Spare My Children

By Sonya Edmonds

Since she was a child, the trauma had been all too familiar for Mommy. Some girls dream of becoming housewives and mothers when they become adults. Some girls dream of having careers. 

Mommy wanted it all!

She wanted a soulmate, children, and a career. But achieving her goals would not come without a heavy price. She experienced bullying, physical, mental abuse and became homeless. By the time Mommy was in her late thirties, she and her children made newspaper headlines and media outlets across the United States because of yet another traumatic experience. The family and career that she worked so hard to create had ceased to exist. Someone from Mommy's family would pay a price. 

Could her family survive another traumatic event?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sonya Edmonds
• Release date: May 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201388485

Book preview

Chapter One

Spare My Children

My Mother’s Plea for Justice

I want the whole family, were the exact words spoken by the district attorney. I will never forget his words for as long as I live.

During the preliminary hearing, and in a deep baritone voice, the district attorney argued his points to the judge assigned to preside over our family’s case. The district attorney was adamant that my entire family and I should stand trial for murder, weapon offenses, and conspiracy in the death of our neighbor, Mr. Joe.

When I heard those words, I could not believe the words that continued to spew out of his mouth! Chills went all through my body and my hands had begun to sweat profusely. My heart was beating so fast, I could have passed out! Instead, I had begun to hyperventilate and nearly fainted!

Suddenly, and out of nowhere, a lady who appeared to be employed by the courts rushed over to my aid and demanded that I sit down immediately. She handed me water from a paper cup and instructed me to drink it slowly. The young, white lady assured me that I was going to be okay. But I could not speak! Once I was able to gather myself, I wondered if all of this was real. I looked at the faces of Mommy and my siblings.

How could this be happening to our family? We had not done anything wrong! How could the district attorney, who we had known for less than an hour, decide that our entire family could have killed Mr. Joe? What was the district attorney thinking?

As the district attorney continued to argue his points to the presiding judge, he glared at our family with a stern look on his face. That district attorney had been so adamant with his argument that he wanted our family to look at him directly so that we could see his disapproval. Well-dressed in a navy suit, white shirt, and a navy blue and white striped tie, he pushed himself away from the prosecutors’ table so that he could get a better look at our family. Momentarily, I lost focus on why our family was in the courtroom in the first place.

I was distracted by the overall appearance of the district attorney as he sat at the prosecutors’ table. I also glanced down at his feet and noticed that he was wearing a pair of blue, black, and white argyle socks. The district attorney was also wearing a pair of shiny black patent leather shoes. After I had done my visual assessment of the district attorney, I was able to refocus my attention on why our family had been in the courtroom in the first place.

Wondering if we were all going to jail, fear took over me.

How did we get here? I was so confused!

I thought that it was the responsibility of the prosecution to gather the facts of a case before arguing before the court. At least that was what I had seen on television. How could the district attorney have prejudged our family before we were able to tell our side of the story? He had not asked us anything! Had the district attorney based his decision on the information that had been told through the media? Because it was all over the media outlets. Or had the district attorney been reading about our family in the local newspapers?

Our family had been making headlines in the newspaper. Perhaps, the district attorney based his opinions solely on the statements given by Mr. Joe’s family. Our family’s story was all over the television and printed in newspapers across the country. One of Mommy’s friends called from South Carolina and informed her that she had heard about our family’s story.

Seated in the back of the courtroom was the lead detective, Mr. Carlton. He had been the person our uncles surrendered me and my sisters to. Detective Carlton had asked us girls our version of the domestic dispute. We never said that our family killed Mr. Joe because we did not kill anyone. So, how did the courts get their information and drawn their conclusion? All sorts of thoughts and emotions ran through my mind and fear took over me.

At only thirty-nine years of age, how was a woman and her five teenage kids supposed to figure out why and how the district attorney had come to his conclusions so hastily? More importantly, how was a mother and a bunch of teenagers supposed to be able to sort through a bunch of legal jargon that had been blurted out repeatedly by the district attorney?

Our family had never had any type of legal problems in the past. Mr. Joe had been the initiator of the physical altercation when he attempted to attack Mommy. Paul rescued Mommy and perhaps saved her life from Mr. Joe. How did the district attorney get the information incorrectly?

The district attorney did not know anything about our family. The district attorney did not know all the financial and social stressors, struggles, teasing, hunger and bullying that our family had endured prior to standing before the court.

The district attorney did not know that Mommy was a single, thirty-nine-year-old African American woman who had struggled all her life and sacrificed so much for her young family. The district attorney did not know all the hard work and education that Mommy endured to get off welfare and to provide a better life for her children and for herself. The district attorney did not know that Mommy had received a degree in histology less than three months before Mr. Joe had died. The district attorney did not know that Mommy had gained financial freedom by no longer relying on the welfare system to care for her kids.

Finally, the district attorney did not know about the invaluable lessons that Mommy had taught us so that we would not become a second generation of welfare recipients. The only thing that the district attorney knew was that before him stood a family of six—accused of killing a man. And he wanted our entire family to pay the price for the death of Mr. Joe.

Mommy often shared her life stories with us kids. She was great at telling stories, and I would hang on to her every word.

The stories that Mommy told us about her father hanging himself in the basement of the family’s home were always scary, compelling, heartfelt, and sad. Mommy told us that when she was only age three, she heard Grandma Ava yell for Grandpa Martin to come eat breakfast, but he did not answer. Prior to calling Grandpa Martin for breakfast, Grandma Ava had been talking to Grandpa Martin’s youngest sister while cooking. Too afraid to go into her own cellar due to her fear of rodents, Grandma Ava had next-door neighbor, Mr. Alex, come check on Grandpa Martin.

According to Mommy, when Mr. Alex went downstairs into the cellar he yelled, Boy, what have you done to yourself!

Mr. Alex then yelled for Grandma Ava to call the authorities. The police as we know them today, were referred to as the authorities when Mommy was a child. Mr. Alex was too afraid to tell Grandma Ava that Grandpa Martin was in the cellar hanging like a sheet in the wind! Mr. Alex did not attempt to cut Grandpa Martin down from the noose that he had made to kill himself with. Instead, Mr. Alex let the authorities handle Grandpa Martin’s grave situation.

The authorities gently cut down Grandpa Martin and lay him onto the dirt floor of the cellar. After noticing that the pockets of Grandpa Martin’s pants had bulges of something inside of them, the authorities began their investigation. Inside Grandpa Martin's pockets, they found a tube of rat poison and two bottles of iodine. The authorities concluded that Grandpa Martin no longer wanted to live.

There had been several rumors as to why Grandpa Martin killed himself. One rumor was that Grandpa Martin had been living between two families: one with Grandma Ava and his seven kids, and the other with his mistress and his other two kids. As the story goes, the burden of taking care of two families was too much for Grandpa Martin.

Another theory was that Grandpa Martin had been taking care of a total of three families: his wife, his mistress, and his mother along with five sisters. The financial burden of taking care of three families became too much for Grandpa Martin. Unless a person is rich, the financial burden of taking care of multiple families would have been too much for one person.

The last version of the story regarding Grandpa Martin’s suicide had been that Grandpa Martin suffered from schizophrenia and that the depression of living with schizophrenia caused him to commit suicide. Whatever his reason was, Grandpa Martin left behind many loved ones who were traumatized by his death. Grandpa Martin’s suicide made the local newspaper in Camden, New Jersey. Mommy had been only three years of age when Grandpa Martin took his own life. Her memories of her father were vague, so she had to rely on stories told by other people to understand why her father would leave his wife, seven children, his mother and his five sisters behind. From that moment, Mommy's life appeared to be destined for darkness.

In the Bible, there are several places that mention generational curses: for example, Exodus 20: 5 says, Thou shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.

Another Bible verse that talks about suicide says, The Lord is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forgiven iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children onto the third and fourth generation.

Most Christians believe that suicide is an unforgivable sin. Given that Grandpa Martin killed himself, one can only wonder if, as the Bible states, our family could be paying for the sins of Grandpa Martin.

Almost four decades after Grandpa Martin had killed himself, our family's story made it to television screens and newspaper headlines all around the country.

Here is our story:

At age sixteen, Mommy moved to Philadelphia shortly after she began high school. Mommy was still a minor when her mother, Grandma Ava, moved from New Jersey to Philadelphia. This happened after she married her second husband, Mr. Foster.

Mommy was the fifth of seven siblings. She and her youngest brother, Uncle Robert, were the only two of the seven children who moved to Philadelphia with Grandma Ava. Mommy said that the move did not bother her because Philadelphia had been like the city of Camden during her time as a youth.

For one thing, her family moved on to another street full of row homes—but the new house was smaller. Mommy said that the neighbors that she moved away from were a mixture of Italian and African American descent. Grandma Ava and her new husband moved to a neighborhood which was ninety percent African American, and Mommy felt very embraced by the African American community.

The high school that Mommy had left in Camden was a coed school. The neighborhood school that Mommy transferred to in Philadelphia was an all-female school. Mommy said that she did not like that choice, but there was nothing that she could do about the situation. But less than eight city blocks away from the all-girls school, was an all-male high school that Mommy and her female peers frequently visited.

I quickly adjusted to my new surroundings, said Mommy with a sneaky grin on her face. According to Mommy, she made friends easily and began to enjoy the transition from New Jersey to Philadelphia. The marriage between Grandma Ava and her new husband was brief, though. Grandma Ava continued to collect social security benefits from Grandpa Martin’s death to support the two teens at home. However, the social security income alone had not been enough to support the household. So, in addition to collecting social security benefits, Grandma Ava also worked as a full-time maid.

Sixteen was the age that Grandma Ava allowed Mommy to date boys. That had been the family’s rule. When Mommy finished her homework and house chores, she spent time with her new classmates. There was one friend, Joan, that Mommy was particularly fond of. Mommy said she spent plenty of time at Joan’s house talking about what else, but boys! According to Mommy, Joan was smart, pretty and had a body to die for.

Joan’s body measurements were 36 – 24 – 36. Joan had been considered in Mommy’s words, a brick shit house! Mommy said that Joan's sexy walk caused her to stop traffic because men wanted to take a second, and third look at her new friend. Because Joan was pretty, sexy, and smart, Mommy had been immediately drawn to her.

We were also ‘like-minded,’ Mommy said. We had the same interests and liked the same things. After knowing Joan for only a brief time, Mommy said the two had become so close, that they could almost finish each other’s sentences.

Joan had an older brother named Bret who Mommy thought was handsome, and Mommy wanted to get to know him better. Within months of moving to Philadelphia, Joan’s brother became another one of Mommy’s closest friends. Bret, Mommy said, was six-foot-tall, handsome and the most high yellow young man that she had ever seen.

While the boys had been chasing after Joan, all the girls at Mommy's new high school had been chasing after Bret! The girls and boys talked especially about Bret's private parts, Mommy said. Snickering as she continued her story, Mommy said that all the girls in the neighborhood loved them some Bret! One girl who had been head over heels for Bret, was named Yolanda. Yolanda and Bret looked like they were attracted to each other, but Mommy wanted Bret to look at her the same way that he looked at Yolanda.

In addition to Bret’s good looks and high yellow complexion, he was super intelligent, Mommy said. Bret used words that Mommy was not familiar with. After talking to Bret, Mommy said that she would go home and look up some of those long, fancy words that he had used. Bret was so intelligent that Mommy was sure he was destined to be successful in life. Intrigued by his great looks and intellect, Mommy wanted him to be her boyfriend, so she had to do whatever she could to divert Bret’s attention away from Yolanda.

Bret was the only male in a family of five sisters. Since he was the only male of his family, his sisters and parents were very protective of him.

The group of friends spent hours sitting around the steps of Joan and Bret’s front door talking and flirting. Over time, Mommy and Bret broke away from the group of friends and became a couple. Mommy had achieved her goal of taking Bret’s attention away from Yolanda.

Instead of spending time at Joan and Bret's house, the new couple began spending time at Grandma Ava’s house while Grandma Ava was at work. Mommy’s little brother, Uncle Robert, was often out in the neighborhood with his own set of friends. Time permitted Mommy and Bret the freedom to do whatever they wanted to do in Grandma Ava’s absence. The two took full advantage of their spare time together inside Grandma Ava's home. The summer of 1962 had been the best summer that the two had ever had, according to Mommy. Within one year of her move to Philadelphia, Mommy became pregnant with Bret’s baby.

During the winter season of Mommy’s senior year of high school, she gave birth to her first child, Paul. It was customary for a man to live up to his responsibilities as a new father, so Bret proposed and married Mommy. Neither Grandma Ava nor Bret’s parents had been happy about the young couple’s new commitment, but that was the social norm for which they lived. Grandma Ava even wondered if moving Mommy to Philadelphia had been a good idea.

Bret’s mother was a housewife—she cared for young Paul so that Bret and Mommy could finish their last three months of high school. Mommy did graduate from the all-girls high school. Bret, however, would never finish high school because he needed to find a job to take care of his new family. Since Bret was a tall, muscular man, finding work was not a hard task for him.

In the 1960s, a high school diploma was not required to get work. Bret quickly found a job as a construction worker. His employer taught him everything he needed to know about his new construction job, and the job paid well. Bret was good at his job and was quickly promoted to foreman. The young Bret was able to move his new family into an apartment within walking distance of both their childhood homes.

Although Bret had not finished high school, he showed potential in his new role as a father and provider. Mommy had adapted to motherhood as if she had years of experience. While Bret worked during the day, Mommy cooked, cleaned, washed diapers, and cared for baby Paul. Mommy and Bret had the perfect family. Things appeared to have been going well for the young couple’s marriage, too.

Less than six months after Bret landed his job, Mommy informed him that she was pregnant with their second child, Tammy. Bret assured Mommy that another mouth to feed would not be difficult for the young couple.

In 1965, the third year of their relationship, Mommy was pregnant once again. Life had been good with a family of four, but a family of five would prove to be more difficult for the couple. The young couple began to argue and fight about finances.

Bret’s father began to pick Bret up after work, and the two men went out for drinks regularly. Bret’s drinking became a ritual, and Mommy began to see behavioral changes that were not good. Bret would not come home at all some nights, Mommy recalled. When Bret did return home, his conversations were filled with slurred speech, yelling, profanity and insults. She said that she tried to be understanding and blamed herself for the multiple pregnancies. Mommy said that she should have been more careful about becoming pregnant.

Contraception was limited during that time, and birth control pills had not even hit the market, Mommy said. An IUD (Intrauterine Device) had been my only option, and I was too afraid to have one inserted inside me!

Besides, every woman that I knew who had gotten an IUD, eventually ended up having a hysterectomy... Mommy said. I often apologized to Bret for getting pregnant, but the verbal abuse became more common—so frequent, that Bret acted as though he hated me!

According to Mommy, Bret’s abuse went from verbal to physical and emotional.

It became apparent to her that Bret had a drinking problem, and she did not know how to help him. Mommy recalled Bret’s mood swings being unpredictable.

Sometimes Bret would be so sweet and attentive to her needs, and other days he was as evil as the devil, according to Mommy. I wanted to leave Bret, but how was I going to leave with two babies and one on the way?

According to Mommy, she had been trapped with a man she no longer knew. The alcohol had totally consumed him, and Bret was in total denial that he even had a drinking problem.

Mommy’s first recollection of the physical abuse occurred when Bret told her a story about the day when he had accompanied his mother, Grandma Leslie, to a doctor’s appointment. While at her appointment, the doctor could not get a weight on Grandma Leslie because the maximum weight of the scale was two-hundred and fifty pounds. Grandma Leslie’s weight exceeded the scale’s capacity, and she had been instructed by her doctor to go to a butcher for her accurate weight.

Mommy recalled laughing so hard, that she peed trickles of urine into her panties. I laughed so hard that I became short of breath and my ribs hurt. According to Mommy, in an instant, Bret had punched her in the face with such force that she fell to the floor! Mommy received a blackened eye and a busted lip after the punch from Bret.

I should not have laughed at his mother, Mommy said. I knew that he was a mama’s boy and he really loved his mother, Mommy continued. According to Mommy, she did not make any attempts to defend herself against Bret when his fist hit her face. She believed that she had given Bret the license to hit her again, and again. Once the hitting had begun, it did not stop, and Bret’s physical and verbal abuse escalated.

One day while making breakfast for the family, an angry and drunk Bret came into the kitchen and threw a pot of hot grits at Mommy's back. The hot grits hit Mommy directly between her shoulder blades. The third-degree burns blistered immediately and oozed of puss. Mommy said that was when she knew that she was in trouble and needed help. Instead of calling the authorities, Mommy called her four brothers: Kevin, Allen, Trace, and Robert.

Mommy said, I tried to keep my family out of my personal affairs, but the beatings would not stop! Before all four brothers could get to the house, your Uncle Robert came over to the apartment and kicked Bret’s ass!

Your Uncle Robert picked up Paul’s little red tricycle bike and began beating Bret as if he were holding a bat in one hand, Mommy remembered. Blood streamed down Bret’s ‘high yellow’ face because Uncle Robert had busted him in the head.

Bret suffered a broken arm and a fracture of his right shin, Mommy said. Bret's clothes were saturated in blood by the time Robert finished beating him, Mommy recalled.

Immediately after the beating that Robert had given him, Bret staggered around the apartment so badly that Uncle Robert thought that Bret was going to die. When Robert realized that Bret was not dying, he warned Bret to stay away from me and our kids.

Bret eventually staggered away from the apartment covered in blood. Instead of going to the hospital to get medical attention, Bret went to his parents' house. The beating that Robert had given Bret caused a strain in the relationship between Mommy and her in-laws. Bret's parents encouraged him to seek medical attention from the neighborhood hospital. According to Mommy's recollection, Bret did not tell the hospital staff how he had sustained his wounds. Bret did not want to risk the embarrassment of the hospital finding out that he, himself, was a wife abuser. Mommy said that back in the 1960s, it was not against the law for a husband to beat his wife. Wives were almost considered to be a man's property.

Bret later begged and pleaded for Mommy to take him back. He promised to be a better husband and father. Just before Laurie was born, Mommy gave Bret permission to move back into the apartment. Like most abusers, Bret’s behavior was picture perfect—but only for a short while. Bret continued to work and provided for Mommy and his kids.

By the spring of 1965, Mommy gave birth to Laurie. Mommy said that Laurie had been the most beautiful baby that she had ever seen. Laurie was born twenty-one inches long with a head full of straight, jet-black hair. Laurie had the most beautiful sandy brown skin complexion, rosy cherry lips, and looked like Bret’s side of the family, Mommy recalled.

According to Mommy, Bret often sat and stared at Laurie for hours at a time and was simply in love with his second daughter. Bret’s love for Mommy appeared to be short-lived because the physical and verbal abuse had begun after Mommy had been home from the hospital for less than two months. This time, Mommy’s four brothers ganged up on Bret and beat him up. Mommy’s four brothers threatened to make Bret disappear permanently if they got word that he returned to the couple’s apartment.

One month after my parent’s final separation, Mommy learned that she was pregnant for the fourth time. Mommy knew that after the abuse that she had endured at the hands of Bret and the promise that she had made to her brothers that there was no turning back. She did not want to explain to her brothers, who had practically raised her in the absence of her deceased father, how she had allowed Bret back into her life. Mommy filed for divorce and sued Bret for spousal and child support. But Bret had refused to pay for child support and quit his job as foreman so that he did not have to support his wife nor his family.

I almost did not make it into this world. As often as I can, I tell the story that had been repeated to me time after time by Mommy. By age twenty-one, Mommy had three children and Monica and I were on our way into the world. Mommy had no idea that the fourth baby that she carried would be a set of twin girls: Monica and me. Mommy said that she went into labor, delivered Monica, and was waiting to deliver the placenta that belonged to Monica. There were two doctors in the delivery room who assisted Mommy with her delivery with Monica.

One doctor had been Mommy’s own obstetrician while the other doctor was from India. The Indian physician had been considering moving permanently to the United States and was shadowing Mommy’s obstetrician. The Indian physician alerted Mommy’s obstetrician that she was pregnant with twins. Mommy’s own obstetrician strongly disagreed with the visiting physician for roughly ten minutes before I arrived in this world. That is one reason why Monica and I are ten minutes apart.

In 1966, technology was not as advanced as it is today. There were no ultrasounds, or any other diagnostic images that could have detected that Mommy had indeed been pregnant with twins. Mommy had always been an obese woman but did not carry Monica and me any differently than she had the others. It appeared that I had been positioned directly behind Monica, and that was why Mommy’s own obstetrician had never detected a second heartbeat. Mommy also said that she had been depressed and stressed over the break-up of our father and did not gain much weight during her pregnancy.

My arrival into this world came as a big surprise when Mommy got over the shock that she had given birth to a set of fraternal twin girls. To make matters worse, she had to find names for her surprise twin daughters. Mommy decided to name her twins after herself, Yvonne, and Yvette. The maternity nurse of the hospital informed Mommy that Yvonne and Yvette were the same name, and politely instructed Mommy to choose alternative names for her twin girls. After Mommy apologized to the maternity nurse, she gave the nurse her second choice of names for her twin girls.

She decided to give us the names Karen and Sharon. The maternity nurse again told Mommy that Karen and Sharon were also the same name. Mommy said that she became so frustrated about choosing names for her twin girls that she yelled for the maternity nurse to name us her damn self!

Aunt Darlene, Mommy’s middle sister was in the hospital room as her anxiety and frustration grew regarding naming two newborn babies. Aunt Darlene was older than Mommy, but the two had been the spitting image of each other. Anyone who looked at Aunt Darlene and Mommy could have easily concluded that the two of them were identical twins. The only difference between the sisters was that Aunt Darlene was much slimmer than Mommy. Aunt Darlene instructed Mommy to name me Monique, and then said to Mommy, You will have to figure out a name for the other baby.

After I was given the name of Monique, Mommy finally decided to name her other baby girl Monica. Mommy felt a sense of relief after Aunt Darlene assisted her in naming Monica and me.

Several months went by before my father learned of Monica’s and my arrival. He again pleaded with Mommy that he had stopped