Even after weeks at our new house, we all still slept on the floor. We had no furniture, just a few sleeping bags, which we argued over constantly. It was hard to cook anything in our tiny kitchenette. The mini-fridge was filled with the tencent burgers McDonald’s sold on Wednesdays. That was our week’s supply of food. My father was still missing in action, and I was an emotional wreck. Where was he? What had she done to him? Why would he stay away this long? What about his promise to never leave us?
These thoughts ran in circles in my mind as I did my after-school chores. When Mother was in a good mood and I did all my chores the right way, I would muster up the courage to ask if I could call Father on the pay phone (there was one around the corner from our house). Mother said we couldn’t afford a landline, so asking her was my only choice. She often answered my request by giving me another chore to do.
Late in the night after putting the kids to bed, I climbed out my second-story window from my bedroom, stretched out on the slanted roof, and stared into the blazing sea of stars. The shingles were like sandpaper on my skin, but I needed solitude from the world. As I rested, a gentle breeze brushed over my body. I was mentally taken back to the spectacular pines I dreamed under as a little girl. As I lay under the night sky, there was peace.
It gradually dawned on me that this would be the perfect place to sing—away from the world. “Un-Break My Heart” was the first song I ever learned. With all the sorrow my heart carried, I sang that song with as much soul as Toni Braxton herself.
Singing the blues on my rooftop in Florida proved to be as peaceful as dreaming under the glorious sea of pine trees in New York. I set out to learn all the gospel songs we sang in church on Wednesday nights. Mother had made an acquaintance we called Mrs. Cindy, and she took us to church every week. Mrs. Cindy and her husband were pastors at the church, and they sometimes brought us to the beach across the street from their house on Vilano Road. They taught us to surf too! Mrs. Cindy was the nicest woman I had ever met. Her heart was as big as the ocean. I knew she loved us very much. Singing with her at church was glorious. Mrs. Cindy taught me all the lyrics and gave me hymnbooks to take home. I felt a healing balm of release with every riff I sang.
That night on the rooftop, I stopped singing when I heard footsteps. Curious and a little fearful, I peered over the roof to the front of the house. I gripped a post from the front balcony for balance. I saw Mother and a strange man embracing right in front of our house. They shared a kiss! In shock, I crawled off the roof and back into bed. I lay perfectly still next to my little sister and brother as my heart and mind raced. Who was this man? Why were they kissing? What was my father going to think?
The front door creaked open, and I heard Mother sneaking into her bedroom. She hadn’t been home in days. Even at nine years old, I knew exactly what was happening. I didn’t know what to call it, but she wasn’t being faithful to my father. The man she kissed was tall, lanky, dark-skinned, and well dressed, but he certainly wasn’t as handsome as my father. Even from my rooftop view, I could tell this man had an air of creepy arrogance. What did she possibly see in him? Hours later, I finally fell asleep. The next morning was the beginning of the end of our small-town family.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
We all heard the knock from the kitchen. Through the window I could see it was my father! Praise God! I was the first one to get to the door to greet him. He scooped me up and kissed my little forehead. It had been six weeks since I’d seen him, and now all was right with the world.
“Christina-Beana! How are you, baby?” my father asked with joy.
While he was speaking, he scooped up little Christian, and my younger sister Carolina grabbed onto his leg. He gave hugs and kisses to each of us. He didn’t make it past the doorway.
Mother came out of her bedroom, and an arctic breeze followed. It wasn’t long before my parents shut Mother’s bedroom door and the screaming began. Still, it was so nice to have him home. Soon we had furniture, food in the fridge, and new shoes for school. Everything was different when our father was around. I didn’t say a word about what I had seen from the rooftop.
Shortly after coming to Florida, my father opened a French bakery on Anastasia Island. He was an excellent baker and chef. Just before we left New York, he had opened a coffee shop at the bottom of the steep hill we lived on. That was one of the reasons he couldn’t get to Florida sooner. He had to close his shop, sell the house, and tie up all the loose ends Mother had left when she abruptly moved us to the South. Now, in Florida, he focused on making a success of his new venture. With eight kids to feed, Father worked all the time.
Whenever we could, we accompanied him to work. We learned to make croissants, Napoleon pastries, and all kinds of decadent treats during those few months at the bakery. I was never prouder than I was at my father’s bakery. I wore his oversized apron, mixing pounds of butter and sugar in the giant mixing machine.
“Okay, Beana, take these sticks of butter and put ’em in the mixer; then we’ll add the eggs.” Grinning from ear to ear, I stood on the chair and baked with my father. All of us helped around the bakery. RaeLynne and Abbeygail would sometimes be cashier girls, while the Three Cs baked in the back. No matter how small or young we were, Father found a job for each of us.
About six months after joining us in Florida, we had all settled into a routine. One fateful day, I was, as usual, watching out the window for my father to come home from work. When I saw his car drive onto our street, I ran downstairs and flung open the front door, running toward him as fast as my little legs would carry me. He picked me up, rested me on his hip, and kissed my forehead. It wasn’t but a moment later when we heard sirens down the street. Suddenly, three police cars swerved in front of us and parked abruptly. The officers jumped out of their patrol cars and rushed toward us, pistols fixed on my father.
“Sir, you are not allowed to be here at this home. Put your daughter down and walk slowly with your hands behind your head.” My Italian father laughed as if he knew they had made a huge mistake.
“What do you mean I can’t be here? You’ve got the wrong man. This is my home, and these are my children!”
By now, all my brothers and sisters were on the front porch, looking through the tattered screen. Five police officers were holding my father at gunpoint in front of that dreadful duplex. I could see our neighbors standing on their lawns, waiting to see what would happen next.
“Mr. Lorenzo, we know you’ve been abusing your wife. Put your daughter down, or we’ll take her from you,” one officer demanded.
I burst into tears. I knew they were going to take him away, so I latched on to him, refusing to let go. My father quietly coaxed me to the ground, explaining that there was a misunderstanding. He was going to clear it up with these men. I didn’t need to worry; he would be home soon.
I was crying hysterically as I let go of my father. He was handcuffed, and a police officer ordered me to go back to my house. Another officer placed him in the back of the cop car and drove away. I stood in the middle of the road, looking at my father’s face as he turned around to stare back at me. There were tears in his eyes.
Words will never do justice.
When I walked back to the house, I was an absolute mess. Mother came down the stairs and summoned all of us to the kitchen. My siblings didn’t say a word. We just stared at each other in complete confusion. I felt a hand grip the back of my neck. Mother squeezed her nails into my skin, pushing me into the kitchen and down to the floor in front of my siblings. She started kicking me and screaming about how I had made her look bad in front of the police by sobbing like a baby. My siblings sat at the kitchen table in silence. She then ordered me to get up and stand perfectly still with my hands by my sides.
It may seem like an easy request, but for years, Mother had beat me so badly I would flinch if the wind blew past me. I was unable to stand perfectly still before her—or anyone, for that matter. I flinched with every move she made, knowing that one of those moves was going to be a blow to my face or my stomach. I stood there, hands by my sides, and I decided I would not protect myself.
I had just been torn out of my father’s arms, and I was empty inside. I was confused, angry, sad, and worn out. I became a hollow shell of a little girl. I stood before her and for the first time looked into her eyes while she bellowed out the insults.
“You dirty whore, we all know you are a filthy whore. Like a demon. You are just a dirty little demon.”
I was never to look at her, never ever to look her in the eyes. She wouldn’t have it. But this time, I was standing my ground. I looked into her eyes without fear, and she raised her left hand and slapped my face as hard as she could. Her triangle-shaped ring caught my eye and split it open. There was blood on my face, but I didn’t move, beg, or cry out for mercy. I lifted my face after the hit and stared intently again into her eyes. She punched me to the floor. I stood up again in complete defiance, resolved not to sob or show any pain. I stood up straight again, my hands by my sides.
She took the end of a broomstick and then her belt buckle and beat me until I was limp on the floor. I didn’t get up again after that. But I didn’t shed one tear either.
I held on to the rage deep inside me. Everything was a swirl of confusion, of questions, of wishing my father was there. But that horrible day, the day my father was taken from me, I resolved to be everything she wasn’t. I decided I was going to be loving, kind, and hardworking. A good mother, and a good person. She could do as she pleased right now, but one day I would rise above all the mean things she said about me. One day, I would grow up and be the opposite of her.
After the whipping, she demanded that my siblings gather around and chant, “Demon, demon, demon, you are nothing but a demon.” They knew they had to do what she asked. And so the siblings who were present chanted as I lay on the floor, helpless and stripped of any hope that life with her would ever be anything better. I only had my conviction to become everything she said I wasn’t.
As the years went on, my identity would be wrapped up in doing all the chores in the house. The names she called me evolved. They grew more hostile over time—much more hostile than “Laundry Lady.” After my father was no longer there to keep me safe, the nicknames Mother found to be fitting were Demon, Slut, Whore, Stupid, and Idiot—in no particular order. I went years without ever hearing my own name. At one point, it was so bad that my brothers and sisters weren’t allowed to speak to me unless she gave permission, and I wasn’t to eat at the same time as they did. After supper, I would clean the kitchen, and then I would eat leftovers—that is, if I had cleaned the kitchen to Mother’s specifications.
The day they took my father away from me, my world turned horribly bleak.
My father was charged with spousal abuse and thrown into the county jail. The man I had seen kissing Mother came over. There was just something about him that was dark. He had a cloud of something over him, but I kept all that to myself. I knew Mother was seeing him, and I believed he was the reason my parents broke up. But what I learned after he walked through our door that day scared me even more.
Mother came out of her bedroom dressed in a spectacular sundress that made her look angelic. She was stunning. She was perfectly tan with freshly colored blonde hair. She beamed with a glow I had never seen before. She walked over to the front door as if she was walking on clouds to introduce us to the mysterious man, Herman Hitchcock. We huddled around the stair banister by the front door. He kneeled down and pulled out what looked like a wallet from his back pocket. He opened it and revealed a shiny badge with a “St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office” emblem emblazoned around a sheriff’s star. He told us with pride that he was the lawyer for the sheriff’s office.
“Do you know what this means, kids?”
“No, sir,” my older sister blurted out. We all shook our heads in ignorance.
“This means that in this town I am in control.” He held out the badge. “Want to hold it?”
No one said a word; we all just stared at him in confusion. Mother quickly shooed us to other things and told us she would be back later in the evening. She and Herman were going out to dinner.
A happy heart makes the face cheerful,
but heartache crushes the spirit.
Proverbs 15:13