Ready To Heal

It all came to a head on April 30th. I had been hoarding a portion of my tip money every night to pay bills. Excitement found out. He insisted that I call my mother and beg her to pay the our rent and utilities so that he could the money I’d stockpiled to buy his drugs. I dialed her number, but instead of begging for cash, I rebelled, announcing to her that the baby and I would be coming to visit that weekend. My mother hadn’t seen Boo since his birth 7 months before. She was ecstatic about our coming. When I hung up the phone I fully expected him to berate me, push me and pull my hair like he had become so accustomed to doing when I disobeyed him. Instead he just said “I guess you’ll have to go see your mother tomorrow.” I thought I had won for once.

That night, I went to work painfully oblivious to his plans. When I returned home, he was gone, as was all the money I had earned and our son, Boo. I went to his mother’s house. I could hear Boo crying. Excitement called through the locked doorway that he had left me and I’d never see Boo again. I began to beat on the burglar bars. I called the police. Excitement told them that he had left because I had shaken Boo. The police threatened me with trespassing and destruction of property. I had to leave.

The next day I called my mother and she helped me move in with her just before I was evicted from my apartment. Excitement prevented me from seeing Boo for 20 days until the judge ordered him to allow me temporary supervised visitation. Excitement and I entered into an expensive and emotionally exhausting custody battle. We dragged all the skeletons out of the closet: Excitement’s alcohol and drug addictions, my suicide attempts, and abuse accusations on both sides.