“Doll” is not a word you would use to describe me. I have almost jet black hair that in its natural state is a bird’s nest of mangled curl. My eyes are a strange mix of green and brown. They look much like the general color seen in a swamp, and range from looking greener when I am happy to more brown if I am not. My skin is an olive tone, which no one else in my family has. I go out into the sun and I turn into a nice toasted almond color. While my sisters have legs that seem to go for miles, mine are short and stubby. Their bodies are tall and straight, while mine is short and curvy. As an adult I am barely over 5 feet tall. Yes, I must have gotten the short end of the genetic stick as you may say. My Grandmother used to refer to me as the ugly one. If I am being completely honest, she wasn’t the only one, but she was one of the only ones to say it in front of me.
On one particularly difficult day in grade school, a boy was teasing me because I am “Brown” but my sisters are “white.” He told me I was adopted and my real parents didn’t want me. This came as quite a blow since most of the time it already felt like I wasn’t wanted.
I remember running home mid-day, if I had waited until the end of the day my mom would be at work and my dad would have passed out already. I burst through the door crying.
“Mommy, am I adopted?”
“Why would you think that?” My mother asked me. I noticed she did not answer my question. I always notice things like that.
“AM I?” I asked again pointedly.
“No, baby, you came from my belly just like your sisters did! Where did you get such a silly idea?”
“Ricky at school said I am brown and my sisters are white so I must be adopted.” My father was sitting in his chair and actually seemed fixated on the conversation I was having with my mother, a rarity as he didn’t care about my trivial child problems.
“Well, Reecey-girl, Ricky just doesn’t know you tan much better than your sisters and were out doors much more this summer. His momma lets him sit on the couch all day and watch television; I doubt he even knows what a sun tan is! Summer vacation just ended, a few months from now you’ll match the rest of us like always. No more worrying about this silliness. OK?” My mom also seemed to notice that my father was watching the conversation and seemed to be trying to convince him as much as she was trying to convince me that I wasn’t adopted.
I will never ever forgive that random little boy for making me think I was adopted, because if my life wasn’t already bad enough, from that day on, it was worse. My dad beat my mom occasionally before, but that night was the worst I had ever seen. Looking back, it’s amazing she survived at all. While my sisters and I got the occasional spanking and sometimes got back handed if we were being too loud while he was watching television, he mostly left us alone. Not anymore.
Rebecca and Rachel went to grandma’s that night to stay the night since mommy was “sick” AKA just got the shit beat out of her by our father. I decided to stay behind and take care of her, or maybe my dad told me I wasn’t allowed to go to grandma’s any more…I don’t really remember much.
I had gotten most of my mother’s wounds to stop bleeding and was still working on cleaning and bandaging them. “My little doctor” She used to say when I would take care of her. I left the room to freshen the water. While there my father walked in, and he was angry.
He backed me into a corner, I was scared but used my usual techniques to try and calm him down.
“Are you feeling sick, Daddy? Do you want me to get you a beer? Do I need to call Skippy to bring you some medicine?” Skippy was Dad’s drug dealer- someone else who would soon start making my life miserable. My father picked me up by my neck and pushed me against the wall.
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