Chapter five


November 18th. 1987



As part of my recovery therapy; I’m being urged to get my GED.  So on Wednesdays I’d come here to the Long Island Consultation; it feels funny coming here and being with a whole bunch of kids who are here to get help with their homework. Months of working on re-learning working through this GED-Prep Assessments and Practice-Test Textbook and with months of so much of going to my groups and individual appointments trying to gain back some sense of stability… working on much of what’s been; and trying to provide a decent life for Joe and Annamarie?! I had full hands; I worked when I was up to it and I’d try to find a place beyond this emptiness which is my life, now.
Finally in November of 87’, I go down to take the test. But, when I get there I’m told I wasn’t allowed to take the test!? They told me that the Birth-Certificate I have is invalid; they tell me, “The child of this certificate was never given a name; There’s no way to verify just who this Certificate belongs?!”
Stunned, I go into the city to 125 Worth Street to order a new copy of my birth certificate which I was sure would be fine and would have my name in the front;  the one I have did have a stamp on the back from the board of health in Jamaica with my name handwritten on it?! I had the number from off of my original and the person at the counter hands me my new certificate; I look down onto the paper and there in bold print is my real first name…, Female; my name is Female Rose, my date of birth is correct??? And, my parent’s names are where parent’s names belong??? But me…; how appropriate I never felt much more than… and here’s proof!? I am nothing more other than female.  I was told if I would like I’d need to get a hold of the vault-copy to add a name to it or be Female Rose for the rest of my life?!  It took several trips but January 14th. I had a name on a certificate and made a new appointment for the test and I received my GED in the mail six months later.





May 3rd.1988
    
Entering home; I run straight to my room! … Quickly, put the latch down; I need to hurry… opening the both draws of the captains’ beds. A knife comes through and unhitches the latch and as it does an arm pops through and comes around the door; her hand comes towards me as it pinchesinto my skin the knife falls and she pulls her arm back out and she’s bangs herself upon the door crying?!   I’m safe of her… banging, pushing; if she makes it in… If she gets the door open far enough I will be dead.  
It’s been months since I have had any real sense of safety around her…; she seems always ready to pounce; but, I still have no doubt that little Joe is safe around her; but, this is about to change.
I begin finding letters around the house; these are letters to Joe?! They’re letters of apologies to him; telling him reasons in why she had to **** his mother…  For her, I care to believe, she was unaware she was even doing this…  About why … she perceives me to be… she transfers her thoughts and feeling about her mother onto me?! Her purpose, her reasons… all these desires in having this want to see me gone?   I don’t really understand, nor does it matter …; it matters not, if there’s a danger to the child?!  And, now, there is reason to worry?!
We were waiting for Joe to come home from school.  Annamarie and I were doing the wash and arguing; about something I don’t remember what… but, I must have said something???  Because, suddenly she snaps?!  She begins beating on me?! She’s yelling and biting… She’s calling me Elaine, Mommy and this time she wouldn’t snap out of it?!  She wasn’t going to stop…unless I’m dead on the floor; this time it wasn’t going to end?!  I called Steven; Steven would hang-out with me so he could be close to Annamarie, I call him to get his help; I need help get her to calm-down before Joe comes home and see her this way?!  
Steve arrives but it’s simultaneously with my Joe arriving home and when they both got to my bedroom door… she on top of me on my bed with a knife pressing down hard against my throat, just a split-second more, there would have been a slit and puddle… and it would have been my last breath in this life?!  Joey, yells, Theresa!!!  Dear God in heaven, it snaps her back… Joe’s voice reaches her; the knife falls to the side of my neck it lands beside me on the bed and she runs out and runs into Joe’s room crying. My Joe clutches a hold onto me and I try to tell Joe everything’s alright and…  Steve begins yelling at me “Whatever this is happening here; what ever made her act this way… It has to be something you did?! “

I brought the letters to the courthouse;
After that day I had to go to the court and get an order of protection; I told Annamarie there is no way life can continue this way and we could no-longer live under the same roof anymore?!  Telling her,” You could have the choice of staying here in this house and I’d move out … You could find a new place and I’ll compensate your rent; and, there’s no problems, no worries, you won’t lose time with Joe. But, this life the way it is must change?!  I will pay your rent and you can have Joe here while I’m not home all of this is just about you and I not being able to stay in the same home together.
At first she says she would like to find a place of her own… I was rather proud of her doing this on her own; weeks pass and then she tells me she hadn’t looked and I could leave instead?! I told her, “No; we already told Joe he would keep his room and he wasn’t going to have to move to a new place?! I won’t be the one moving! You had the choice now that’s it you go!  


I sent Joe out to a camp for four weeks through The Fresh Air Fund.  My sister moves her stuff out taking all but Joe’s bedroom set and half of his toys other than these things it was an empty apt. Oh yeah, she does leave a bed for me; it’s an old GI.Special military cot…I never saw it before but there it is in the kitchen broken?!  And she left this old television-set which I thought she had thrown away months ago when I gave her a new one, it must have been in her hoard down in the basement. Not one thing was left in the basement?  I hope she found a good place; I can’t see any place could afford on her own where she’ll be fitting the amount of stuff she had pulled out of here?! She refused my help telling me I threw her out for no reason… She says we had no fight the way I said and the only thing that’s happening is I’m throwing her out like garbage???
She doesn’t remember?        
She wouldn’t allow me to know just where it was she lived; so I didn’t let Joe stay with her at first. I thought she lived somewhere on her own; come to find that she moved in with this man which later on she’ll end up marrying. Once I met him… and only when he would come and promise Joe’s return did I give Joe the ok to spend the weekend with her… it was hard.
And once this arrangement began working Annamarie would say I watch Joe while you work… I told her I’d give her half my pay and you could be here or home with Joe whenever I needed to go to work!  Low and behold whenever I had work she wasn’t anywhere to be found!? I’d call her, get no answer?! She forgot and/or wasn’t home, you asked me to watch him? Or, she’d come to the house three hours late and tell me ok go to work now I’m here???
.
I began asking Anne Copland to watch Joe once in a while; I worked seldom. When, I tried to get anyone for babysitting in short order became a one hundred and twenty-five dollar job for one night’s work from 7pm to 7am. a job that nobody wants to take… no reason given just can’t do this for you anymore???   Only one who never stopped this was Ann Copland right next door… but I couldn’t depend on her alone; it wouldn’t be fair to do… she loves Joe but for the most part she’s up there in age and it is hard for her to keep up with a child for long time work? Besides she wouldn’t take the money, and, I need someone that I could call in a moment’s notice. Ann was there when she could… but there are times when she wasn’t up to doing it?!  
It was really hard but we Joe and I made things work; and, we had made our home cozy once more. We brought in furniture and Painted and he was happy to have his mother around. In the springtime Joe had made a backyard garden; he planted so many things herbs, vegetables’ and he even had a long planter growing tall corn! Never got one niblet but Joe truly enjoys gardening! We got a cat… her name’s Crescent, Joe likes cats he is only so good around dogs though he doesn’t dislike them.
My mother comes to town; she and Eddie were over… that cat burrowed a hole beneath the couch into its springs and hid from my mother… never seen Crescent act this way before or since?!
My mother was not impressed with the color my son choose for the walls in my dining-room; it’s the loudest tone of orange one could imagine being able to be created and placed on a wall! And, with the big round white table and the bright red and white chairs and with the artwork that was on the walls?! Let us just say my mother could not eat a thing in that room without needing to toss her cookies; Eddie smirked, when he entered the room, saying, “This would wake a person up!” My mother seemed very surprised by the fact that my house is so well furnished!? She did just come from Annamarie’s and it hadn’t been all that long since she moved out of here… my mother perhaps thought I’d be sitting in the middle of the floor??? And be without food or a dish or a place to eat??? My sister did take everything; but…
At least Eddie says, “The place looks nice!”
I never seen a woman so disappointed?! I rather think she’d been way happier if she found the house empty of anything good and the two of us living in squalor?!  Do not get this wrong, not for nothing, but I think she was hoping to have me and my son crying out and needing her help. No mother wants to feel completely unneeded!    
Though, I must say, after about two hours my sister and her boyfriend drops-in to bring my mom and Eddie to my Aunt Barbra’s house and Annamarie’s face said it all…; she hadn’t seen the house in a while and she wouldn’t or couldn’t say a word!

I do not know what Annamarie told her mother about why she had moved out?! Of that, it doesn’t matter to me; I only hope life becomes better from here.




March 13th.1989


Well, this is her father, he dies; Annamarie and John, my brother, go to Florida!? My mother calls and offers to pay my way if I want to go with Joe down there… I told her, “He’s not my problem??? I have no wish to go there!”
“Risa; you shouldn’t be like that maybe Joe would want to say goodbye?”  
I thought,’ I’m sure he would have four years ago when it was instead of “See you in the morning, monkey!”??? Now, what? We should spend money to go plant the man???’; “No thank you mom Joe has school; which is too important! Besides that… like I just finished saying, he’s not my problem!”
“You know he’s your father; you may regret not going some day?!”
“I very-much-doubt-it!”  I look to the phone as if it just turned into a turnip???” Mom, keep your money; it’s not happening!”
“But…”
“Mom… We both know better?! I do thank you but no; Not going!”

When John and Annamarie returned to New York she was cruising off the deep-end??? She kept seeing him floating around calling to her to go with him; if we weren’t watching her she probably would have walked off the earth; poor girl’s hallucinating…  
“Daddy’s floating over there; don’t you see him? He has no eyes!  He needs me to help him to get around!”
His eyes were given to the eye-bank?! And, this little churp-bird is…
“Annamarie; He doesn’t need your help; his being he is so you can know he doesn’t need you? He can see even without eyes now!”
“No, He needs me!?”
“Annamarie, how did Daddy get, all the way, up here from Florida?  How could he without his eyes if he needed them to see? ”
It took her awhile before she stops acting so lost; there were a few times when Joe was out with her when the poor kid had to help the two of them find their way home; Joe wouldn’t go out with her alone again for a very long time. Joe would always ask her if his Uncle Al was going to be with them. Poor kid has aspersers’ and he has to watch-out for his Aunt?!

chapter four;



April 24th. 1985
4:20am.
I climb out of the cab too tired to get home another way. As I enter the house after doing a double shift at the Pink Poodle; the sound of the hall was this chilling hush. Not quite as-if it’s that silence of when everybody’s asleep… but this feeling which comes back washing over me ‘Did they move without me again? Did they move to another apartment without telling me?’ It wouldn’t be for the first time; I’ve come before to the place which was called home only to find the two of them have had taken my baby and lock, stock, and barrel moved into a new home without warning me first; or, in fact, telling me anything at all… but I thought, no: he wouldn’t do that again, not now, not knowing I’m due for a cancer- surgery on the first Wednesday of June???  I’ve been giving, him , Dad extra money for all the expenses will need so I could take off the eight to twelve weeks from working the doctor said I would need for a good recovery.
I reach the door; the basement door is open but there’s no light on down there??? I had to unlock the door; this is weird it not often this lock’s on?! As the door slowly squeaks open there are lights on; I see furniture!? My Annamarie isn’t running around in the middle of the night with the nightlights on as she normally would be… the lights were on as if it was suppertime? I peek in to see if she was asleep inside with my son; my little boy was there; the prince of the manor on his full-sized bed; I close his door and as I did I turn and look towards the kitchen the only room having just the nightlight on and I could see his, Dad, door is particularly open and the big light is on… he’d never use the big lights???  He’d only have on his lamp next to his bed?! As I got closer I hear Annamarie making this mournful cry; I get to the door and there in the middle of, his room, his now empty room; my sister is on her hands and knees sweeping up Nothing of his remains; not a thing left behind of where he use to be... “Annamarie, where’s Dad?”
A gasping moan, “Daddy’s gone; Daddy’s gone.” Annamarie takes a wet cloth and begins gathering in the smallest of particles??? Repeating over and over “Daddy’s gone?!”
  I walk to our bathroom and open the door; it’s empty, it’s not in here?!  I went back into his room “Anna?!” In a harsh stern tone, “Where is your father? “Daddy’s gone; He’s gone.”
I recall in the hall how the basement door was open and dark;” Crap???”
I went out into the hall; standing top of the stairs. I look into its darkness; my mind reels and it, now, sets to motion of the reasons of why I’m here looking down?! Conjuring up images of could haves…
‘Found in bed?! No; he’d still be here in his room?! She’d never enter there; the room always off limits unless the door is open??? So, no…
He could have been in the bathroom? No, he’d still be sitting there???
Maybe… the two of them fought?! I don’t see anything broken??? Well, won’t know until I go down…
Switching the light on, I look down the steps; storage boxes, plastic wrapped items and all kinds of old furniture jam-packed from floor to ceiling… I get to the bottom where there are pathways throughout narrow paths created-walls built of all her storage?!  She, as a packrat do, packs; I think, one day, someone will be in theses shoes seeking me out; from within a maze like this one and hoping not to find the proverbial cheese… third-way through, it dawns, the thought of down here is a trap??? ‘If they had fought…’ I grab a piece of metal and continue. Looking, fearing now, of what I think and thinking if right I may be a soon to follow. These boxes and stuff are always moving always changing directions I reach the boiler room at the back were plastic containers fresh ones are…  
Sound comes from back along the path?!
“Dad?!  Dad?  … Is that you?”
Silence.
“What’s going on?”, I spoke out sternly!
I hear her… she weeps from somewhere along the path.
“Annamarie!  Where is your father!?”
  A feeling of overwhelming dread! I draw on tone of voice; her mother’s, I bid for a response.
“You tell me, right now where Nelson is?!”  
I move myself nearer towards the stairway “You tell him; I…, want to talk to him!”
     “Ma! He left us?!” She stares at my hand… Theresa,… Daddy’s girlfriend was here… he’s gone???
“Anna lets go upstairs. You can tell me everything upstairs!”  
I have had plenty of down in this pit of the ******; I want out!?
Annamarire starts cleaning and I follow her around; she tells me of how Joanie, his old girlfriend has been back in contact with him; apparently the two of them made their plans to move down to Florida together?! He decided since his plans did not include us our knowing was way-more than unimportant?! Long after the sun’s been up she hands me a kitchen-tall garbage-bag?!  She says tearfully,” Daddy told me to give this to you?!”  
Inside, were all the papers which pertain to the house, bills, records and one big manila envelope??? And behold it’s completely empty; it was the envelope I’ve been filling up for the last eight months; it’s all of money which he was holding for us, in his room that was there to make sure none of us would be having a need for anything after my surgery.?! That envelope would mean we’d have all we need ‘til I was ready to go back to work.  
Not a goodbye, not a sorry but I need this money more than you or even I deserve this money more than you; not a single thing?!
Well, maybe that’s what leaving the empty envelope is about?!
He hadn’t even say goodbye to Little Joey? To him, he says, “See you in the morning, Monkey!”  Not  
Just a here’s a bag full of how much all of you are worth to me?!
And, a simple, “Here give this to your sister!”
It is undoubtedly his idea of a perfect plan???
  Then, as I search further through all the stuff… all the bills show he stopped making any payments on them months ago?! Nothing but a handful of final notices and he’s gone?!
Tears in his daughter eyes and a grandchild both which he showered with affection? He left them without a care?
A “See you in the morning!”
No justification …, No reason of why, ever?!  
   Only one good thing comes about from his leaving; Joe begins coming inside the house. A good thing…? He has known of… but not about my family; how is this going to be? His Norman Rockwell, My Picasso may shatter the glass doorway to our wonderland relationship?  Joe is about to learn more than I would ever wish; much more than I believe in his abilities to handle knowing?!
Joe considers my father absolutely vile for leaving in the way he had without even a Goodbye and his not paying those months of bills though he knew, full well, about my having surgery and all; Joe is unaware of the true depth my condition; no one other than the old man knew and he only did because the medication I’m taken needs to be kept in his room and he help me during those times I was required to stay in an isolation’s protocol.

After surgery I go right back to work; removal on June 5th. And on June 15th I sporting a scarf hiding my discolored neck with these freshly removed sutures still looking raw; into the club I go and if and when some guy there would ask, “Why the scarf? I laugh saying, “The boss got mad at me! Look at what the hell he did!” After I did that?! He was…  
Joe’s mad about my going off and returning to work too soon; he says I’m setting myself up for a nasty scar infected?!  He doesn’t consider …without a drop of a dime on how I couldn’t allow myself to need him in the way of any kind of finances?! He, I think, believes I don’t trust him to be there for me…I do more than he could ever comprehend; but for me, a sense of freedom in doing on my own stops keeps from feeling trapped?! In my heart I belong to him… to be financially bonded to him in any way would make me bought and sold to him and if…, in doing that my being with him would no longer be “…If you want?”
He was correct!? I have a raging infection in the scar and I now have to have so much medication I’m walking around here beyond loopy! He’s angry at me and he’s not talking to me…
Until I call him on September 10th  
When my sister screws up: While still loopy on too much medication … I ask my sister to go up to the school and get me the paperwork to have Joe enroll into school;… instead of bringing  me home all the forms she fills the papers out on her own?! Yeah, if stupid comes with awards I would without a shadow of a doubt own top honors???


September 10th.1985:

Little Joe is having the worst first school year ever; this coming from one actually kicked out of kindergarten?! That’s a different story; and it was the right thing, for them, to do back then. This is in no way right? What they are doing to my child; a boy who was already able to read and to write and he wrote in both print and script?! I’ll grant you my Joey does have impediments when it come with his interactions with others and he is electively mute; but, this is because since from the time he came back home to me after being kidnapped… we were very overly protective with him?!
This year is his first time being in any kind of school setting!? He has had no idea there were so many others his size in the world And, in three days this school changes his class four times??? You’re saying to me the child, my child, doesn’t have any ability to learn and he should be institutionalized?! And I have every reason to believe they’re going to work hard in taking my child away from me?! What the hell do I do???    
I call Joe; I cry to him on the phone. “I don’t know what to do?”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s the little guy, its Joey’s school; their saying his not capable of learning, they’re saying I’m a drug addict and they say I don’t want or care about him? Help me???”
“I’ll meet you up at the house; but, I have work so I can’t stay very long!” Joe was there in no time. We take ride, going around the block and we park in the Carvel’s parking lot; I hand over and show him all these papers… and when I say all these papers; I mean a pile the better part of an inch thick?!
It took Joe a good ten moments just to get a handle on what’s what in these… and he starts blowing a conniption!
“This is your sister; your sister says you’re an addict and she’s raising him on her own because you don’t want him?!” he starts calling her every kind of name!?  We sit there and go through all these papers and talk for another forty-five minutes until he has no other choice but to go; he’s running late for work! I am, now, so much calmer and Joe leaves pitching a fit! The next so many weeks of hell with the school-board and, which seem to be endless, search for a right placement for the little guy… Big Joe’s right there the whole time and I know, believe-you-me, I know if Joe wasn’t here at this time… this would’ve destroyed me and l would be somewhere, babbling in a straight-jacket and they would have taken my Joe as well! And, I know my sister would keep her promise she made on May 17th. 1980 when she first moved in... Every last place we look through is a no.
Joe drives us to see two to four schools in a day…trying to find the right placement; and, he did this with my sister sitting there, near enough for him to take a swing at…, she’s right there in the backseat of car??? Joe has, without a shadow of a doubt, the patience of a saint!  I know, I look back and I’m lucky he hadn’t killed us both…me and my sister!  You know there isn’t a judge or jury who wouldn’t come back with a full acquittal for this man.
  Finally, on this day, we’re all going to this place PS23Q Joe gets off the highway, he turns onto Union Turnpike and now he turns left onto Commonwealth Blvd. in Bellerose; I am so nervous! There are two in this car who are perfectly fine with what’s going on but here there are also two others who should have their names’ changed to Brook for all their babbling?!
Annamarie has no wants whatsoever to see this child being anywhere other than at home; all I want is a best outcome?! I want my son to only have the very best; with Big Joe here helping?!  I know, that’s what will happen!
My two Joes’, they walk ahead and go into the building on their own; they’re hand in hand as nice as you please! Watching them with one another… they are so good with each other; they are … But; Joe doesn’t understand… He couldn’t; he has no idea what Annamarie is all about!? He’s unaware of the way she might react… I fear her actions; I fear if this isn’t handled just right she’ll hurt herself or do something way worse??? He doesn’t realize the circumstances for me; I am completely responsible for everything in regards of her. She’s a child, of a fragile state; a child who could, all of a sudden, become highly volatile!? She could never be left to her own devices??? If it’s at all something could be avoided; I wish to avoid Joe ever becoming fully aware of the threat she could pose; if it could ever be possible?!  As long as I can maintain her stability through this and get home. It will be a real feat?!
I get her inside; it’s a hard looking at things…  Joe and I go down the halls looking at everything “Joe will have everything he needs here to help him; this place is the best place we have seen?!” All one would need do is to look and see big Joe’s face and you know there wouldn’t be better; but to Annamarie’s reactions???  She stands there looking into this lovely enclosure… an indoor play-area; and she looks so angry, it seems as-if she believes we’re trying to place the boy into the center of all nine circles hell or something?!   Joe over at the desk talking to the guide sees me just staring at her… he walks to me; and, he angrily says,” Stop looking at her! This place has everything this kid needs; … you know this is what’s best!” He turns to the staff worker, “Go get those the papers ready for her to sign!” Joe knows, he sees it in me, if he was to give me a smidge more time I would have sided with her and I would’ve said no this place wasn’t right, as I had… times before?!      
We return home; “Twenty-three moments by highway; not bad!” This could have never ended so well without him being here; Annamarie enters the house, seething … if looks could… both of them whenever they not eye to eye.
“You make mountains out of molehills!” Joe has said these words to me on more than one occasion; and how, Joe was for little Joe today… Yeah, I will guess he is right?! That is if the mole is larger than the largest Godzilla, with red-hair.

Letter start with A,B,C,
Numbers count 1,2,3,
Our friendship knocks on our way,
As I know your name,"annamarie",
It makes me feel hurray!
A part of me,
Saying were destined to be.
Why? Let us see.

Elementary life you were in Section C,
There I was on Section A,
Highschool life I belong to SSC,
Yet you were in ARBEC,
But still our friendship has no boundary,
As we walk to the mile,
We are the teachers of the 21st century.

I thank God for your existence,
You are my brilliant gems,
Finding you makes my life worthwhile,
My smile, your smile was destined to be yours.

No, this is not a question. I need not your answer.

But have you no shame?

You forced your way in with that wicked smile and I am convinced that heaven tasted like a Sunday morning by your side.

Losing myself, devouring your grip, I’ve been lost in a cosmic display and forgotten my wit.

Little did I know, colors of blue can turn into grays.

You said you love her in your sleep, Annamarie haunted me like a sick prey.

Pitch black vision...

Soldier with no mission...

Have you no shame?

Here is the truth for all to see,
I cant be the mommy my kids need.
Broken down by a battle that haunts me night and day.
Having the courage to give them a better life..  Is the true definition of unconditional love..
Knowing that I cant be the mommy they need is a scary thing .

But letting them have a chance of a
Normal life is
The only thing

I know to do..
Being saddened and depressed is
A reality that may come with this choice.

I just hope that one day my kids will understand and respect this decision
And forgive me for not there..

Know that I love them and will never stop.
Mersadie lynm black your my eldest and i love you so to the moon and back.
Maxwell orion howard my middle one
Mommy loves you so much she is hoping you u will understand
I have weaknesses but I always think of you
and Molly ann cowan my little angel i love you so
..
Your smile will brighten the world
And lastly
Stormee rose
You Are to be born in 39 days
I love you also I hope you know
Giving you to Arial so she can bea mommy is the best gift you get..
Your our littlest miracle
Cant wait to meet you and kiss you so light..
As I hand you to your new mommy
Its a honor to be the reason you all get to be alive .. Each of you are special
And mommy will be here when the day comes to explain and hope You understand the reasons
I couldn't be the mommy you all need..
Unconditional love is what I give to you the chance to become all you can be and grow up to
Be amazing adults!
By Annamarie rose newell
December 9th 2016