The Real Antonette Come Forth

By Antonette Smith

The Real Antonette Come Forth series walks you through the life of Antonette Smith. This book series chronicles the life of a girl from age 5 to 39. She has suffered physical, mental, emotional, and drug abuse. She has cheated death and lived to tell her story. If you have been molested, if you have been raped, if you have been in an abusive relationship, if you have run for your life, if you have been rejected, if you have been abandoned, if you have been looked over, if you are a teen parent, if you are a confused teen, if you suffer from false identity, if you suffer from hurt and pain, and if you suffer from heartache and pain, it does not matter if you are a boy or a girl, man or woman—hurt is hurt, and shame is shame. This series has been written to shame the devil and glorify God. It tells all the hidden dark secrets to dethrone the devil of Antonette’s past and make Jesus Lord of all her past, present, and future. She’s free to be the real her, who God created her to be, and you are too. Jesus freed her from a life of lies, abuse, sex, and drugs, and he has the power to free you too. “She tells her story with such inspiration, joy and forgiveness. No bitterness, regret or revenge.” —Dr. Patricia Estrada, Harvey, Louisiana “I cried, laughed, got happy and inspired. Amazing woman.” —Amelia Sherman, New Orleans, Louisiana

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781684096428

Book preview

The Real

Antonette Come Forth

Series Volume 4

The Addict, Age 18–26

(Drug and Sex Addiction)

Antonette Smith

Copyright © 2016 Antonette Smith

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2016

ISBN 978-1-68409-641-1 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68409-642-8 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

To all the men and women in the kingdom of God. I love all of you with the love of Christ. There are too many to name, but I have to give honor where honor is due.

To the late Reverend Marshal and Mrs. Williams of Bible Witness Camp of Hopkins Park, Illinois, as a whole, which taught and trained me in Jesus Christ, which trained me and laid a solid foundation in Christ, which has sustained me to this very day. Thank you all for teaching me Christ at an early age and the discipline that came along with learning and living for Christ. I thank all of you for your years of service and dedication to the body of Christ. Thank you for living a laid-down life and teaching us children to live a life of faith. I am still living by the very training I received from you as a child. Even though I strayed and stumbled, grace led me home to Christ again. The Holy Spirit would remind me like Timothy (from a child I have known the holy scriptures). Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

To Reverend Louis and Sis Barnes of St. Anne Woods Chapel, Illinois, who instilled into my spirit that God was my only hope, my only help, my only strength in any situation or circumstance. Thank you for loving me beyond measure and being obedient to Father God, in being persistent in your message to me year after year. You preached the same message to me. Even if you had to come to my house, find me in the park or on the side of the road. You preached Christ to me even if I was high on drugs or laid up from being physically abused or running for my life. You preached Christ to me, and he has sustained me to this very day. I love both of you dearly with all my heart.

To Pastor Mike Murdock of the wisdom center in Fort Worth, Texas. Thank you for your love and prayers. Thank you for your wisdom, which has become my wisdom as well. I thank you and your staff for your prayers. I thank you for your book Wisdom Keys of Mike Murdock and many more that I have purchased through the years. I thank you for your strength and honesty concerning marriage, singleness, and divorce. It has helped me through my divorce, and thank you for your wisdom in guiding me not only in choosing another mate but also in staying single and being a great mother. Thank you for all your wisdom keys. You have been a great inspiration to me for many years, and I’m now reaping much harvest of the seeds I have sown through the guidance of your wisdom and the Holy Spirit. Because of you, I now see the Holy Spirit as a person and not as an it. I now walk in the wisdom of God and depend on the Holy Spirit to guide me into the deeper things of God and in every area of my life. May God continue to download his wisdom into us daily.

To Mike and Latoyna Collins of Brookhaven, Mississippi. I thank God for sending the both of you into me and my children’s life in 2003. From the first day Latoyna and I met at work, we became friends, real friends. Thank both of you for your support in helping me raise my five children and going through years of transformation and change. Whether you two knew it or not, it was your consistent love and support for me that got me through the toughest of times since I moved to Mississippi thirteen years ago. You became the close family and support system I needed for change. And you opened up your parents to me as well for more support. May God bless and keep you and ML in his care. Glad the world can know how much I love y’all, and I know y’all already do, but I can’t say it enough. Thank you for all your support. Mike, thank you for bringing my designs for my business cards and flyers to life for my company. Thank you for bringing my vision to life for my book photos, posters, bookmarks, and flyers. Photos of my book signing, without you, they would still be images drawn in my notebook. Thank you for all your gifts and talents you shared with me and now the world. Thank God for divine connections.

To Vanessa Moore, Veeeeenessa, my girl from McDonald’s of Brookhaven. Thank you for always keeping it real. I thank you for all the conversations we shared, the laughs and the stress too. Thank you for always looking to me as I looked to Christ. You called me Jesus a lot and had the entire management class in Pearl calling me Jesus. Thank you for the respect you have shown me due to my life of Christ. You warned many people not to say this or that when I was approaching areas, and eventually everyone else caught on. Most of them anyway. But I just want you to know, your attitude toward me meant and means the world to me. You are one of the reasons I live an open life, so I can show all God’s children Christ will change your life if you allow him to. And to be consistent, no matter if you’re at work, home, church, or play. Be Christlike in all you say and do. Thank you for listening to my many sermons at McDonald’s and encouraging me when other team members complained about my ways and attitude. Love ya, girl. I told you I would put your name in my book.

To my readers, thank you thus far for all your love and support. I thank you for coming out to my book signing when I’m in your town. Whether you have to travel near or far. Thank you for purchasing my books and sharing with your friends and family. I love you from the bottom of my heart. I pray that your healing and deliverance process is further along since you have read volumes 1–3. I pray that you see God in a different light now and that you are on a journey to discover who you are in him. I pray that all your shackles have been broken off your life and you are walking in newness of life. I pray you have accepted the reality that you don’t have the power to remove the yokes and bondages off yourself. Jesus has already removed them on the cross. Allow him to work in your life. Allow him to work in you as well. He has freed you already; I pray you have the faith to receive it. Then allow the Holy Spirit to guide you into all truths. The truth of God and his love for you. The truth about who you were created to be. The truth about your purpose in life. I pray that I have been a blessing to you. I wrote this series just for you. I’m free in every area of my life. I have nothing to hide. If I would have continued to keep the dark secrets of my past, God would never be glorified in my life, and Satan would have still sat on the throne of my hurts, my pains, my shames. But I choose to dethrone him and make Jesus Lord of all the good, the bad, and the ugly. Now he is my Prince of Peace and Lord of Lords. Enjoy volume 4. Love you dearly, and see you soon.

The Addict

Drug and Sex Addiction Volume 4

Age 18–26 (What Is in You Will Come Out)

For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envying, murders, drunkenness, reveling, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in the past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. (Gal. 5:17–21, KJV)

Continued from Volume 3: The Years of a Teen

Chaos

Age 18

Now I’m home, and my children’s father still isn’t back. So I call my mother to come pick us up to come over her house.

She gets there and says, Where is your car? And how was prom?

And I said, The children’s father has been gone in my car since prom night, and I don’t want to talk about prom.

So she immediately assumed that meant he had beat me again, but she had no idea this was worse than a beating. So we at the house about to barbecue. My mother was having a cookout, so I had to make trays and help out, so let me put on my happy face and attitude so no one will know. Well, toward the end of the cookout, who shows up? You guessed correctly, the children’s father, but he was not in my car. He had bought me another car after destroying the other one.

So I said to him, Don’t talk to me. And I walked in the house.

He said, I came to get the children.

I turned around and said, They not going nowhere with you. That was his way to get me back, to use the children, but I refused.

So my mother walked in and said, What’s going on?

He said Nothing and walked out and said he would be back.

So my mother said, What did he say?

I said, He trying to take the children again.

She said Okay.

So they drove off, and we began to bring the food into the house. The children and their cousins were all still playing outside. And my cousins and aunts were outside too, watching them. Now they didn’t know what was going on, but they would in about ten minutes. Their father and his brother and mother doubled back and grabbed my three children out the yard. I came out when he was running with the last one and yelled, "Momma, he taking my children! Now what was about to happen I wasn’t prepared for. My mother ran out the house and shot up the car as they drove off. I was screaming, Momma, no, you gonna kill my children—nooooooo." I had no idea my mother had a gun, let alone could use one. Now I knew she didn’t play and would cut you everywhere but loose, but a gun. Lord Jesus, help us. So I was crying, scared. I didn’t know if my children were shot. She shot out the back window. I didn’t know if the mother, brother, or my children’s father was shot. So my cousin called the police, and before they arrived, I take the gun out my mother’s hands because she was in a state of shock.

She was sitting on the steps, saying, Oh God, did I kill my grandchildren?

So I gave the gun to my cousin and told him to hide it before the police came. He said, Okay, I have to hide mine too.

Now mind his words, y’all. Keep that thought.

So the police arrived, and they had called the police because my mother put six holes in their car. So we were swamped by police cars, detectives and all. So they, of course, knew our family for the most part. They hopped out the cars, and I said, My children’s father stole my three children out the yard.

The police said, We got a call that shots were being fired.

I said, Take me to get my children. So the other police searched the house and property for the gun. Another officer put me in his car to go get my children, because I still had a restraining order on my children’s father, for him not to come near me. My court date was in two weeks, for visitations for him and the children. So we arrived at his parents’ house, and he was out of sight, but his family was present and upset for getting shot at, but it was his fault. So the officer asked them for my children or he would be arresting them for kidnapping. While the officer went to get my children, there were six police on their property as well. So I saw the car and the back window were shot at. And three holes around the gas tank hole and two holes in the front car door, and the mirror shot off. I dropped to my knees, because someone had got to be dead. So all three of my children came out with the three officers assisting all of them.

Thank God. No one was hurt or shot. No one in the car was injured at all. It was a miracle the car didn’t blow up. God was truly with my children. So as we headed back to the car, the detective pulled up with my mother in the car. And she said to me, They found the gun. I’m going to jail.

I said, No, take my children. I’ll go. I have a case against him, I’ll get out soon.

So they took my children, and I went to jail. So I was still cool about the whole situation at this time. They asked me to tell them what happened.

So it started with me pressing rape charges on him and getting a restraining order, with court date coming up. I told them, He showed up unannounced to my mother’s house today. I refused to talk to him, so he asked for the children.

The officer said, Is he the father of all of them?

I responded, Yes, he is, but I tell him he can’t take them, because he always holds them too long to get me to come back home. So he left. And in ten minutes, him, his mother and brother was back, and they took my children out the yard. By the time I got outside, he was running with the last one, so I assumed he got them all his self.

The officer said, Where did you get the guns?

Guns? There is only one gun.

The officer said, There was two guns in the woods we found. Describe the gun that is yours.

So I described the gun I took from my mother’s hands, but I had no idea what the other gun looked like.

The officer said, Where did you get the gun from?

Now I had to lie on this part because I didn’t even know my mother had a gun in the house. So I immediately said I had someone to purchase it from the pawnshop for me.

So he said, Okay, we will be booking you. So as I was about to walk up the stairs, he said, We will be charging you with attempted first-degree murder.

My heart fell to my feet. What? They were gonna send me to prison for protecting myself and my children? And who walks through the door? My mother. She said to the officer, Let her go, I did it. I shot the car up. The officer told my mother that I had confessed, and my prints were found on the gun, so I was being booked. And so was she because her prints were found on the gun as well, and we could tell the judge the details in court tomorrow. So my mother said, I already contacted our lawyer. She will get you home in the morning and take care them children, okay? I love you.

I was crying and said, Okay, Momma.

So they booked us in. Now my mother and I had to be separated because we were fighting the same case. So at court, our lawyer, bless her heart, was there, and yes, she got me out on $5,000 bond and my mother out on $10, 000 bond, all in cash. My brother Andra got both of us out of jail. Our lawyer was the lawyer we hired for my brother, because at this time, he had been arrested for selling drugs multiple times and was facing prison time, so we hired her to represent him and now us. Well, the story doesn’t end there. While my mother and I spent a night and day in jail, my father—my real father—had notified my brothers of the situation at hand, so they were on the hunt for my children’s father. To make a long story short, many of my family members were arrested for mob action. My brothers shot up the children’s father’s sister’s house and caught some of them out in public and tortured them. This behavior went on for about a month. Fighting, shooting, arrest. While fighting the charges of first-degree attempted murder on my mother and I.

My children’s father nor his family pressed charges against my mother or me. The state was persecuting us. My brother Andra had been sentenced to six years in prison. We were so heartbroken. We had his children, and the other son lived with his mother, and they came to visit us all the time.

We had court date today, and the children were at the sitter’s house. Now while we were in court, my children’s father took the children from the sitter. So she called me at court, and I went down to report it, and the State Attorney’s Office said, We will be charging him with kidnapping, because he only has visitation rights. So I called his family and told them to warn him he would be arrested for kidnapping. By the time they processed the paperwork and we attended court for our case, he had returned the children and called the State Attorney’s Office himself. When I arrived to pick up my children from the sitter, my oldest daughter, who was five, met me at the car. Now let me give you a backdrop before I tell you this story. I taught my children to watch one another, to stay together and tell me everything people said to them that wasn’t appropriate. So she said to me, Mom, Dad came and got us, took us to the store, and brought us back because the police weren’t taking him to jail.

I said, Okay, baby.

Then she said to me, The lady in that house over there asked me, was that my daddy? And I just didn’t say nothing because I can’t talk to strangers.

I said, That’s right, baby.

Then she said, The lady asked me, was I dumb or just stupid?

I said, What she say?

She said, was I dumb or just stupid?

I politely walked across the street, knocked on her door. It was a girl I went to school with. So she opened the door, and I said, You questioning my daughter?

She said, Who is your daughter?

I called my daughter from the sitter’s house. I said, This my daughter.

She said, No, I didn’t.

I said, You a damn liar. Don’t question my children. If you want to know anything about me or my household, you ask me.

And she said, F—— you and your household.

I snatched her out the door by her hair and got to beating the brains off her. So she was holding on to my shirt.

I took my shirt off and continued to beat her. Here comes her mother out the house because she was yelling, and my mother and the sitter from across the street too. So her mother yelled for her daughter to go. My mother was running across the street, saying, You better not touch my daughter. So when my mother got there, she pulled me off the girl. She said, What’s going on?

I said, This b—— asked my daughter was she dumb or just stupid.

Her mother said, Get out my yard, I’m calling the police.

I said, B——, you can call whoever you want to. I bet your daughter won’t ask nobody else children are they dumb or stupid.

That girl’s face was messed up. I snatched hair out her head and all. When we got back across the street, my mother and the sitter said, Girl, don’t you know you out on bail? You can’t be fighting.

I said, She better leave my children alone. Don’t play with me about my children.

My best friend moved back home. He is my heart. When I hurt, he hurt. Each time my children’s father beat on me, soon as I got well or could walk, I go to his house and lay in his bed. Or I call him over to my house once the children’s father has been gone for a while. He takes good care of me. His mother, my mother, and my sisters think we are having an affair, but we are not. He likes men too but has never spoken about it to me. And if I hear you say that he is gay, we fighting. I have fought his aunts and several people for calling him gay. Don’t talk about my friend, ever. So he has moved back to Hopkins Park, and I was sooo happy. But he wanted a favor from me. Now I would do anything for him, really; we’re just that close. He knows all about my lovers and life. He is the only one that knows me through and through, and he understands, so we got each other’s back, even against our mothers. Because they say we shouldn’t be hanging out together and I have a man. Now my children’s father can’t stand him at all. He said it’s like hanging out with people that are going through identity crisis. I said, Well, at least you don’t have to worry about him hitting on me. That’s how we were able to stay friends and hang out together. He would go shopping with me and the children, come stay the night with us. While he was gone, I missed him dearly. He was my safety net for years.

So my aunt hooked me up with a job at M&D Balloon factory in Manteno III. Where you make balloons for Walt Disney World. I worked the overnight shift 11:00–7:00 and sometimes 11:00–11:00 to get overtime. So the job was going good; it was my first job. My children’s father was not liking it because he said the children wouldn’t go to bed at night, waiting on me. Could be true, but he didn’t want me to meet people at all or make friends. Yes, we were back together after the shooting and me spending the night in jail. Yes, I know I have a serious problem; that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. This is a job for Jesus. So on the third week, my supervisor told me to meet him at the bar in Hopkins Park that Friday. I refused to meet him. Now when I returned to work that Sunday night, he called me to the office. I went, and he said to me, What happened on Friday?

I said, Nothing. I told you I have a man and three children.

He said to me, I’m giving you a job to take care of your children. You got to be glad I let you work here.

Now I still had hostility in me. So I read him his right. I said, Let me tell you something. I make more money in a half of second then I make here twelve weeks. I’m trying to make an honest living, but I refuse to sleep with you to keep a job. And you ugly anyway, don’t nobody want you. And I cursed him out, and I was loud, so of course other people heard me talking to him. And calling him a pervert and all.

So my aunt came and said, What’s going on?

I said, He trying to sleep with me for this job, so I cursed him out. I quit.

And I told her to give me the keys to her car. I’d sit in the car until she got off. In the morning, I had to ride to work with my aunt because my children’s father took my car keys from me. So that was my first job.

The Lord said to me, I had too much pride in me. It was him that provided the job for me and no one else. I said, Okay, Lord, whatever job you bless me with from this day forward, I promise I will work as unto you.

Then he said to me, Everything that you will go through in your life don’t have anything to do with you but the people I will be sending to you. So never take anything you go through to heart. It’s me doing it.

So those were words of comfort, and I knew God would deliver me out of any situation that might occur. So peace came unto me, and I said, Yes, Lord, to your will.

I was leaving the state; I couldn’t take no more. My children’s grandmother was killed in a car accident. We were dealing with that the best we knew how. My children’s father had completely lost his mind for real now. There was no saving him now, but I tried. So we were still together. At this point, I had been to three battered women’s shelter with my children, and I always returned because I missed my house, my things, my children in their own beds. And I told myself, It’s not that bad. At least he doesn’t beat me in the face where people notice it. He beat me in my legs and arms and kicked me in the head. I was sore all the time, and he rubbed me down with alcohol after each beating and have sex with me every time, and I sat up all night, watching him get high because I was not allowed to go to sleep when he was in his rage mood, I called them.

And he said to me continually, At least I didn’t leave you when you got pregnant. I take care of mine, don’t I?

I said Yes, you do with my mouth, but my mind was saying Just leave us alone, please. It’s not worth any of this. But I didn’t know what to do.

Yeah, I know you’re saying, "What? After you getting abused sexually, mentally, and emotionally, arrested and facing prison time, you still with this man?"

Yes, I am. That’s what I call love, fear in bondage, bound by sin and darkness. I know some of you readers are saying there is no way I would have let a man treat me like this or that. I would have gotten my children and left. And some of your parents are saying I would have taken my daughter and grandchildren far away to protect them. Or some of you might be saying, Good for her. All the lies she has told and problems she has caused, she ain’t no saint. She getting what she deserves. Well, to all the judges and jurors, I did leave multiple times with my children and sought help. I even learned to study the behavior of abusers and their patterns. I also studied the pattern of the women being abused and the mental effects and all. My parents helped my children and me. So until you have walked in these shoes, you will never begin to comprehend the shackles that keep you bound in the cycle of abuse. But all I know is God the Father told me, Yes, you get your looks and characteristics from your parents, but you get your grace from me. So I am a job for Jesus.

To make matters worse, my mother’s brother was in ICU because a drug dealer hit him in the back of the head with brass knuckles and ran him over with a car. So my children’s father and I drove my mother and family to Loyola Hospital in Maywood, Illinois. Yes, all of us are together like all these events never took place. It’s like this, when a death occurs, you put everything else aside to aide and assist the grieving family, no matter who they are. That’s what we were taught and practiced. So my uncle died, the one that stole all of my children’s belonging for me. Lord, I loved him dearly, and that’s all I’m gonna say about that. RIP Uncle Nuck. So my children’s father’s drug habit had increased beyond anything I’d ever seen, so I dared not try anything with him at this point. So I let him have his way. He went and came s as he pleased. Now he had his hoes coming by my house, looking for him. Hell to the no. So I was in fighting mode and started checking these hoes. Don’t you ever come to my house and knock on my door, looking for my man.

They would act like they wanted to buy drugs, which they did, but they were tricks. He would trick off with all kinds of women, and many of them I knew personally and was some kin too. So I said to him, You will not disrespect me in my face. You better keep you hoes in another town and city. Of course, he denied all the accusations, but I didn’t care.

I was still having an affair of my own. For the second year in a row, I was still sleeping with this guy. And he rocked my world, let me just tell you. He was worth every beating I took for him, sneaking out the house and slipping school to lay up with him. We weren’t only sex partners, we were friends as well. Now I still slept with my schoolmate as well. Our affair has lasted six years, but I was freeing him to go ahead with his life and meet someone. And of course, he chose one of my family members. So I said to him, You got to be kidding, right? But I wasn’t shocked at him; I was shocked at her, because she knew I had been sleeping with this guy for years, so he be like Burger King: Have It Your Way. But just know when I call him, he would be coming, and he did, until I left. So I began another affair with another guy. I just felt better if I hadtwo sex partners on the side, so I wouldn’t get bored. So that was how I was, really. I was tired of dealing with my children’s father and him beating on me and taking my cars, money, and my health was not getting any better. I still had panic attacks, got sick when he was home, and my nerves were shocked. Sex was an outlet for me, I guess. At least the guys showed me love even if I had to give up my body to get that attention short-term. Because it didn’t last, that was why I went from guy to guy, and sex addictions just increased by the day.

So I went to a Christian bookstore to get myself more cassette tapes and books, because I love to read. And I found this sermon by Bishop TD Jakes titled Satisfied Woman, so I purchased the book and the cassette, and I tell you, after months of listening to that tape and reading, I had the strength to leave my children’s father, because I heard him say Only Jesus satisfies. And that message was written for me because I was that woman at the well. Multiple sex partners, and the one I was with was not my husband.

Chapter 2

I’m Leaving the State

October 1994, Age 18

I called my aunt and uncle who lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and asked if I could go live with them for about three months until I got a place. They said yes because they needed help with their ten children, yes, ten. So I prepared for that. I went and closed all my children’s trust funds and emptied my safe deposit box. Yes, I had money stored away. I told my lovers I was moving to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and to my surprise, they both had family members up there too. So they said, We moving too.

I was like, Y’all trying to get me killed. If my children’s father finds me and see y’all up there, he gonna know I been having an affair, which he suspects anyway but don’t know with how, and I denied the whole thing all the time. So I said to them both, This my phone number. Call me when y’all arrive, and they left before me. Now I don’t care what you say; that was an act of love to me, for two men to uproot and move three states over to be close to me. I equated that as love, and it was because my children’s father didn’t even want to move to Hopkins Park, and we had three children.

Then I took my cousin, her daughter, and my brother’s two children to their moms and told them I was moving. Two of the moms had the nerve to say, What are they supposed to do now?

I said, Raise your child, my God.

They never came and got these children even though I was getting my brains beat out. They never came and got these children in years. I would have to go find them. Now at the beginning of the school year last year, they came and took them because I needed their birth certificates to put them in school with my children. They said I was trying to steal their children. So of course, my children’s father snapped and said, We been had these children since they were six weeks old and six months old. I bought them Pampers and milk, while you got food stamps and checks for them. I threw bricks at the penitentiary for these kids. If you take them, don’t bring them back. They took them, and my children and all of us fell apart. They weren’t my nieces and nephews; they were my children. My children’s brother and sisters. I dressed the girls alike and the boys alike. And my children’s father and I wear the same color when we had family outings. The children cried to come back to us, and two of the moms let them come back after a month, but we always lived in fear of them taking them again. Now I had to be the bad guy to return them to their moms because I was leaving the state to start a new life. I was heartbroken. My children’s hearts were broken too, but we had to go. I was no good for anyone here, not even myself, and I knew it.

I bought my children and me tickets in advance on Greyhound and didn’t tell no one but my mother. She was crying and upset because I was leaving. She said, Don’t go.

I said, Mother, I can’t take no more. I’ll be back for court, not knowing I wasn’t supposed to leave the state because I was out on bail. My mother or father didn’t know a quarter of the things I endured alone with this man with my children watching him. And me having to tell them Keep quiet, don’t tell nobody what happens in our house because of the shame I felt, but we always made them feel loved. He never whooped my children or treated them bad—only me he hated.

So I write my children’s father a check for $500 to go get him some drugs to give me time to pack and leave. I called the church to come get all my furniture out my house. God would provide me with everything I needed when I got where I was going. I donated all my clothes and children’s clothes too. I only took for us five outfits. Each time we moved and packed, my children had their own book bag with their snacks in them to carry on their backs, and we left Hopkins Park, Illinois, and moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Chapter 3

New Place, Same Me

Age 18

It was October of 1994. And my three children and I have arrived in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We would be living with my aunt and uncle and their ten children. They gave us our own room for a small monthly fee, not a problem. I had babysat their children before. Now some of them were my age, in age only. I was more responsible in the eyes of many. So we immediately set up a house program to establish order in the house. My aunt took me to the welfare office to sign up for food stamps and cash assistance, and they approved me. I began looking for apartments. My aunt took me to look in their area, plus the state would pay your first month rent once you found housing. Next, I signed up for the GED program. I found out that the bus would pick you up from your house, and they had a childcare center on site for young moms. That was perfect. I told you God would provide for me when I got to where I was going. God’s goodness is not based on my goodness but his. My job is to believe what he has said. So within sixty days, I had a two-bedroom apartment and in GED class, with my three children attending childcare with me. Perfect, I was gonna make it. The state paid everyone’s heating bill, so I was just responsible for my rent and lights. I received a check and food stamps; plus, I still sold a few drugs, not as many, because we didn’t go anywhere. Up here, it was too cold. We had been to Mall of America to Camp Snoopy a few times in the last months. We mostly had cookouts. My uncle loved to cook, so family life was good.

I had seen both my lovers a couple of times since we moved from Illinois. I was encouraging them to find themselves a steady girlfriend and soon. I just felt like I needed to change. It had been three months since