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Debbie had done the best she could. She was only twenty-nine, but fourteen years as a single mother had taken a toll. There wasn’t a day of it that had been easy. When Steven came into her life, Debbie thought it would make her happy. That’s all she ever wanted.
It didn’t.
Steven arrived on the scene early enough that Debbie hoped Brianna would think he was her father. Of course he wasn’t. Of course he never bonded with her. Of course Brianna was sharp enough to see through the deception.
Steven never helped. He only hurt.
Her relationship with Steven, if that is what she could call it, was just one more mistake in the life of Debbie.
Truth be told, Debbie had no more idea than Brianna whose sperm wiggled its way into her egg. It could have been any one of a hundred guys, or at least a dozen.
There were some moments when she was a child that Debbie dreamt of being a mother. Not just any mother, the mother she never had. The perfect mother.
But, not one day of being “mom” was anything like the fantasies that rolled through her brain day and night.
“Be happy for what the Lord has blessed you with,” Debbie’s grandmother would say. She was the only family Debbie had ever known. Her grandmother passed on when Debbie was only twelve. The old woman’s place was taken by a nameless, shapeless, overworked social worker who recommended to an equally tired judge that Debbie should go to foster care. What choice did they have? Even a twelve-year old could understand that.
Debbie’s new home was a warm suburban ranch on the outside that hid a family of foster children inside who were nothing more than a third-world, no-wage workforce for the woman who wanted them to call her “Momma.”
The small-business staff of five children, ages ten through fourteen, would clean office buildings at night, then eat out of garbage bins and dumpsters as the sun came up. They would spend a couple of hours napping in “Momma’s” mini-van on the way to the new shopping mall on the other side of the city where they would lift wallets, purses and beg for spare change.
The children were dirty, grungy, bruised and heartbreaking. None of that was an act. It was hard to turn them down when they stood with their sticky, grimy little hands out.
When the children got tired or cranky as kids do, “Momma” knew that correction was a simple as a leather strap.
Debbie couldn’t take it. Only a couple of days after what she believed to be her thirteenth birthday — she was never really sure — and the wonderful birthday party she had given herself in her mind, Debbie hit back. She hit back hard. “Momma” went down. Debbie punched her in the stomach, kicked her in the knee, and when she hit the ground, Debbie jumped on her letting gravity give her feet and fists extra power. Debbie was never sure if “Momma” got up. She never looked back. She never slowed down. What else could Debbie do but run?
And run she did, right into the arms of Reginald Sheets, one notorious wannabe drug dealing, cradle robbing, gangster.
Debbie had seen men like him. Debbie had slept with men like him. Clean, pressed and successful. They had always given the most and had always been the nicest. Sometimes “Momma” had let the girls spend a night with them. Debbie always came back with money.
Reginald Sheets was that kind of smooth. At first he was as elegant as the other suits.
Debbie imagined a life with Reginald inside a nice, warm house with children, a dog, and a picket fence. Debbie dreamed of a life nicer than anything she had seen on TV.
After a couple of weeks, Reginald explained it was time for her to go to work.
The fantasy was over for Debbie.
Reginald’s approach was still soft and soothing. He made it seem the most natural thing. Because he cared, Reginald said. Because he knew that Debbie cared about him and about them.
Reginald made Debbie feel like a person even though he treated her like a commodity.
He sold Debbie the same way any other business man sold what he had to sell. They had theirs. He had Debbie. It was as simple as that. Reginald was a business man. He knew what men, and sometimes women, wanted and Debbie was it.
She was young, slim, blond, not a muscle sagging, not a wrinkle anywhere. She was porcelain. She knew how to play the role of a virgin. So much of her life was pretend.
Debbie was Reginald’s business. She was his property. Reginald owned her like the mechanic owns his tools, like the driver owns his truck, and like a barista owns his coffee shop.
Business is all about a means to an end. The end was money for Reginald. There was nothing more, and never anything less.
Reginald’s means were any orifice in Debbie’s body.
Ten men a night on average, twenty minutes a man, seven nights a week, twelve hours a night.
Debbie got pregnant six months later, sure to be a mother within nine.
“You stupid, fucking, bitch,” Reginald shrieked as he hit her with a doubled-over leather belt. “I give you pills. I give you rubbers. Still you get fucking pregnant. How the fuck did you manage that?” punctuating the last eight syllables with slaps from the belt.