Naleighna Kai's Literary Cafe Magazine May - Mother's Day Issue | Page 23

a certain set of things happened to her
which made her hate me so much, then
I would be able to forgive her. It was
all fiction, right? Unknown to me at the
time, some of the scenes I created in the
novel actually happened in real life. So I
had no choice but to keep my word and
work on doing what it took to forgive
my mother.
Evidently, there were some life
lessons I was supposed to learn from
the entire scenario, because as you can
imagine the physical and emotional
abuse was substantial. The only thing
that came between us was my true
mother, who stayed in their emotionally
abusive relationship far longer than was
practical. All because she felt the need
to protect me.
Once, she did try to leave, but was
immediately compelled to return
because I had endured a horrific ordeal
at the hands of my father. That was the
summer I left and first ran to my aunt,
(my “first” mother/aunt who had served
her sentence and was back in Chicago).
I overheard a conversation taking place
between my aunt and her brother making
an arrangement for him to come to her
house every week to have sex with me;
a scene that became something I wrote
about in Was it Good For You Too? I
didn’t stick around to find out the end
result, I fled to what I thought was the
safety of my father’s home.
Unfortunately, that didn’t go well.
Overall, when I returned to my
childhood home, my true mother was
there and I didn’t tell what happened at
my father’s house. I had the common
sense to know that she would’ve ended
up in jail. I think she had some idea, but it
was nowhere near a normal imagination
would take anyone. What my true mother
did was to take measures to ensure that
I was safe from my biological mother’s
anger. What she did was to make sure
that I would not shut down as a person,
as a female, as a human being. She did
things to make sure that I would be able
to navigate life’s challenges without
being consumed by any of the negative
filters that overshadowed my life. There
is more, but I chose to put it in fiction
because my son told me at 15-years old,
“Mom, you can’t put your entire story
in one book. It brings the reader down
so low they can’t get back up again.” He
was so right. Now, there’s a splinter of
my soul and the soul of the females of
my family line in every novel that I’ve
ever written:
She Touched My Soul is my healing
story and one of forgiveness.
The Pleasure’s All Mine is about my
background, my family drama, and my
relationship with my son.
Rich Woman’s Fetish has snippets of
my sister’s experience.
Was it Good For You Too? covers
that unfortunate night I overheard that
conversation between my mother’s
sister and brother.