Trust Your Struggle, page 26
“There’s something else you need to know about me before I go, baby girl.”
“Please don’t say something that makes me feel differently about you!” I pleaded in my head.
“I’ve remarried since divorcing your mom and my wife, Angel, is getting ready to have our baby,” he said cautiously, worried I’d reject him because of what he just shared.
I could only stare at him. I didn’t know what to say because I didn’t know how that made me feel. I was so excited to have my dad back in my life and the selfish part of me only wanted him for myself, but the other side was excited to have a chance to be a part of a family again. My crime had pretty much eliminated any chance for me to have blood relatives in my life, but here was an opportunity to change that.
“How do you feel about meeting her?” He asked when I didn’t respond.
“I don’t know. Does she want to meet me?” I asked guarded.
“Of course, she does!” he exclaimed. “She wanted to come with me today, but understood why it needed to be just me.”
“Well, I guess it’s okay for her to come to visit the next time you come,” I said.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “Because we both know how overwhelming this could be for you and we don’t want you to feel pressured.”
I nodded my head, “I said I wanted to get to know all of you, too, so that includes your wife and baby.”
“The baby’s not due until December, but when he or she comes, you’ll definitely get to know them, too.” He smiled the Colgate smile I had obviously inherited.
We took a couple of photos before it was time for him to leave and then planned on our next visit. He would be back in a couple of days for my birthday and he was bringing Angel with him.
I went back to the pod on cloud nine. I just spent seven hours with my dad and he was coming back the day after tomorrow. It was hard to believe, but if I would’ve been asked at that moment if the past five years had been worth this one moment, I would’ve said yes.
Jealousy
Dad came back, as promised, and with him was a tall, white woman who was clearly pregnant that had to be Angel. I hadn’t known what she looked like before the visit, but I most definitely would not have guessed she would’ve looked so similar to Mom. I had to restrain myself from commenting on the resemblance but it wasn’t easy.
“Hello, Carissa,” she exclaimed with genuine pleasure, “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you ever since your dad came home raving about you! Happy birthday!” Her voice was warm and inviting, her smile was genuine, and she didn’t hesitate to pull me in for a big bear hug. I was careful to not press against her belly too much because I didn’t have any experience with pregnant women; I wasn’t sure if she’d pop with too much pressure.
“Thank you,” I said, returning the welcoming smile. “It’s nice to meet you as well. Dad shared a lot about you when he came last time, so it’s nice to put a face to the name and stories.”
Dad pulled me in for a tight squeeze and a quick kiss on the top of my hand before leaning me back to look me in the eyes, “Happy birthday, Carissa Belle, I love you so much and I’m sorry you have to spend this special day locked up.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said rolling my eyes. “I’m just glad I get to spend this one with family.”
“Can’t believe my baby girl is twenty-one. Where did all the time go?” He wiped a tear that had fallen.
We all sat down and Dad volunteered to get us all something to eat. He remembered what I liked and that made me glow with joy and love. We talked about anything and everything again, except this time Angel got to ask a few of her own questions. “So do you guys have these vending machines back where you stay?”
“In our pod?” I asked and she nodded to confirm. “Yeah, there’s a vending machine in every pod, but the food is so expensive I hardly eat out of them.”
“Well, how do you make money in here?” she asked.
“I work every day,” I said. “They call it ‘programming’ but it’s the same thing as working because they pay us by the hour.”
She nodded and said, “That’s interesting. How much do you make an hour?”
“40¢,” I said shortly.
“40¢?” she almost spit out the bite of burger she had just taken, “That’s ridiculous! What do you make in a month?”
“Like fifty-five bucks. It’s not much but it’s enough to buy my hygiene, some soups, and women products every month, so I’m grateful. Some women in here only make $10 a month. I feel bad for them because that means they’re living off of the state issued hygiene and that stuff is garbage. The soap dries out your skin and the shampoo causes your hair to break off. This might be TMI, but the female products the State hands out will give you a yeast infection if you’re not careful.”
“Mark, we have to change that,” Angel said without thought and in a non-negotiable tone.
“How come you didn’t tell me that before?” Dad asked with pain in his eyes.
“You never asked and it’s no big deal, really,” I shrugged. “If there’s one thing I learned since being locked up it’s that the days will pass whether there’s money in my account or not, and if I had to choose, I’d rather the days keep ticking off.”
“Yeah, that’s true, but you shouldn’t have to suffer any more than you already are,” Dad said definitively. “Your punishment is your prison sentence and being removed from society, not to also endure inhumane conditions. I’ll find out how to send you money as soon as we leave here today.”
“You don’t have to, Dad.”
“Thank you, Carissa, for letting me know that,” Dad said with playful humility.
The visit lasted just as long as the first one and they promised to come back to visit me every month. They lived in Colorado so they had to plan for the trips in advance. I asked if it was okay if I called them and they said yes without hesitation. We said our goodbyes and I was back in my pod before the 4 o’clock count, exhausted from the rise and falls of emotions.
Even though it was my birthday, I had more than I could handle for the day, so after stand up count, I passed out. I didn’t wake up until it was 10 o’clock count and Hernandez was knocking on my door for me to stand again.
“Oh shit! I must’ve slept through the surprise party Alicia had been planning for me for over a month! Damn it!”
I felt so guilty, but the joy from meeting and visiting with my dad and Angel was so much stronger. I smiled as I rolled over and fell back asleep into a peaceful slumber.
Alicia didn’t take the new addition to my life very well. In fact, she wasn’t happy about it at all.
“Now that you’ve got your dad back in your life, you have no need for me, do you?” Alicia had finally been pushed to her limit. “He sends you money every week, he visits you every month, and you talk on the phone almost every night! Just admit it already, you don’t need me!”
“Okay, first of all,” I sighed with no patience, “I’m tired of having this argument with you, Alicia, and second of all, I’ve never ‘needed’ you. I’ve wanted you in my life, but ever since you started tripping out over my relationship with my dad, you’ve been making me question that. Why are you so jealous? He’s my dad for crying out loud!”
“I’m not jealous,” she defended, “I’m just tired of being thrown to the curb every time he comes to visit.”
It had been a few months since my birthday and Dad had come to visit for a weekend each month like he promised. November’s visit was a week ago and it, unfortunately, fell on Alicia’s anniversary of her crime, which was when she had last seen her kids, making it an emotional time of the year for her. She had been devastated when she heard me called down to visitation that Saturday morning, and she hadn’t been able to recuperate since.
“I don’t mean to kick you to the curb, but it’s my dad, Alicia, the only family I have left. He’s going to win every time, so you might as well get used to it.”
“And what if I can’t, huh? What then?” Alicia challenged me.
“Then I guess we can’t be together anymore because it’s not going to change.” I almost regretted saying those words after I saw how crushed Alicia looked, but they were the truth, so I stood by what I said.
“Then I guess we can’t be together anymore.” She repeated.
“I guess not,” I confirmed.
I don’t know why I was surprised that my relationship ended for the same reason most of the other prison relationships ended - jealousy - but I was. I had thought that Alicia’s low-key demeanor and my easy-going style would rise above the petty games of prison-drama, but they did not. Alicia and I officially broke up and we agreed it was best for one of us to be moved out of the pod, seeing that it would be too much to work together and live together.
I requested to move to AB pod while she requested to leave A-unit entirely - a bold move. I thought she was crazy for wanting to leave the single-celled unit to go to an open spaced unit that housed up to sixty women, who all slept on cots that were lined up along the walls, with only three feet of space on either side before the next cot, but maybe that would be the change she needed. It was only my request that was accepted two weeks later though because Alicia wasn’t qualified to live in an open pod. In a matter of thirty minutes, I packed all my property into a trash bag and moved my happy butt over to AB, the pod catty-corner to AD. I had lived in the same pod since hitting GP, so it felt good to have a change of scenery.
Everything seemed to be going fairly smoothly for me after that. I was busting my tail every day to finish the projects Diaz had been assigned to, I was helping women with their health concerns and troubled past experiences at night with NMPEP, and I finally had family in my life to love and support me from the outside in. There was only one problem arising - now that I had money in my account, two highly privileged jobs and I was single-ready-to-mingle, my levels of self-esteem and confidence shot through the roof, and I wasn’t the only one to notice.
Chapter Twelve
Quest for Help
Realizing the great divide
In the late Spring in 2004, I finally realized how distant Mom and I actually were. I was only a freshman and Angela was a sophomore and she had decided it was time to openly admit to Mom about smoking marijuana with her friends.
“I tried smoking weed last week with Stella and Rachel,” Angela told Mom as we were driving home from our weekly grocery shopping.
It was a warm Saturday evening and the three of us had spent most of the day together, running errands and talking about the basketball plans we had for the coming summer. Angela was riding shotgun while I was in the backseat and Mom was jamming to Nelly’s ‘Country Grammar’ on the radio.
Why Angela chose that moment to confess to Mom, I’ll never know, but it was a moment I’ll never forget. Mom turned down the music and was quiet for a moment. I thought she was debating on how to whoop Angela’s ass for doing that without needing to stop the progress we were making that day - which would’ve been a typical ‘Mom’ thing for her to do.
“I’d NEVER admit that to Mom!” I thought. “Angela must be high right now, she’s so dumb!”
“I used to smoke weed when I was younger,” Mom said matter-of-factually.
You’ve. Got. To. Be. Kidding me!!
“Only when I was in high school though,” Mom clarified. “When I married your father, I couldn’t risk getting him in trouble with the Military, we would’ve got kicked off the base. But in high school, we used to go out to the back of the gym and smoke a joint before fifth period every once in a while. And we’d be laughing our butts off in class!”
Mom and Angela erupted in laughter at that vision. I, on the other hand, became extremely uncomfortable in the backseat. Imagining Mom being normal and having a fun childhood was too hard to do, it made my brain hurt trying to picture it. Mom wasn’t the type to take risks or be daring - everything she did was by the book - go to work on time, pay the bills every month, clean the house every weekend, do the responsible thing all the time - that was Mom. Not the person who snuck to the back of the gym to get in a couple rounds of “puff, puff, pass”.
“What the hell is happening right now?” I asked myself.
Mom’s admission encouraged Angela to tell Mom everything - where they had gotten the weed, where they smoked, what happened after they smoked (they ate an entire apple pie Rachel’s mom had made for her boss’s going away party and then blamed it on her little brother - Mom got a kick out of that), and when they planned to do it again. I couldn’t believe my own ears. I couldn’t believe my own eyes. Mom’s response, Angela’s deep dive confession, the fact that the sky hadn’t fallen in… I couldn’t believe any of it.
“Sounds like you girls had a good time,” Mom noted after we had gotten home and were unloading the groceries.
“Yeah,” Angela agreed, “it was fun but I was scared for most of the high. I didn’t want Rachel’s mom to smell it on us, she’s not cool, like you.”
“Mom? Our mom cool? What was Angela talking about?!”
I never felt so out of place in my life! Angela and I were already in high school, fifteen and fourteen-years-old respectively, and from the time I could remember, Mom was anything but “cool”. She wasn’t mean or physically abusive, but she definitely wasn’t what I would define as “cool”.
Mom acted like the compliment didn’t go straight to her head, but you can’t bullshit a bullshitter and I saw how big her head had gotten.
“Well,” she said as casually as possible, “I want you to be able to tell me things like that because I already know you’re going to be doing them, it’s just nice to know you’re being smart and safe.”
“We were,” Angela reassured her, “We didn’t leave the house until we felt it wear off.”
“Good, I’d rather you stay in one place if you decide to try something new, it’s just better that way.” Mom smiled as she gave Angela a quick wink. Angela beamed.
“So how about some pizza for supper?” Mom asked.
“Yeah! I want Papa John’s!” Angela yelled.
“Papa John’s it is,” Mom laughed at Angela’s enthusiasm.
“Well, fuck Carissa, huh?” They knew how much I hated Papa John’s - the toppings always slide off the pizza and the sauce tasted funny. It was clear that Angela and Mom were ‘bonding’ again, and as for Carissa? She was left to watch, somewhat in envy and somewhat in disdain. The division in the family became even more apparent and after that day, things continued to snowball, out of control, real quick.
Sweet Sixteen
In the late Summer of 2005, Mom asked me for the last time, “What do you want for your birthday, Carissa?”
It was two weeks away from my sixteenth birthday and there was only one thing I wanted - to see my girlfriend. She and I had been taking turns driving the 230-mile distance to see each other on the weekends since school had started and it would be great to have a couple tanks of gas paid for.
“I don’t know,” I lied, “I already have everything I want.”
“What about the new stereo for your truck that you’ve been talking about?” Mom reminded me.
“Well,” I hesitated so I could think of a quick excuse, “I don’t want to invest in the truck if I’m not going to take it with me when I go to college.”
“You still have two years until that time comes,” Mom said.
“I know, but I just don’t know if that’s what I want for my birthday,” I added pathetically, not able to think of a decent excuse.
“Well, let me know when you figure it out,” Mom requested.
“When I figure out what you should get me for my birthday? Yeah, thanks Mom, I feel the connection we obviously don’t have.”
Mom and I had grown more and more estranged over the past two years and it was becoming more evident as Angela’s ‘signing day’ was approaching. Angela was debating which school she was going to go to because she didn’t know what it was like to live anywhere outside of Las Cruces, so Mom became obsessed with talking about college. I think she thought it was helpful for Angela to have someone ask the same questions over and over again or something because that’s all Mom did, “Which schools are you thinking about? How far would you want to go? Do the colors and mascot matter at all? When do you think you’ll decide?”
But from what I could witness, Mom’s endless questioning was actually stressing Angela out even more. Angela’s episodes of drama were a common thing growing up, but with her ‘signing day’ getting closer and Mom’s insistent probing, Angela’s level of drama jumped up a few octaves.
“I can’t find my favorite jeans!” Angela screamed out to nobody in specific.
“Wear a different pair.” Mom replied with a light tone, trying to help downplay the inevitable drama that was coming.
“No!? Angela screamed in protest, “I want to wear those jeans because they go perfect with what I’m already wearing!”
“Did you check the dirty clothes?” Mom asked patiently.
“YES!! They’re not there!” Angela whined.
“Well, they have to be in your room then,” Mom sighed.
“I ALREADY LOOKED!! UGH!! You know what? I don’t want to go anymore. Cancel the date!” Angela stomped to her room and slammed her door.
“Angela!” Mom yelled, losing her calm, cool, collected facade for a moment. “Frank’s already here and he bought the tickets! Just put something else on!”
“No!” Angela opened her door and yelled out. “I don’t want to go anymore, and you can’t make me!”
*SLAM*
Almost every day now, Angela was having meltdowns over petty situations and bullshit ‘problems’. Mom didn’t know how to handle them very well, and she tried everything - reasoning with her, agreeing with her, ignoring her, coddling her, fighting with her - nothing worked. Angela was falling apart and Mom and I were forced to either entertain her issues or leave. Mom chose to entertain, I chose to leave. Getting away from the constant pressure of college-talk and the ‘daily drama queen’ was at the top of my list of things to do every day. I started spending more time at the gym after school, hanging out at friends’ houses, and every weekend or break I had, I was scraping up the gas money to go see Martina.
