Bella grew up when she was very young. She grew up to survive. She hadn't made room in her life for dreams or love or herself. Bella is older now and she recounts how she got to where she is now and maybe by going down memory lane she'll discover wh...
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0.01 || have a little faith in me
Mama got knocked up with me when she was just fifteen. Frat party. Drunkenness. And a college sophomore is what it took. Of course she didn't even know my daddy's name. How could she not the name of the man that impregnated her you ask? Drunk remember. Anyway my grandmama kicked my mother out and so mama went to go live with her older brother, Uncle Jimmy, in Kentucky. When I was nine Uncle Jimmy died in Iraq. The closest thing I had to a Daddy.
My mama has bipolar disorder and she gets free prescription Lithium that she never takes no more but sells for beer instead. No drugs just beer or whatever other alcohol she could get her chubby, clammy hands on. My mama never was all that bad living with Uncle Jimmy, she had her moments where she would jump the ship of sanity and into a sea of insanity. Uncle Jimmy would send her on her way to her room like a toddler that don't know no better but after he died she spiraled out of control. Drinking all the time, yelling at the walls and coloring my skin with black roses. Things that could only happen over Uncle Jimmy's dead body. Sorry. I wasn't trying to make a joke of the dead.
Uncle Jimmy made sure there was no more than two beers drank a night. One for him and one for mama. There was not to be drunk fools in front of me seeing as I was, as Uncle Jimmy put it, a wee bitty baby. I loved Uncle Jimmy so much. Still do. I wonder what he would he would say if he saw mama in his house, a drunken fool shouting curses to the wall. What he would say about my marks, my black roses?
I remember this one time, when I was about seven, my mama got real drunk on a Sunday afternoon. I'm pretty sure this is when my Uncle had realized that my mama had a drinking problem. I mean looking back now, I'm pretty sure he had suspected it but up until then, my mama had been real good of hiding her dirt.
"Belle, what the hell do you think your doing?" My mother had shouted at me, pulling me up from the ground roughly by my arm. She was shaking. She was drunk.
"Mama are you?" I asked, leaving her to fill in the blank. Back when I was a little kid, I was much braver than when I got older.
"Don't question me girl, I'm the one who questions you and I asked you a question!" Mama had shouted.
Trying to calm her I said, "just tryin' to a look at the flowers mama. I ain't never seen a real life lily before."
Mama turned red, "you just want to embarrass me don't ya? You playing in the dirt, having these folk think we hillbillies. You stupid girl!"
Right as my mama been about to strike me a strong hand had grabbed mama.
"Lydia? You hammered? In front of your own girl. You kiddin' me?" Uncle Jimmy had asked in a furious voice, pulling me behind his back. "We will talk 'bout this at home. Now let's go."
I had been so mortified. My mama had come to church. Drunk. My mama had never gone to church. It had always only been me and Uncle Jimmy. Why she decided to come that day, I still don't know. My mama didn't go to church because she said the church had done her wrong. She always hated that my uncle took me to church with him, even if was once a week.
