Lies of a Real Housewife (4 page)

everything she ow
ned.

Her whole escrow account, amounting to eighty-thousand dollars

had been wiped out. Curtis had gotten my mother real good. My entire childhood I watched her work hard, and made innumerable sacrifices in order to build a successful business. Then Curtis came along, and stole it all away from right under her nose. So packing up everything and moving to Greensboro, North Carolina, was a welcomed change. Both me and my mother were

overdue a fresh start.

Living in Greensboro initially proved to be a great idea. My mother

went back to working hard in an attempt to rebuild her life. I was working part time as a waitress, and going to school in the evenings for my G.E.D. I loved my new life. Nobody knew me or my mother in North Carolina, and nobody pointe
d a finger at us or gave us any type of suspicious looks. The people were warm and treated us with respect. We got along with them and blended in just fine.

The bittersweet parody of my new situation was confounding to me. There was a rebellion going on i
nside my head, and it turned me into the type of person who couldn’t stand being told what to do. Working as a waitress proved to be both challenging and stressful. I detested taking orders from anyone, including my own parents. I hated manual labor. I was young and in great shape, but the only place I wanted to stand on my feet for eight hours or better was at the nightclub. After work, I walked three and a half miles each day to get home.  Once I made it home the first thing on my list was to fix a cold drink. I would kick off my shoes, and check on my mother. Then see

how my baby girl, Aleea, was doing.

After my usual rough day at work, this was one of my favorite times

of the day. This day, however would prove to be different. I saw my mother’s purse on the kitchen counter, but a quick glance made me realize that she wasn’t around. I went into my bedroom and noticed Aleea alone on my bed. She was asleep. This was very un
usual. My mother was in love with Aleea,

and the only time she left Aleea’s side was when she had to go to work.

I immediately spun around and walked toward my mother’s bed-

room door. Finding her door closed came as a huge surprise to me. I kept turning
the doorknob, to no avail. Frantically, I started to knock, which

amounted to me banging on the door. There was still no answer.

Thinking of all the horrid possibilities, my thoughts spurred my ac-

tions into a more urgent state. Fearing the worst, I re
ally began to worry at this point. I hurried back to the kitchen, and grabbed a butter knife to jimmy the locked door. I popped the bolt off my mother’s door, and was not at all

prepared for what came next.

Curtis! That bastard was chilling in my mother’s bed. His feet

kicked up, a cigarette was dangling from the side of his mouth. He had that ugly smirk on his lips. I hated that expression so much. The one that said, “Ah

ha, I’m back. I run things now bi*ch!”

Oh my God! I thought. My breath was now c
oming in gasps and

before I knew it, I couldn’t breathe! I was searching, panting for air that disappeared from my surrounding like a flash of light. My vision became blurry and I felt the room spinning. Suddenly my throat was parched and I was getting ve
ry dizzy. Overwhelmed with confusion, the anxiety left my mind in a whirl. Questions still lingered in my baffled cranium. What the hell was Curtis doing here? I thought we had left him hundreds of miles back in the past behind us. How did he find us?

At t
he sight of this wicked man, I became so emotional that I found

myself suddenly sprawled across my mother’s bedroom floor. I collapsed as my mind couldn’t take the shock. I passed out. Then I ended up in the emer-

gency room, suffering a panic attack.

I
remember lying in the
bed at Wesley Long Community Hospital,

looking around in astonishment, wishing, hoping, and praying that it was all a dream. There were doctors standing over me, pricking me in different
places on my body attempting to resuscitate me. All I was able to think about was

why would my mother let him come back?

This man had stolen her money, and robbed her of her dreams. Not

only that, but he took away the plans she had for her children. Just when
my mother and I had been getting along really good, reestablishing our lives, the home-wrecker reappeared. I wasn’t getting into any kind of trouble, and I had

been helping her with the bills. Why did she need him, and not me?

I sat up in the hospital bed, disconnected all the machines and wires

from my body. Then I discharged myself. I did not know anyone in Greensboro. So it wasn’t like I could just go somewhere for a couple of days. This time I had a child to think of and I had to make some real plans
. Atlanta, Georgia was where my closest family resided. It was four hours away. Get-

ting there was going to be a major problem.

My mother had to be crazy, crazy enough to let this crazy man back

into her life. She was foolish to believe that I would feel right being anywhere close to him. I felt that my mother was doing as she pleased with no consid-

eration of my feelings. I had to make a decision for me and Aleea.

So I put my plan into action.
The first thing I did was call my natu-

ral father, Robert Stanton, who was home back in Buffalo, NY. I informed him of my plans. He pleaded with me to give him temporary custody of my daughter until I could get my life together. My current situation was u
nstable, and I knew that to be true. I loved my baby girl, and I swear to God that I did not want to let her go. She was so beautiful and innocent. My baby girl had her whole life ahead of her. She did not deserve to be out on the streets. My life wasn’t together. I was headed to Atlanta, but had no money. There was nowhere to live and I had no immediate direction. The last thing I wanted was

for Aleea to grow up to be anything like me.

My father met me the next day. He was there to take Aleea back

home t
o Buffalo, NY where she would reside with him and his wife. There was so much sadness in my actions as I began putting my baby in the back of my father’s car. I packed her bag and her favorite toys in the trunk of the car then broke down in tears. Aleea was crying as well. She could care less if my situation was dire and unfit, she did not want to leave me. My baby loved me! I stood there numb, watching my father’s car drive away. Holding my aching stomach, I saw how my firstborn was frantically kicking, trying to get out of her car seat. Then slowly the car disappeared out of view, and I went back inside. Through teary eyes, I kept looking through the peephole of the front

door. I hated my life at that point.

With my daughter safely with my father, I had only myself to worry

about. I packed my very few belongings, and began my journey to Atlanta, Georgia. The city was only four hours away and this was a relatively short trip. Little did I know the place would have brought many people, both good and bad, cr
ossing my path. My actions would have life-changing, unforeseen consequences in the development of my adult life.

Now let me tell you about my relationship with Phaedra Parks, and

the truth behind her deceitful web of lies. A lawyer who was very instrumental in my life, Phaedra helped me to realize that the one thing about lawyers we all know to be true was that they were great liars.

Chapter Two

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” Matthew 7:15 (NIV)

My cousin, Kate, came up from Atlanta on a Greyhound. It was dark

and about two in the morning. We were able to ‘illegally borrow’ a neighbor’s Chevy Blazer. Kate’s father was a good mechanic and had taught her everything about cars, including how to hotwire one. The passenger window was broken out, but there was a full tank of gas. Sharing driving duties between

the two of us,
we were able to make it down to Atlanta, Georgia.

When we arrived in Atlanta, I got a glimpse of how poor my family

in Georgia lived. That meant limited resources, and no handouts to anyone. It was everyman for himself. There was one place for me to live. It was 306 Ormond Street. The house was located in an area of Atlanta called Summer Hill. The house was home, not only to me, but to my entire extended maternal family.