This is another one of those memories that seems to have been lost on me. I just do not remember what the first night in the new apartment was like. Or even the first week. It was in Las Cruces, about 30 miles from where I had grown up. Surely I must have felt older, wiser, more responsible. Maybe I felt a little guilty about shacking up. I just don’t remember.
I don’t remember how long it took for the exciting newness to wear off into sheer misery. I don’t remember how long it took for Ray to start taking my car & leaving me at home by myself all the time … or how long it took me to realize that I was going to have to pay the bills by myself. I don’t think it was very long at all, though. We had roommates, but not one of them seem concerned if we paid rent or had electricity. Two of them were cooks that worked at Denny’s with Ray. One of them was trying to get away from his wife and kids so he could party. The other had been living in a storage unit . We got a third roommate who hardly ever stayed there. He only came by when he had nowhere else to go. All of these roommates gave me the creeps so I stayed away from them.
When Ray was home, he and the guys liked to disappear into the other room and close the door. Loud heavy metal music and a sickening stench of a smoke I had never smelled before would seep out from under the door. I’d lie there in my bed, so frustrated that I felt my head would explode. His true colors were beginning to show and I was starting to worry that I had made a mistake. But I had nowhere else to go. Fred was clearly not going to let me come back home. Besides, I just really didn’t want to accept failure in this one.
Then the yelling started. He had shown signs of being an impatient yeller before, but I had blown it off. I thought maybe he was just going through mood swings typical of ANYONE who had just gone through a divorce. But no….it was definitely a way of life for him. He yelled at me not just every day, but many, many times a day. Every thing set him off. Nothing was sacred either. He called me every name in the book. He also me that I needed to go on a diet. Girls at work flirted with him all the time. “So, people were expecting his girlfriend to look like Brooke Shields” … not like me. After that, every time he would get mad at me, he’d call me a stupid fat a** b***. Needless to say, whatever joy I had from moving in with him was quickly swallowed by unquenchable grief.
Maybe a month after we moved, my car broke down on the freeway on my way home from work. I still worked in Anthony at the Flying J, which was 25 miles from our apartment. It was a little after 1am on a freezing night and I was wearing a flimsy sweater over my uniform, which consisted of a short sleeved-shirt, a skirt and very thin shoes. I was about 2 or 3 miles away from the nearest exit, but I had no choice but to start walking. Again, in those days, there were no cell phones.
There was barbed wire strung across the median for miles and miles. Not only that, but the area around the fence was covered in tall, dried weeds and stickers. So I began walking the length of the freeway looking for a place where the wire was broken. I finally made it to a break in the fence about 45 minutes later and managed to climb up the side of an overpass to walk into town. I was overjoyed to see a pay phone just a few yards away, but to my utter disgust, it didn’t even have a dial tone. So I kept walking.
I turned down a road and knocked on the door of a house. The people that lived there didn’t know English, but they let me in and let me use their phone, even though it was like 2:30 by then. I called Mom and she said she’d be there as soon as possible. I told her I’d walk down to the main road so she’d be able to see me more easily. When I got to the road, there was no sign of headlights coming near, so I walked closer to Anthony, thinking she’d see me eventually and she wouldn’t have to drive so far. I guess I walked about an hour, but she still didn’t pass by. I started getting sick with worry, thinking she had gotten in a wreck, or that she got lost.
The whole time I was walking down that road, I was praying to God. Actually I was almost yelling at God, wondering why he was letting this happen to me. But then I asked myself how I could possibly expect his protection after the way I had been behaving? Still, he was with me, whether I chose to acknowledge at the time or not. All that time that I walked, no one stopped to help me. An 18-year-old girl walking down the road in the middle of the night and no one stops to help. Even more miraculous, though, is that no one stopped to hurt me either, and that is what I am grateful for now.
I walked all the way into Anthony, about 3 or 4 miles down the road, to the Sonic, where I found a working pay phone. I called Mom’s house again to see if maybe I’d missed her and she had returned home. This time Fred answered. I asked if Mom was still there and he screamed into the phone, “NO SHE’S NOT HERE! She’s out looking for you. You’re not our F***ing responsibility anymore, don’t you get it?” He kept yelling and screaming obscenities and insults, so I just hung up on him and started crying my eyes out. Just then a cop drove up and said into his radio, “Yeah, looks like a domestic.” After I told him what was going on, he took me into his car and drove around. We found Mom within a minute or two and he pulled her over. She was crying too & ended up driving me all the way home. I knew she loved me, but she was limited in what she could do because of Fred.
After that night, I felt even more unwelcome at their house than I had before. I tried not to visit as much. I didn’t have many friends at work. I had a few acquaintances, but no real friends. I didn’t have anyone I could really talk to about what was fast becoming abuse at home. So I had decided that if I lost Ray after losing everything else in my life, it would be a blow from which I would never, ever recover. I’d rather endure whatever he dished out than deal with another loss. But I still just felt utterly alone. That’s probably why I caught baby fever. I had it bad, too. I could just picture holding a little baby and loving it with all of my heart and being loved back. I thought that if I were to have a baby, I would have someone to relate to and I’d never be truly alone again.
By March, I was feeling extremely tired and sick. Mom bought me a pregnancy test and I was shaking with excitement as I waited for the results. My heart sank to the bottom of my feet when it read negative. I figured I was just getting sick or something. A week later, I was still completely and totally fatigued. One night Ray and I were dying of suspense, so we went to Walgreen’s at 2:30 a.m. and bought a test.
We came home and I went into the bathroom. I didn’t even have time to put the stick on the counter before it started turning color, indicating that I was indeed pregnant. I came out of the bathroom and Ray said, “Well?” I just smiled and said, “Daddy.” At first he looked like he was going to smile, but then he started freaking out. He put his hands over his face and said, “Oh no! I can’t be a father again! I already have three kids! Those are my kids in Arizona! I can’t have any more! Oh my god!” He calmed down by morning though, and soon he seemed to be getting excited. He showed the test to our roommates and said, “Pretty cool, huh?” As for me, I was ecstatic. Overjoyed. Delusional with happiness.
Except … it was only a short while after this that I finally opened my eyes and realized that Ray was on drugs. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it before. He never had money, couldn’t keep a job, spent so much time sleeping, smelled very weird at times. But I had never known someone who did drugs in all my life – at least, not that I knew about. I was so naive that I thought I had gone to a drug-free high school and lived in a drug-free town. Now, years later, I look back and see how insane it was to have ever believed that. My hometown was full of drugs. But since I never looked for it, I just figured it didn’t exist. So when I found myself living with a person who was clearly addicted to something, I had no idea what to do. I honestly didn’t understand just how big of a problem this really was.
I lived under the worst conditions over the next couple of months. I had the worst morning sickness. I’d throw up every single morning and feel sick the rest of the day. Some days I’d throw up all day long. Most people gain weight in pregnancy. I lost 40 pounds. To compound not being able to hold anything down, we never had any food. Once I realized Ray was on drugs, it was easy to piece together that our roommates were, too. They’d eat all the food in the house and not replace any of it. There were days that my aunt & uncle, Leila and Jerry, felt so much compassion for me and they’d buy a bunch of groceries and bring them up to me. Soooo many groceries — good stuff, too. Those roommates had the nerve to eat all that up as well. I guess they didn’t care too much for popcorn and grits because that’s all that was left after they devoured everything. So that’s what my meals consisted of most of the time.
Of course, Ray showed no concern whatsoever. He never told his friends to stop eating all the food. He never asked me how I was feeling. He never came with me to any of my appointments. Well, he did have some weird days when he acted like he might care. For example, one day I was sitting on the bed and he walked in and said, “Oh, wow! I just had a vision of our baby! It’s going to look just like you….with big beautiful eyes.” It was those moments that would fill my heart with soaring hope that would carry me through all the bad days.
Still, life was very unpredictable from then on. Ray’s moods would change countless times a day and I never knew what to expect. One night he asked me for some money and I told him I didn’t have any. He got so mad that he started breaking things and throwing things around the house. Flashbacks of Fred trashing the place came rushing back to me, as well as an even deeper feeling of helplessness. Still, I had no money to give him, so he only got angrier. He picked up a mirror and dropped it on the ground and then started throwing the pieces of glass at me.
I had been on the phone with my friend Mario from high school. He was really alarmed at what he heard going on in the background, so he drove over and demanded that I go back with him to his dorm. I was scared out of my mind, so I grabbed a few things while Ray was screaming obscenities at Mario and our friend Omar, who had come too. I left with them and they snuck me into their dorm room so that I would be safe that night.
I had been there only for a few minutes when I started begging them to take me back home. I had always heard stories of women who want to return to the hell they escape and I had always criticized their stupidity. Yet, there I was, in the same boat. I couldn’t stand the idea of being away from Ray all night. I just wanted to go back home and make things better, even though he was too strung out to listen. Mario refused to hear it, though. He said it wasn’t a good idea and that he’d take me back in the morning after he took his test. He let me sleep in his bed while he and Omar managed to fit themselves in the other bed. I couldn’t sleep though, and it was one of the worst nights of my life. When I got home, Ray was furious and was certain that I had cheated on him. He didn’t even look at me for a few days.
Not long after that, Ray took my car to drive one of our roommates to work and said he’d be right back. Three hours later, I realized he wasn’t going to be home any time soon. Sheer panic and dread settled in my bones and I felt like throwing up. I wanted so bad to be able to go look for him and find out where he was. I wanted to have more control over my situation, but there I was, completely helpless and stuck at “home”, if you want to call it that. I felt as if I were going to go literally insane.
I went into our roomand dug out my Bible from one of the boxes in the back of the closet. I prayed to God that night and told him how sorry I was that I had allowed myself to get into this situation. I knew it was because I had stopped trying to seek Him that I was in such a rut. I was suddenly very aware of the horrible things I had done over the past year—drinking, seeing a married man, losing my virginity, and then moving in with someone before I got married. These were all things that I had been very clearly taught about since I was able to understand anything at all.
I was so disgusted with myself and I had no one to call. I had turned my back on all my Christian friends…some of them I had no idea where they were anymore, like my old youth pastor, Mark. Actually, the last time I had talked to him I mentioned that I was engaged. He said, “Did you pray about this? Have you talked to God and made sure this is the right direction?” I told him I had, but it was a big fat lie … and I never talked to him again. I had totally lost contact with the McCartys, who had been such great friends to me.
I got out a piece of paper and wrote a long letter to the McCartys and told them about the mess I had gotten in. I told them how ashamed I was and how sorry I was that I had neglected keeping in touch. Then I went to bed. I heard Ray come home around 8 am, but he just went into the other room with the guys like always.
During that week, Gramma called me to let me know that Jesse had called my mom and wanted to talk to me. I couldn’t believe it! Jesse had called me from California! My heart started racing as she gave me the number to reach him at. In the back of my mind somewhere, I thought maybe my vision of us getting married wasn’t too far-fetched after all. Maybe God was putting him back in my life. I called him the next day after I had summoned up the courage. We talked for a good hour or so, but I couldn’t figure out a way to tell him what I had gotten myself into. I only told him that I had a roommate and I didn’t mention that I was pregnant. When I hung up, I felt guilty, so I got out another piece of paper and wrote him a letter too.
Sometime during the next week, Ray had to go to El Paso to get some stuff for his leg. We drove down there and the entire way he was downright vicious. My car was in the process of falling apart and it overheated quickly. The smell of antifreeze made my already-horrible morning sickness even worse and I was downright miserable. It made him furious that I could be so sick. He yelled at me the entire way over there.
When we finally got to El Paso, he told me that he just couldn’t take it anymore. Once we got home, he was going to take off back to Arizona. I was never going to be as beautiful as his ex-wife and he wanted her back. He didn’t love me and he didn’t want to be part of the baby’s life because he already had kids that he loved.
My heart shattered into a million pieces. I couldn’t believe that my unborn baby who I already loved so much was going to have to grow up without a dad, just like I had. I said this would never happen! I couldn’t imagine trying to find a step-dad to help me raise my child. What if he turned out like Fred? How could I bring a child into this world without a dad to love? She hadn’t even been born yet, but the odds were already going to be stacked against her? How could that be? I had always promised myself I would NEVER do that. I started crying so hard that I felt like my eyes were going to explode. I literally felt insanity—pure madness—start to invade my brain and heart. Of course, that only made him angrier and louder.
I desperately needed to talk to someone—immediately. I was driving us back towards Las Cruces from El Paso, so I pulled off into Canutillo towards Gramma’s house. I knew that Grandfather was in town on one of his yearly visits. With my jeans and makeup, I was not dressed appropriately to step foot in the house when he was there. But I couldn’t bring myself to care because my desperate need for comfort outweighed any fear that I had of upsetting anyone. I just had to be around people that cared about me because I could almost feel my heart cracking into fragments of fragments. I parked in front Gramma’s house and ran inside sobbing.
My mom and brothers were there visiting and they had just gotten through eating breakfast. Naturally, they were all alarmed. My grandfather stood up and took me in his arms, which greatly surprised me. He hadn’t hugged me since I was a tiny little kid. I stood there, bawling into his shoulder and I felt so safe. I had forgotten how good his hugs had felt, how strong and masculine and secure he felt. He kept asking me what was wrong, but there was no way I could bring myself to tell him. The more he asked, the harder I cried.
Then suddenly he stepped away from me, put his hands on my shoulders, and looked into my eyes. He said, “Are you pregnant?” I just nodded and managed to squeak out, “…but that’s not the problem.” He turned, walked over to the kitchen table, and just collapsed into a sobbing heap of a man. His crying & groaning was so miserable that I couldn’t stand it. I apologized profusely to Mom and Gramma for ruining their visit. I felt so terrible because they never got to see him and there I went and messed up their day. I knew he was going to be angry with them for not telling him. I walked back to the car, where Ray was still just as disgusted with me, if not more-so.
I drove off and after a long while of silence, tried to reason with Ray, begging him to stay with me. He refused to listen though. He told me he had already made up his mind and that there was nothing I could say to change it. I had to pull over because I was crying so hard that I couldn’t see the road. Of course, that just annoyed him, so he demanded that I let him drive home. I moved over to the passenger side and he took over the wheel. I grabbed his right hand and held it and I guess he was too tired of fighting me off to take it away from me. So I sat there. All my life, I’ve loved men’s hands just because they looked so….safe. I remembered all the times I had held that hand its owner still “cared” about me. Then I tried to imagine a life in which I would never get to touch that hand again. How I’d never feel it again unless hostility was behind it.
All of a sudden I just couldn’t stand it. I had been sitting curled up in a pathetic fetal position, with my feet up on the dashboard. Tremendous agony formed in the pit of my stomach and then boiled up so intense with such forceful energy that I kicked the windshield with all my might. Instantly, a huge crack streaked across the length of the windshield. Ray just looked at me in disbelief and told me he couldn’t believe how stupid I was to mess up my own car. It was then that I realized this man was not going to have any pity on me whatsoever. There was absolutely no tenderness in his voice. I was not going to win this one. So I just curled up against the window and cried to myself.
The next few days were not any prettier. Ray had to wait until he got paid before he’d have enough money to go to Arizona. I cried and cried and cried until I thought I couldn’t cry anymore. Ray would go to work and stay gone forever. Then when he would come home, I’d run to him and beg him to stay. He would get so irritated that he’d scream at me to leave him alone. He was in the bedroom packing up his clothes one day when I just tackled him on the bed. I knew I couldn’t make him want to stay emotionally, but maybe I could physically restrain him from leaving. He wrestled with me, trying to force me off of him and said, “Are you psycho? What is WRONG with you, you stupid b****?” I still just begged and begged for him to have mercy on me. He wouldn’t budge, so I got up and wandered outside. I sat on the sidewalk in front of our apartment and watched the traffic going by.
I felt absolutely wretched. My eyes burned, my lips felt like they’d explode from puffiness and my soul ached with a yearning that even I had never felt before. I had grown to expect disappointments from men, so I wasn’t really surprised. But I really had grown to love this one. And we were going to have a baby. A baby that I wanted to raise together. I wanted so badly for him to love me back and the fact that I couldn’t force him to made me feel so out of control.
Then came another unexpected twist: Ray came outside and began to negotiate with me. He said that he was sorry he made me so miserable and that he didn’t mean to hurt me, but that he didn’t know what to do. He said he needed to get away from Las Cruces because he had gotten into a bad circle of people. He needed to get away from the drug scene. If I could make that happen, he would go with me and stay with me. Sheer relief ran through my bones. I held him tighter than I ever had and promised him that I would help him. I called Gramma up and she said that we could stay with her until we found somewhere else to go. So we began to pack.
During that next week, I received two letters in the mail. One from Jesse and one from the McCarty’s. After Grandfather’s reaction, I was almost afraid to open them. I was sure they had written to tell me never to contact them again–to scold me for messing up my life and turning away from God. First I opened the McCarty’s. They said that they had been worried about me and were glad that I had contacted them. I don’t remember their exact words, but they said that everyone makes mistakes and that they didn’t judge me for mine. They told me not to be afraid to visit them and that they looked forward to babysitting. I started to cry tears of relief and love. I couldn’t believe that people could be so forgiving and compassionate. Then I opened Jesse’s letter. He said that he had been surprised to read what I had to say, but that he wanted to let me know that it was never too late to turn to Jesus. I remember that he wrote a whole page, explaining how Jesus acts as sort of our “defense lawyer” in times like these. It just completely blew my mind.
Encouraged by these letters, I cautiously went back to the church I had left. People there were overwhelmingly compassionate with me. One family gave me a huge box of maternity clothes and baby clothes. Then another family gave me multiple boxes of baby clothes –so much that I had nowhere to put them all. I had no need to buy baby clothes ever because of the generosity that these people poured out on me. It was because of THESE people that I started to understand how much I needed God, not the reaction my Grandfather showed.
The next few months went by very slowly. Grandma didn’t have an air conditioner and it was HOT. I couldn’t work because my pregnancy was high-risk. My car didn’t work half the time. So I just sat around all the time, waiting on Ray. He had gotten a few jobs here and there, but nothing he would hang onto. His mood swings hadn’t changed much either, although he couldn’t be TOO mean to me with Gramma there. There were a few nights that he stayed out all night and my stomach would be in knots. I sat in front of the window, straining my eyes for the sign of headlights coming. Then when I’d see some approaching, I’d hold my breath, praying it would be him. Most of the time it wasn’t and I wouldn’t get much sleep.
It sure didn’t help my relationship with my grandma. All of my life I had idolized her, and suddenly she became a thorn in my side. She was always on my case to get rid of Ray. She really couldn’t stand him. Looking back, I now understand her rage. But at the time, the way she talked about him like he was worthless with total disregard for Ray’s human-ness made me ever more defensive of him.
I couldn’t stop thinking back to the days when I first met Ray and we would sit in his car and look at the stars. He had told me a lot of details about his life. My heart was moved with sympathy and I just couldn’t forget the pain he had endured. Maybe he couldn’t love me the way I needed to be loved because he himself had never known love. To me, that was far more heart-breaking than anything he could ever do to me.
Out of the Box 
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