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CHAPTER 1
Secret
I swear the life I was forced into was some straight bullshit. No child or children on God's green earth deserved it. Nothing was ever legit. At least not in our household. There was never any food, and sometimes no lights or gas. And at that moment, no fucking laundry detergent. Gripping the All detergent bottle in an upside-down motion, I waited patiently as only two drops slowly fell from the bottle into the river of running water as it filled the mildly beat-up washing machine. Angry, I threw the empty container across the room with as much force as I could assemble; it smashed into the wall with a loud thud. I rolled my eyes as I watched the bottle spin in a circular motion before settling on its back. Having detergent to clean our dirty clothes shouldn't have been too much to ask. But, to be honest, my baby sister Penny and I were used to a lot worse.
Our mother, Jackie, was a full-fledged drunk, which in turn caused her to be angry and abusive all the time. Things had been this way since I was about four years old, when Penny's dad, Ed, had come into our lives. Before Ed, Jackie had been pretty normal; she did simple things like fed me, hugged me, and kept a job. But by the time Penny was four years old, all that had changed drastically. By then Ed was constantly abusing Jackie and keeping her wasted. But even then she was able to keep a steady job. At the time, I thought things couldn't get any worse. Boy, I was wrong. When I was ten, Ed was killed trying to rob a gas station for a few measly bucks. After that Jackie started to drink constantly as if it was a sport. If drinking had been a job she would've had hella overtime. I'm talking about sloppy drunk. Once she was so drunk she sat on the kitchen floor, peed on herself, and slept in it. I was horrified and disgusted all at the same time. Suddenly, she was always frustrated with Penny and me. In her eyes, everything we did was wrong. That was when the abuse started.
But we got smart real quick; in order to avoid being cursed out or attacked we learned to stay out of her way. I took on the role of caring for Penny. I became the responsible adult in the house. But that was difficult, seeing as how I was only a kid myself and there was never any food in the house, because Jackie sold off all of her food stamps so that she could buy liquor. She could no longer keep a job because she couldn't stay sober a full twenty-four hours straight. The smell of cheap whiskey seemed to pour from her once glistening, smooth skin. Sometimes the smell was so strong it caused me to gag. Simply put, it was too much for a child to be going through. But there I was, now fourteen, and Penny ten, and the shit was no different. Growing up on mean gritty 224th street in Goulds in Miami, Florida, was enough pressure for any kid. To add being beat and sometimes starved because your alcoholic mother couldn't kick the bottle was a whole other story.
"Secret, what are we going to eat? I'm hungry." Penny sat up on her elbows with a pout spread on her lips. She lay across her twin bed in the room we shared in the two-bedroom house we grew up in. The neighborhood we lived in was tough. There was a drug dealer, gangster, drug addict, or thief on every corner. Police sirens ran night and day, and that was as normal as taking a breath. But it was our home, so we feared nothing except Jackie and her constant drunken rages, which always caused her eyes to bulge out of the sockets like she had received shock therapy, all while screaming at us with spit flying out of her mouth. Most times that spit landed on us.
"I don't know." I plopped down on my bed and started to fold up the towels I had been able to wash and dry earlier. "Just chill for a minute. Jackie might bring something home." We called our mother by her first name, and she was cool with it. I chalked it up to maybe she knew she was a failure as a mother.
Penny sighed, rolled over, and sat up. "But I can't wait. I'm hungry now. I've been hungry for almost two hours. I want something to eat."
I rolled my eyes because I knew she was about to bug me until she got what she wanted. But she was ten; what else could I expect? "I'ma go in the kitchen and see what's in there." Throwing the towel I was folding on top of the bundle of clothes that still needed folding, I headed to the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator, and I was met with darkness. The bulb had gone out a month ago, and Jackie had still failed to replace it. Like I said, it was always the bullshit. My search proved what I already knew: There was next to nothing inside to eat. With not much choice, I grabbed the half-closed package of chopped ham and three eggs. Firing up the first front burner on the stove, I fried the meat and scrambled the eggs. By the time I was done cooking it all, my own stomach was growling.
"Penny, come eat," I yelled, as I fished out two plates and filled them with food.
Penny and I wasted no time devouring the food. Our plates were clean in record time. "Secret, I think that's the best piece of meat and eggs I ever had." Penny smiled.
"Ha, ha. You were just hungry."
"I was." She giggled. Just as I was prepared to giggle along with her, the doorknob started to jiggle and in walked Jackie. We both glanced at each other. Who knew if she was drunk or sober? The two brown grocery-like bags in her hands piqued our excitement, though. Penny stood without being asked and went over to assist with the bags.
Just as I was about to have hope that she was sober, I noticed her steps were wobbly. Penny set the one bag she had grabbed out of Jackie's hand on the table. Pissed that she was drunk again, I walked over to the sink and started washing the plates we had used.
With my back turned to her, I could feel her closing in on me. I was not ready to deal with her madness. "Did you cook dinner?" She was now standing over my shoulder. Standing five foot nine, she was tall compared to me. Mixed with Italian and white, Jackie had once been beautiful. But the toll of drinking had dried that all up. The only beauty that existed about her was us, her two daughters, who were mixed with all her genetics but also our African-American father's.
"Yeah, we had some chopped ham and eggs." I was pleasant on the outside but boiling on the inside. I wanted to scream, Why do you care? But instead I chilled. Turning on my heel, I peeked into the bags she had just brought home. My eyeballs felt as if they would pop out of my head when I saw both bags contained cans of Budweiser and nothing more.
I turned to face her as she started to take off her run-down hot red high heels. I rolled my eyes at her with so much force my eyelids ached.
"Did y'all save me some?" she had the nerve to ask me.
I bit my tongue because I was too upset to talk. Sucking my teeth, I said, "It wasn't enough." She had some nerve. I wasn't surprised, though, because that was Jackie all the way, bold as fuck.
"I tried to do the wash but there was not enough laundry detergent. So only half of the dirty laundry is done." I kept my eyes glued to her, then eyed the bags on the table.
I could tell that had made her angry by the way she sucked in her bottom lip. "What the hell are you trying to say, Secret?" she yelled. "Watching my bags like you found a clue."
"That there is no detergent to wash the clothes." I looked at her, confused. What did she mean?
"You know what? You get the fuck on my nerves with that shit. Ain't never shit up in this raggedy motherfucker. Spend all of my damn money for this, fucking spend it for that. What the fuck am I supposed to do?" This time she screamed at the top of her lungs. I glanced at Penny and saw the fear on her face. "Shit, come at me with this bullshit as soon as I get in this damn house. I can't even sit down in peace and have a drink to calm my nerves. Hell, blame yourself ain't no detergent. You the one who used it all up. Same way you ate up all the damn food ... Always cookin' and washin'. So just think of it this way. Until next time."
"I did not use it all up. I wash everyone's laundry with it. Not just mine." I gave her attitude on purpose. She was not about to blame me for this. Not that day. I refused. What I really wanted her to do was go to her room. I didn't need the drama or the aggravation. Bed was the best option for me, so I headed toward my room.
"Secret, girl, you better get yo high-yellow ass back here," she yelled to me. "Think you can talk shit to me in my house," she raved.
I turned around ready to match her with some truth. "We don't have food because you didn't buy any when you received our food stamps," I pointed out. I was no longer an eight-year-old kid. I knew what was going on.
Her eyes flashed bloodshot red. I had hit a nerve, and I knew what that meant. I almost tripped and fell as I turned to run. Jackie charged at me. What I didn't see was the high heel in her hand that landed in the center of my back. The pain was bad; it felt like I had been struck by a bolt of lightning, but I didn't stall because I knew from experience if she caught me it would be ten times worse. Inside my room I hurriedly shut the door and locked it behind me. And there was Penny on the floor, in a corner, crying her eyes out. I hated seeing her like this.
Out of breath, the hype of the moment left me drained. Dropping to my knees, I crawled over to Penny. Tears wet my face as I cried along with my sister. It took another ten minutes for the crazed constant knocking on the door Jackie had been doing to stop. I breathed a sigh of relief. But only for the time being. Like Jackie said earlier, Until next time.
CHAPTER 2
Isis
"It is the decision of this court that you be sentenced to ten years in prison." Every word that fell from the judge's big brown lips seemed to make a boom sound in my ears. The room seemed to grow larger and push me all the way to the back of it. My eardrums started to feel as if they were being ripped apart, the pain was so intense. My entire body seemed to be on fire. The only reason I had that would explain these unusual feelings was pure shock.
"Please, nooo!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. I jumped up and made a dash for my mother's side, swiping past the female officer who stood next to her. "Mama. You can't go," I screamed. "I need you." I reached for her, but her lawyer and another short, stocky police officer held me back. I kicked and yelped for dear life. How could this be happening?
"Let her go," I heard my mother yell. "I'm sooo sorry, baby," she apologized. But I could no longer see her as I felt myself being pulled backward out of the courtroom. "Take your fuckin' hands off her," I heard her yell one last time before I was completely out in the hallway. Onlookers gazed at me as I tried to fight my way back inside the courtroom.
"Listen, sweetie, you have got to calm down." A female officer approached and waved away the other two male officers who had been trying to block me from going back into the courtroom.
With my fist balled up I looked at her with all the hate I had inside of me. "Who the fuck are you?" I barked.
"I'm Officer Smith," she announced — as if I gave a fuck. There were cops in every direction I glanced. But she wanted to take it upon herself to think her name mattered to me. I would have laughed at her, but I was distraught.
Upset and feeling defeated, I looked at her and walked away. She tried to stop me, but I kept stepping until I was outside in the beaming Miami heat. With my head held to the sky, the sun threatened to blind me. Tears flooded my face; my chest heaved up and down with so much force I felt as if I could barely breathe.
I turned and looked at the door to the court and realized that my mother, Felicia, would not be coming out. This would be the first time she didn't leave the courthouse with me. After all these years of stealing, this was it. She had been stealing and taking me along with her since I was old enough to remember. My mother, Felicia Payne, was one of the baddest thieves Miami, Florida, had to offer. She boosted everything from clothes, shoes, jewelry, to even seventy-inch televisions. I don't mean off brand TVs, I'm talking about top-of-the-line electronics. A career thief is what she was, and honestly, she had only been caught a few times. Unfortunately for her, the times she did get caught it was high-dollar shit. This time the judge made his point. Here I was, fourteen years old, left without a mother. And I never knew my father; it had always been me and her.
Clueless and hopeless, I ran all the way to the bus stop, where I boarded the bus headed for home. Throwing myself on the couch, I cried long and hard until I felt as if I would throw up. My throat was on fire. Someone knocked on the door, and I was too weak to stand and answer. Praying they would go away, I lay as if I were lifeless on the couch and felt relieved when the knocking abruptly stopped, but suddenly it started back up again. I dragged my whole body to the door, and I snatched it open, ready to scream at whoever felt the need to continue banging on it. To my surprise, it was a chubby, middle-aged white lady with her hair swooped into a tired bun. She was accompanied by two white police officers with flushed red cheeks. The one on the left either had a slight limp or she missed a step when she walked, I wasn't sure which. But she had a scowl on her face to die for; I guess that was to scare me. If only she knew it would take more than that. If only she knew what I really wanted to do was laugh in her face. But it would take too much energy to do all that.
I eyed the cops from head to toe. I was used to them coming to the door looking for my mother, even though most of the time they didn't have enough evidence to take her to jail. "If you looking for Felicia, you can find her down at the county jail where she'll be for a while." I sucked my teeth and sniffed back a few tears. I tried to play tough and appear unfazed, but really I wanted to lie down in the floor and kick and scream for my mother.
The chubby lady turned and glanced at the police officers then slowly faced me again. Further investigation of her made me discover she had a lazy eye and a brown birthmark on her left forefinger. Growing impatient of their presence, I sighed.
"Isis Payne, my name is Cindy Martin." Confused as to how she knew my name, I gave her a suspicious look. She glared at me as if she were trying to see through me or something. Nothing was there for her to see, though, except hurt and pain. I hoped she saw a clean picture of it.
"How do you know my name?" I questioned, my arms now folded in defense mode.
"I'm with the division of Child Protective Services. And we are here to pick you up. We are going to place you in a safe home until your mom gets out."
"I don't need no safe place. I can stay right here. My mother paid the rent up for four years," I lied. Really it was paid up for three years. But she had figured if she went to prison, I could get a job and save up to start paying rent by the time it started being due again. Only neither of us ever believed she was actually going to prison.
A fake smile spread across Cindy Martin's face. "That was a good thing your mother did. Noble, even. But, Isis, you're only fourteen. And you can't live alone; there are laws against it, and according to the information we have, you have no family to claim you. So we have to take you with us." I looked at both of the cops. I could tell they were ready to handle me if I acted up. "Go and pack your things," she ordered as if she had won.
Feeling angry, scared, and helpless, I rolled my eyes at her and stomped my right foot before marching off to my room. The ride in the car was horrible; the tears would not stop falling. A few times Cindy glanced in my direction. I wanted to scream at her and call her a fat pie-eating bitch. But the fight was leaving me by the minute. Finally, we pulled up to a ranch- style brick house with a blue car in the driveway. Cindy shut off the ignition to her car. I sniffed and blinked back more tears that threatened to fall.
"Isis, this here is where we are going to place you for the time being. I know you think we are doing this out of meanness. But you'll see it's for your own good . . ." She paused. "This is a good pick for you." She nodded at the house. "Your foster mother is very nice. And don't worry, someone from the department will drop in often to check on you, until you are placed somewhere permanently."
She walked in front of me and rang the doorbell. A tall, skinny, brown- skinned, middle-aged woman opened the door. "You finally arrived. I've been expecting you for almost two hours." The lady smiled at us.
"Sorry about that, Martha; we are running a bit behind schedule," Cindy explained. I gripped the handle to my roller suitcase tighter. I didn't want to let that suitcase go; it was like my lifeline back to my mother.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "If It Ain't About The Money"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Saundra.
Excerpted by permission of KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP..
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