My hair was thick and long with ribbon curls – the kind of hair women paid lots of money for. I had beautiful natural blond highlights that framed my face my brown face. When Mom took me to Texas at 6 years old, my personal hygiene was completely left up to me. I learned to wash, brush and style my own hair and this was a great thing because it meant my mother stopped cutting it every chance she got. Although she was a licensed hair dresser, she never took any joy in helping me with my hair. If she had to brush through my curls, which were not even tight curls, she would end up cutting my hair out of sheer aggravation. When I was 4 or 5, she and my sister would sit in the kitchen with me, my sister with her long golden hair and my mother with bright red, straight her, and they’d laugh at my ‘bushy’ hair. I had a dense section of hair at my crown that had a tighter curl pattern than the rest of my hair and they referred to it as my ‘woozy spot’. Mom would take a comb, start at my scalp and where the comb stopped, she would just cut the rest off. As a mother myself, I know now that the only way it could have gotten that bad, with such a loose curl pattern was out of sheer neglect. So learning to do my own hair was a blessing in every way.
The winters in Corpus Christi, TX were extremely mild and by February of 1991, the temperatures were already in the 70’s. I enjoyed the warm weather because it meant that if Mom was too drunk in the morning to bring me to school, I could walk. Some mornings I wouldn’t even bother waking her up because at this point, I didn’t like her. There was another family, the Mexican family whose daughter sold me sea shells, that would drive me to school some days as well. My mother hated it when I would go over there but if I could catch them before they left in the morning, it was a ride to school so I ignored Mom’s order to stay away.
Of course at 7 years old, there were some days I had no sense of time and would miss my ride so I’d walk. My teacher was very patient with me when I’d come in late. By this time, I’d proven myself to be a good student but it was obvious that I was on my own. They allowed me into the cafeteria to eat breakfast and I would catch up with the other kids when I was done eating. There were some mornings I’m sure I didn’t brush my teeth or maybe I hadn’t bathed. I may have worn the same thing to school daily and rarely changed my underwear. All the things a normal 7 year old would do but without a parent to help guide them or oversee their hygiene.
One morning, I’d wandered in late and complained to the teacher that I was itching. She sent me into the nurse’s office and they discovered that I had lice. And it was really bad. The nurse immediately started to treat my hair and combed through it the best she could. My mother was called and I had to be picked up. My mother poured some solution through my head and washed my hair a few times but after trying to use the lice comb to get through my hair, she just cut it all off. My hair was maybe 3 inches long by the time she was done, all of my golden curls being stuffed into a trash bag. No big deal to her, of course, but I was ashamed to have lost all of my hair. I had a few bouts with lice that Spring, all of which ended in shorter hair and smelly liquids.
Then there came chicken pox. To this day, even as an adult, I can say that there’s been nothing more torturous than chicken pox. I missed several days of school but Mom still went to work and I had to stay home and pretend I hadn’t spent the whole day scratching. I had a terrible fever that would come and go. I’d forget to take my medicine and didn’t know how much to pour so it took longer for the virus to run it’s course and for the fever to break. I’d use all of the calamine lotion in one day, driving Mom nuts because she’d have to buy more. My skin oozed and I was covered from head to toe. There were blisters on my scalp and in between all of my fingers and toes. I couldn’t imagine my children going through this and being left alone to deal with it. I’d walk to Miss Stella’s apartment next door when I was hungry and she’d slide me something to eat through a crack in the door. She said it was contagious and she didn’t want to get sick. I understood and was just grateful for the food.
As agonizing as the back to back battles with chicken pox and lice may have been, they turned out to be my biggest blessings. My teachers and the principal of my school started to step in and report their issues with me to social services. They asked me lots of questions about what was happening and I told them the truth. My mother’s drinking was evident anytime she was forced to show her face at the school and it was obvious that I was neglected. Mr. Dennis was back in the picture and they were fighting and it was getting more physical. To this day, my mother will brag about never using food stamps or any type of state funded program to help take care of me, like it is some Republican badge of honor, but the truth is, we needed the help.
In the meantime, my father had hired a private investigator to find us. The P.I. wasn’t much help but Mom knew there was someone asking around and this rattled her. Once social services started snooping around, my mother buckled and called my father. When I spoke to him for the first time since leaving the Smith’s house in Flour Bluff, my heart sank. I wanted to go home. I made it known every chance I had to speak to him that I was not ok. He sent me a card or a letter almost every day once he knew where we lived. My mother filed a restraining order against my father at some point when we moved to Texas and he was not allowed to come see me. She did everything in her power to make herself into a victim when her focus should have been my well being.
My mother was drunk all of the time now. She couldn’t handle it all. My father knew where we were. My school was involved and social services had opened a case. After eighteen long months of her binge drinking, hiding me from my father and leaving me to fend for myself, she called my father to come and get me. She told him that she couldn’t do it anymore. He said he would be there the next day. It was the single most loving thing she could had ever done for me. I remember her packing my clothes and my toys into plastic bags. She told me that my father was coming to get me. She obsessively cleaned the house and cooked for me. She read me a story the night before, slurring her words. She cried and told me the stories of her mother not loving her. Mr. Dennis came over that night and I could hear them having sex, the headboard slapping against the wall. He was there to protect her again, I suppose. The big bad wolf was coming tomorrow and as usual, she had to be protected.
Saving Elizabeth 