  I wished he were bigger so I could hug him.  I didn't want to share my joy over his return with my mother.  I took him inside and whispered to him that everything was going to be OK and ignored her.  I blamed her for Bird-Bird flying away.  Of course he wanted to fly away from there.... I wanted to fly away too...

Being Nothing (Ch. 20)

After months of Jack in the Box and Nine Ball my mother and I moved in with a man named Dale and his brother Dean.  They lived in a brand new house in a brand new sub division... It was nice and had a large, lush, green yard.  All the houses in the sub-division were identical, just painted different colors.  The inside of the house was completely carpeted except for the kitchen and the air conditioner was always on so that it was freezing inside. 

Dale was an average man with black hair and brown beady eyes.  We gave him part of our welfare check and he let us stay in one of his empty rooms.  Dale and his brother seemed "normal" to me and I couldn't figure out why they were helping us.  I had learned by the ripe old age of nine that most of the time people don't do things for nothin'.   Dale wasn't a druggie, I could tell just by looking at someone whether they were junkies or not by then too.  I also didn't suspect him of having sex with my mother... so what were his motives?  That was a word my mother taught me, "people always have ulterior motives," she would say.   

I started at a new school and spent my afternoons watching Dean workout on his Nautilus machine.  He was younger than Dale by at least 10 years (maybe in his late 20's) and had the same hair and eyes.  I was his little buddy and I was soon working out on his Nautilus machine too.  He use to put really heavy weights on and had convinced me that I was the strongest girl in the world!  We made charts and tracked our progress.  I was going to be a body builder!  Sometimes he would help me with my homework and make me dinner too...  I decided that if Dean wanted to be my new Dad then maybe that would be OK with me.

Dale was grumpy and quiet.  He spent most of the time watching TV and reading newspapers.  He had lots of secrets with my mom and they were always whispering so Dean and me couldn't hear.  Whatever secrets they had, Dale wasn't happy about them.  His whispers would sometimes come out as snarls with his face in a grimace.  His constant agitation made feel like maybe I shouldn't unpack my suitcase...we wouldn't be here long.

 One night my mother and him got in an argument and my mother took off.   I was asleep in bed and Dale came into my room and put a desk chair by the side of my bed.

I knew what he was there for...  and my mom was gone... I was alone.  He talked to me in a low calm voice and said, "this is your mothers fault."  Fear filled up in my body and I felt my weight push me further into the mattress because of it.  I was so scared and so angry!  I'm going to tell on him!... I'm going to be OK... I'm going to be OK, I tried to console myself.  He sat there for what seemed like an hour and the whole time my body was tense in anticipation for what he was going to do to me.  I felt sick.


Then Dale flipped me over on my stomach while I continued to pretend to be asleep.  When he reached his hand under the blanket and started touching me I jumped up into a sitting position.  Then I took my scrawny little hand and slapped him in the face!  I don't know where I got the courage.  My heart was beating so fast and right away I regretted letting him know I was awake.  Now I can't hide, now I can't pretend I'm not here, now this is going to happen to me, why... why did I do that!....  I started shaking uncontrollably and then all of a sudden Dean walked by the opened door to my room.

I opened my mouth and took in a big relieved breath of air.  Dean wouldn't let this happen.  I was saved!  "Dean!... Dean!!!  Please... Dean!!!.......... Dean?" 

But Dean ignored me... How could he ignore me?...

All my hope evaporated then and something inside of me broke.  I stopped moving, stopped breathing and I stopped thinking.  I thought maybe if I was still enough I could freeze time, and what was about to happen to me wouldn't ever happen.  I couldn't even let my mind acknowledge that Dean had ignored me, that Dean didn't care, that I really was alone.  I closed myself off and went into myself.  I was not there.  I did not even exist.  I was nothing.

I was nothing, I was nothing, I was nothing, I was nothing, I was nothing, I was nothing, I was nothing.....

Our Secret House (Ch. 19)

My mother came and "rescued" me from the Mormons during the middle of the school year with a man named David.  I was honestly relieved to be going.  It was exhausting living there.  I was good at pretending to be normal; I learned to mimic others around me so that I could benefit from what ever situation I was in...  I was just like a chameleon.  But pretending to be Mormon made me feel like maybe I was evil... I had too much sin.  I wasn't good enough.  Years later my aunt would also get tired of pretending to be Mormon.   She would ask for a divorce, and then her husband would commit suicide.

The ride back to California was spent with me jumping up and down in my seat asking my mom over and over again about our secret house.  "Is it ready?!... Do I have a room?!"  My mother would just smile and tell me in a sing song voice, "you will just have to wait and see!"  I was so happy that she had came back for me, I felt like I could wait for ever as long as we were together. 

We ended up staying in a hotel for a few days because the house wasn't ready.  David paid for the hotel and spent a lot of time with us there.  He was tall, thin and blond.  He had a mustache and straight white teeth.  I liked him OK.  He had a daughter around my age and he would bring me some of her old toys.  

My mother always underestimated my ability to understand things I should not and had a bad habit of talking openly in front of me.  After three or four days in the hotel I had gathered that David was married, his wife didn't like that he "partied", my mother was having sex with him, and the house we were supposed to be moving into was David's.  David had a change of heart though and decided not to leave his wife.  That presented the problem of what to do with my mother and me.  David solved this problem by moving us into his Shop...

The Shop was a metal factory.  David owned a business that made metal works for different types of machinery.  The main office had a reception area with a couch that was connected to the metal shop by a long hallway.  Off this hallway were other offices, including David's.  David's office also had a couch.  In the very back office there was a pool table and bar.  My mother stayed in David's office. The couch in the reception area became "my room" and the metal machinery shop became our secret house.

I was enrolled in another school where I was ostracized because I wore dirty clothes and didn't take baths.  There was no bath at The Shop.  Changing clothes was hard because you had to be careful not to step on the floor barefoot.  Little slivers of metal were everywhere and they would cut you just like broken glass.  My fingers were raw and sore from hours of my mother picking at them with tweezers to get the splinters out.  Sometimes she would get the splinters out, but most of the time there weren't even real splinters in my fingers, just imaginary ones.  It's never a good idea to let someone high on meth amphetamines near you with a pair of tweezers. 

For dinner every single night David bought me fast food.  I liked Jack in the Box the most and ordered the same thing every time.  Chicken strips, curly fries and a cheesecake.  I hope I never see another piece of cheesecake from Jack in the Box for the rest of my life.  Dinner was usually followed by a game of pool.  

I learned the game quickly.  David taught me how to shoot and where to hit the balls to get them to move in the direction you wanted.  I learned about geometry.  In fourth grade I was at a 6th grade reading level, I was learning about the solar system, and was memorizing my times tables.  I could also break and run half a dozen games of 9-ball in a row.  David called me his little prodigy.  

During parties he would call me in during the middle of the night to impress his friends.  He taught me how to sandbag my skills in every first game I played with someone.  I could coerce them into taking a bet they would lose if they thought they had a fighting chance.  I thrived on the attention.  I imagined becoming the best pool player in the world and being on TV.  I was a cocky little thing.  I'd trick grown men into losing their money to a nine year old and then laugh in their face... My mother would laugh too, "that's my girl!" she'd say.

At night in bed on my couch I would think about how dumb all the Mormon's were... and how dumb all the people were that went to Dudley's gospel church.  There is no God.  It scared me to think that there could be a God, because if there was a God, he forgot about me.  

"Jesus loves you."

If he exists, he must not love me... I thought.

Utah & The Mormons (Ch. 18)

My mother and I bounced around staying with whatever men would have her.  Sometimes we would stay in motels, and sometimes we would go to the trucker gas station and stay in the back of one of the trucker's cabs.  We would hitch hike to get around, and once a man in an RV stopped to pick us up and we stayed with him for two weeks. The RV had a small bedroom that was just a mattress above the cab covered with a curtain.  From behind the curtain I would watch my mother get naked from the waist down and bend over for the man.  Then the man would go back upfront and drive us to the next stop.  We made it all the way to Utah like this.


My mother's half sister lived in Utah with her husband and 4 kids.  My aunt had dark hair with pale skin and rosy cheeks.  Her husband was blond and tall and all her kids had blond hair and blue eyes.  They were Mormons.  My mother stayed for 3 days before deciding that the Church of Latter Day Saints wasn't for her.  My mother not smoke or drink?  What a joke!  She got in an argument with my aunt one day and rushed into our room and threw her stuff in a bag.  She gave me a kiss and said, "I'm going to go and get a cup of coffee...I want you to listen to your aunt and be a good girl OK... I love you."  She was crying and I knew right away that she wasn't going to get a cup of coffee.


She walked out the door and didn't come back.  She left me...  I wasn't upset, but I was worried.  I was afraid my mother wouldn't come back for me.  I was afraid my mother would hitch hike across the country, spread her legs for truckers, and lose herself in her hallucinations and I'd never be able to find her again.  

After a few days she finally called and told me that I was going to stay with my aunt for a little while and she would come back for me in a few months.  She promised she was getting us a house and wanted everything to be ready before she came for me.  "A house?!  Will I have my own room?  Why didn't you tell me?!"  I wanted to believe her, and I let myself get excited!  She laughed and told me how wonderful it was going to be.  

After I got off the phone I told my aunt all about our secret house, and how my mom was getting it all ready!  She turned the corners of her lips up, but I could tell it wasn't a real smile.  She seemed sad.  I patted her on the arm and in a soft voice I tried to assure her, "Don't worry, you'll see..."


I was enrolled in school and tried adjust to my new life as a Mormon.  We all had dinner together at the table every night and went to church twice a week.  I tried to be like my cousins.  I pretended I didn't know anything about sex, or drugs... or smoking cigarettes and stealing.  I learned quickly those were sinful things, and I wanted to be good so my aunt would love me.    

My cousins had the type of mother who did their hair for them in bows and barrettes and I had the type of mother who would pawn her kid's barbie's for drug money.  I envied them.  I use to wake up as early as I could and rush through my shower so I could be the first one to get my hair done.  I would spend 20 minutes laying out all of the barrettes and combs she would need and when she came in I'd be sitting on the stool waiting for her.  I loved the way her finger felt in my wet hair and I loved the jealous look in my cousin's eyes, as she had to sit and wait her turn.  Being the first one to get your hair done in the morning became a sort of competition... and I always won.


My aunt also made me an allowance jar and added my name to her chore chart.  Each chore on the chart was worth a certain amount of money.  Once the chore was done, the money would be dropped in your jar and at the end of the week you got to get your money out.  Cleaning the bathroom was worth the most at a whole quarter a cleaning, followed by moping the floor, which was worth a dime.  After school I would ride my bike home as fast as I could so I could clean all the bathrooms before my cousins even got home.  I'd make my way down the list doing the mopping next.  By the end of the week I was rich!


I'd take my money and invest in pogs and slammers, which were used to play a game similar to marbles.  I'd take my pogs to school and play for "keepsies". I was a pog shark!  I doubled my collection and sold half of it for $8 and used that money to buy candy at 1 cent a piece.  I had bags and bags of candy and used it to barter with at school for what ever I wanted.  Candy was worth more than gold and I had a very prosperous business booming.  

The teachers at school got concerned and called my aunt and my aunt sat me down to have a talk about it one night.  She asked me why I sold my pogs and why I was trading candy at school.  "Don't you have everything you need?  If you want anything you know you can just ask me right?" I shook my head yes, but I wanted to tell her she was wrong.  "Just asking" maybe works for Mormons, but not for kids like me, not with mothers like mine.

The Battered Women's Shelter (Ch. 17)

A couple months after living in the lap of luxury ...with no electricity we went back to Fred's house.  We were only there for about a week before all hell broke lose again.  This time my mother called the police herself.  Fred was arrested, but my mother later dropped the charges.  The police had been called to Fred's house so many times for domestic disturbance that they finally decided to do more than just drop the charges this time though.  They arranged for me and my mother to meet with a counselor and this counselor somehow talked my mother into going to a battered woman's shelter.  The counselor even helped us to "escape". 

I felt like I was playing a part in a movie... I ran around the house throwing things in suitcases, being very dramatic about it all.  I knew Fred would never try to stop us from leaving, but this counselor seemed like a nice lady and I didn't want to disappoint her.  She reminded me of the social worker at school that tried to save me... only she was going to save me and my mother!  I wanted to make her feel as sorry as possible for us, so she wouldn't change her mind.  We need saving!  So I cried and cowered and played the roll of a helpless, scared, and naive child.  Only I didn't feel so helpless, and I definitely wasn't naive.  At age 9 I had seen more ugliness in the world than beauty, more evil than good... no, I don't think you could have described me as naive.

The shelter offered women and their children a safe place to get their lives back together, or a place to hide from abusive husbands till divorces were final and alimony could be collected.  We all slept in a room with about fifty bunk beds in it.  At night more women would be crying themselves to sleep than children.  My mother cried too.  There was a common room and cafeteria that offered three meals a day.  Things like caffeine and candy bars were put on strict lock down and only given out as special treats and rewards.  Counselors were provided to help the women with their mental health... although I was fairly certain my mother needed more than a counselor at that point.  There was a school too and I was put in a class with about 10 other children ranging in ages from 7-12.

I wanted to live at the shelter for the rest of my life.  I had friends at school and looked forward to meal times with the other children.  When school let out, I went to a craft room and activity center for the rest of the day where I played games and made things for my mom.  I had my own counselor too.  Her name was Ms. Kitty; she was really tall with long black hair and dark skin.  She wore long skirts that made swishy sounds when she walked and lots of beaded jewelry that clinked together as she moved.  I loved her noises.  She had me use art to express my feelings.  I presented her with lots of drawings using only black and brown crayon.  I thought this would make it look like I was depressed.  I wasn't depressed, but I was afraid if she knew how happy I was she wouldn't care about me anymore, and I loved her attention.  After every drawing I would get rewarded with a candy bar. 

 I rarely saw my mom.  When I did she seemed to always be crying, or arguing with someone.  My mother wasn't as happy as I was at the battered woman's shelter.  She went around accusing the other woman of taking her things or talking about her behind her back.  She was reprimanded for not following rules and it was rare for her to be rewarded with any candy bars at all.  The candy bars seemed to be the source of all her unhappiness to me, so I gave her mine. 

I did what I could to make her happier.  I drew her pictures, picked her flowers and read to her before bed.  Nothing made her happy.  If I gave her my candy bar she would look at me with hate and say, "I bet you already ate two today didn't you!" If I drew her a picture, it was always, "Why don't my pictures come out as nice as your hero Ms. Kitty's?"  Her voice was always drenched in contempt. 

Things reached a climax after my mother got in an argument with her counselor about not giving her the meds she needed.  My mother stormed out of the office fuming and said, "we are getting the fuck out of here!  I can't live here anymore!  I can't even get a damn candy bar when I want one!"

I cried and begged her to let us stay.  I got down on my knees and hugged her feet and cried... "Please... I don't want to leave... please... please."  My counselor came and asked my mother's permission to say good-bye to me and my mother ignored her while she packed our things.  Ms. Kitty knelt down and hugged me and told me to be brave.  "God never gives us more than we can handle... and God made you really really strong... I just know it."  I told her I didn't want to be strong.... and I begged her not to let us leave.  I've remembered what she said to me all my life.

They had to prey me off Ms. Kitty and I wouldn't let my mother put one finger on me.  "Leave me alone!  I hate you!  I hate you!"  In that moment I did hate her, but I still wouldn't have let her leave with out me.  Two hours later a car came for us and I followed my mother out the door.