Chris and I had stayed behind while the rest of the family journeyed north to see the tractor show. I had hopes that the weekend would now be calm, no more surprises, just cuddle up with my love, watching TV, and trying to recuperate from the insane car accident we had just been through. The abrasion on my chin hurt, but I was thankful we still had our lives, and I still had my baby. I held my tummy and talked to my sweet baby and hoped that it would be okay. I worried the rest of my pregnancy that something would go wrong. It’s hard not to do, when you’ve lost a child. Constantly second guessing yourself, analyzing every feeling, every sense of dread, every little detail that might “mean” something. I know many of you have been through it, and you know exactly the feeling I mean.
While the weekend should have been about calm, rest, and even just being careful and listening to my body enjoying the child that was growing in me, as per usual, it didn’t end up that way. Chris was sitting in the recliner watching TV. I was being a good girlfriend, sitting on the floor, back on the recliner, rubbing his feet while we watched whatever show was on. He had these thick socks on, and I couldn’t rub his feet properly, so I went to slide his socks off, slipping my hand in the top of the sock… and felt a plastic baggie.
I had no idea what this could be of course, naive as I was. I pulled it out as Chris started to jump up in a panic. I could tell then it was weed, even though I had never seen it before. I started screaming and was so upset, he was blabbering excuses and trying to figure out one that I’d believe or accept. It was not the first time he’d disappointed me, nor would it be the last, but it was the first time I’d caught him with actual drugs. It may not be a big deal these days, or to most people anyway, but for me it was huge. You already know what kind of girl I was, I was the goody-two-shoes, I was the girl who never did anything, and it was bad enough that I was already knocked up for the second time by this kid, but now it turns out he is smoking weed around his pregnant girlfriend… I couldn’t handle it. I ran to the bathroom, threw it in the toilet, and flushed. I was heartbroken. Of course if had known the hard drugs he was actually starting to do at that time, weed would have been at the bottom of my list of concerns.
As riled up as I had been, I forgave Chris, because, what else could I do? I was living with him, having his baby, had no job or foreseeable future, so this is where I was. I had to make it work. And he was ever the apologist, kisses and hugs and “You’re so wonderful, thank you for being understanding and forgiving…” and all that. It was always hard to stay mad at Chris, because he really had the best apologies, and even in the worst of times, he could make me laugh. He truly is a very funny guy, always cracking everyone up, being goofy and just trying to make people smile. So him knowing me better than anyone, he could make me laugh even if I was angry. We moved on with life and our pregnancy.
We found out soon that we were having a baby girl. The name picking began! I still had the baby name book we used for Hailey, that Chris’s sister-in-law had given us before, so we used that one again. I still have that book, even today. I went through so many names, from Chloe to Kinley to Quinley, I exhausted all options. Then, Chris suggested Carly. Carly… hmmm, I really liked the sound of it, he was more decisive than I was, so I decided he could pick her first name, and I would be the one to pick her middle name. Have I mentioned yet that I am a little bit of a procrastinator, and that I have trouble making final decisions? Well, I am those things. I will leave things in my online “cart” for weeks before finally hitting “order” and I will wait until it MUST be done to do it- so picking a baby name for me is completely daunting. I think I care too much what people think. Scratch that, I know I care too much what people think. So, I wouldn’t come up with a perfect middle name for our little Carly until the day of her birth. Because that’s just how I roll.
The months went on, and pretty soon I was 7 months pregnant. Chris would go missing for days at a time, from his own home, and then come home crying and red faced and apologizing again. We would have epic fights, we would break up, get back together, teenage drama as per usual. I don’t think we realized what big life decisions lay ahead, and so soon. Of course we didn’t, we were living in the now, for today only. We were inexperienced, in love, dumb, selfish, spoiled children ourselves.
I was still going to my mother’s every few days for my senior year homeschooling class, and I was learning a lot. I loved getting to visit my mom, although I was missing my dad. He was usually not there because he had taken a job where he was out of town a lot, traveling for work doing different construction type jobs. One night, my mother told me she and dad had talked, and they agreed they would like to invite me back home, and they thought it would be a better environment for myself and the baby. I couldn’t agree more, but my pride wouldn’t let me come home to them.
I went back to the Lacy’s that night thinking, ‘At least I have an out… wait, why do I need an out? If life is so bad that I need an out from this mess, I should just leave. But I can’t. They couldn’t handle my situation, and the Lacy’s took me in. I’ve got to make this work.’ I was pretty torn between wanting my mother close to me as the birth of my child neared, and being with the father of my child, as dysfunctional as our relationship was. As it turns out, Chris would make that decision easy for me.
A few things happened over the next few months. One night we were playing video games and Chris walked over to the closet. I didn’t pay much attention to him, but I paused the video to wait on him. I looked into the reflection in the glass of the entertainment center and noticed Chris was standing in a chair. I stood up and went around the door to see him tying a noose, about to hang himself I screamed and made him get down. This was not his first suicide attempt. When we lost Hailey, a few months after, he called me one day and told me he had just taken a bunch of pills, and that he loved me, but he couldn’t handle the pain anymore. So I knew he had issues with his mental health. But he had been acting more and more strange lately. He was more volatile, he didn’t act as loving, wasn’t as sweet, didn’t care about hurting the baby or me, just wanted to have sex, and he seemed more depressed than ever. He tried one other time that I know of to commit suicide during my pregnancy. I walked in on him again, with a shotgun held in front of himself. Again, I stopped him. At the time I thought he was trying to get attention. I had always been told that if you wanted to kill yourself, you just would. I didn’t know that these were signs of more serious drug abuse, signs of methamphetamine use. A call for help, depression, anger, needing sex constantly, not caring about your partner. The signs got more obvious as time went on, but I still wouldn’t figure it out until much later.
One night, I was enjoying the fall air, it must have been November, and as anyone from Alabama knows, November in our neck of the woods can be pretty warm. It was probably 60 degrees or so, I was barefoot and pregnant, walking around the beautiful farm land. Their house is beautiful, with a wrap-around porch, mint green paint on the wood trim, and big dormers where the attic is. I love that house. I was sitting on the dock, dreaming of what my next baby girl would look like. Would she look like Hailey? Would she be different? Would she be healthy? Would I love her and know her as well as I felt I had known Hailey? I rubbed my tummy and looked out over the pond, feeding the fish and watching them rise to the surface, as the sun set over the landscape. I was sure of one thing, I was definitely ready to meet her and be her mommy. She would be my comfort, no matter what mistakes I had made or what I did or didn’t accomplish, I was going to do all I could to make life amazing for her. We would travel together, paint our nails together, do everything. She’d be my everything. I couldn’t wait.
I walked back inside after seeing Chris come back to the house on his four wheeler. He walked in the house without waiting for me, and I waddled in behind him. Chris’s parents had made us have “separate” rooms when I moved in. Chris took the back room that used to be the office, and I had taken Chris’s old room. It didn’t make any difference, we slept together every night, playing house like real adults. Chris had gone to his room and shut the door. All my things were in my room, my stereo (yes, the big black boombox everyone had in year 2000), my clothes, TV, etc. I first noticed that my television was missing, but thought maybe someone had just moved it (I had a LOT of stuff in there, and it was a bit chaotic). But I found it odd when I walked into my room on this day and my stereo was covered in some sort of liquid. I had no idea what it was, but I could tell by the smell that it was probably fried. When I got closer, the smell … smelled…. like pee. Seriously? Of course I knew it had to have been Chris, with his actions becoming stranger and more ridiculous.
I immediately confronted Chris about the stereo and about some of the things that had gone missing out of my room, like my television. Anything of value was gone, as I had noticed when I started taking closer inspection of my belongings. He became angry, screaming at me and cussing at me, trying to accuse me of selling the things myself and then trying to turn it on him (nonsense) and other crazy things. I then accused him of stealing to feed his drug habit, which at this point I only thought was marijuana. At this suggestion, he became more enraged than I had ever seen him. I had a twirling baton in my room, I used to love to twirl, and even though I didn’t make the team I still liked to play around on it. Chris picked up the baton and hurled it at me, missing my head by mere inches. He then rushed over to me, in my face, and grabbed me by my arms with both hands, and shaking me, screamed “I am NOT on drugs! Do you understand me?” At this point I was terrified that he was going to hit me, or worse, hurt the baby. I pulled myself from his grip and ran into the hall bathroom and locked the door. Before I ran out, I saw that he had immediate regret on his face, as if he didn’t know what he’d been doing until after he’d already done it. I still remember his face. He seemed shocked that he had done it too.His parents were there in the living room watching TV, and had not heard what happened. They did however see me crying and running at seven months pregnant to the bathroom.
Chris’s father Buddy came to the door, and gently knocked, and asked me if everything was okay. I’m sure he thought something might be wrong with the baby. He is a large man, foreboding to many, but so kind and gentle, and he has always loved me and lets me know every time I see him that I am his daughter, and I had better not forget that. We formed a very special bond. Since there were no bedtimes, and I had prenatal insomnia, he and I would stay up all night sometimes, watching old movies, and he’d tell me stories of his childhood, and just stories of anything really. I appreciated the wisdom and he appreciated someone listening. We got very close. I miss that even now.
I told Buddy to just leave me alone. I didn’t know what to do or say, I had never been treated this way in my life. This, for me, was rock bottom. Here I was, barefoot and pregnant, no job, no family, no friends, and my boyfriend was on drugs, stealing from me and now abusing me. I felt like trailer park trash. I felt about as small as anyone can feel. Buddy persisted, and demanded I tell him what had happened. I told him his son just hurt me, and that’s when Buddy lost it.
I stayed in the bathroom, until I heard Chris’s mom Ruby screaming for Buddy to stop. I opened up the bathroom, and Buddy had Chris in a choke-hold. He was strangling Chris. I came in and didn’t know what to do, so I just stood there, watching this happening. Chris couldn’t breathe, he was purple, and I became hysterical. Buddy came to his senses, and released his grip. He told Chris if he ever did that to me again, he’d kill him. I told Buddy not to worry, there wasn’t going to be a next time. That night, I packed up what I could, and I had my mother come pick me up. I was going home.
MorningLori 