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I smiled. “Good old Wikipedia with only half-accurate information that anyone can put up. He did lie and tell everyone that, but Daddy never laid eyes on me in his life until I was fifteen. He adopted me legally on my sixteenth birthday but had them doctor the paperwork.”
Marcella was stunned. “And why did he do that?”
“To protect me from my past. So that no one would ever know who I really am.”
“And who are you?”
“I haven’t told anyone my real name in decades, but it’s Caprice. Caprice Tatum, and I was born right here in Atlanta.” I paused. “You’re in for a long afternoon, Marcella.”
Chapter Five
Saturday, May 5, 1979
Atlanta, Georgia
It was a Saturday. I remember that well. No school, no plans, only space and opportunity. My best friend, Bianca Lee, had come over early that morning, banging on the back door by eight. I had rushed to the door, hoping that she had not woken my mother. Momma was a drug addict, pure and simple. She had me when she was only seventeen and hated the fact that I was born.
Back then, I did not know what drugs my mother was using, but she was definitely smoking something stronger than weed. We lived with my grandmother, Alice, who did the best that she could . . . considering. My mother, Denise, had named me Caprice seven years
earlier after the model of car she was raped in by her uncle Donald. Her pregnancy with me was a result of that horrific act. He was convicted and sent to prison, where he was found beaten to death in his cell less than a year after sentencing with an asshole wider than a baseball bat, but that did not negate the fact that an abomination had been created . . . me.
My mother never let me forget that. She would constantly curse me and call me a little bitch. She would beat on me and my grandmother, who was weakened by pleuropulmonary blastoma—a rare form of lung cancer—and would always have to pull her off me. Being so young and having known nothing but Mother’s schizophrenic outbursts since my memory allowed, I actually thought it was normal back then. That all children had to suffer at the hands of their parents and then, once they became adults, it would be their turn to chastise and cause pain to their own kids.
Since I was only in the second grade, I was rarely allowed to visit other kids. Mother never took me to the birthday parties that the entire class was invited to, and that was just as well. I was withdrawn in school and barely spoke two words to anyone other than teachers. Bianca was my one exception. She was a vibrant, outgoing little girl who lived two doors down. One of her parents would stand guard and watch her as she skipped down the sidewalk over to my house to see if I could come outside and play.
Mother only let me go out with her because she did not want to be bothered with me. But I would see her constantly peeking through the sheer curtains in the living room, not in a protective way, but almost in a menacing way, like she hoped someone would drive by and snatch me up into a nondescript white van, never to be seen or heard from again. To make an extremely long story short, Denise Tatum hated the one person she should have loved the most—her daughter.
Despite her hatred of me, I was a stunningly pretty little girl. I was Mother’s spitting image. While most women would take pride in having a miniature clone of themselves, it was obvious that she could barely stand to look at me. Little did I know when I woke up that Saturday morning in May that my life would change forever.
* * *
Bianca and I were standing in the driveway, trying to decide what to do next. We had already gone through Mother May I, Red Light Green Light, Simon Says, and had done three rounds of Miss Mary Mack by slapping hands and chanting the rhyme. Kids back in the day had to actually play outside and come up with ideas instead of becoming zombies to the Internet and video games. We were debating about playing jacks, doing hopscotch, or Bianca going to get her Etch A Sketch while I went to retrieve my Slinky. Playing Lite-Brite was out of the question because there were no plugs outdoors close enough to play and neither one of us could enter the other’s house. Her parents would have allowed me to come into theirs, but Mother had made it clear that I could never do that.
I often wondered what Bianca’s room looked like. Mine was four plain white walls, dirtied over the years from no fresh paint, a twin-size mattress on the floor that rarely had sheets on it, rather less clean ones, and four dolls with broken parts strewn about. I had only about five complete outfits that my grandmother would wash on the weekends for me to wear to school and two pairs of shoes, with holes in them. Grandma had had to quit her job as a waitress when she fell ill and had no savings to speak of. Mother refused to work and, at twenty-four, was getting food stamps from the state. Otherwise, none of us would have eaten.
“So, do you want to play hopscotch or not?” Bianca asked, smacking on a large piece of bubble gum. “It’s getting kind of hot out here.”
“It’s up to you.” I kicked my size-three shoe around in the grass, like I was scaring a colony of ants away. “I’m not hot, but it’s probably going to be too hot this afternoon to be outside.”
“Do you know your math facts? I always get stuck on the twelves.”
“I kinda do,” I replied. “You just have to—”
“Bianca! It’s time to go!”
We both turned to find Bianca’s mother, Mrs. Lee, standing by their Mazda Cosmo with white gloves on and a summery dress.
Bianca sighed. “Shoot! I forgot that I have to go shopping with Momma for vacation clothes. We’re going to Disney next month once school lets out.”
“That’s cool,” I said, trying to hide my jealousy. I started walking toward my door. “Have a good time shopping.”
“You want to go?” Bianca yelled behind me. “I’m sure Momma will say it’s okay.”
I wanted to go with them more than I wanted to take my next breath. I glanced up at Mother’s window and noticed that she was staring down at me, as if to say, “Don’t even think about it.”
I turned to Bianca. “Thanks for asking, but I have to go do my chores.”
“But you were ready to play hopscotch a minute ago.”
