The Beginning of a Nightmare

My husband and I have inherited three more daughters. It wasn’t anything that we did special, and don’t even bother congratulating us, because, trust me we didn’t earn it. Let me explain:

At 5am one morning, my phone rings. I don’t answer, because well, anyone who calls my house that early in the morning is just asking for it. Then when it rings again and again, I think this may be something important. I answered. “Hello.”

“Is Jerome (my husband) there.”

“No.”

“This is officer (lets call him…) Williams.” My husband does security and they just love calling themselves officer this and that. My husband gets a kick out of hearing them do it. And then I think, OK, so why in the hell are you calling my house. Officer Williams goes on, “I’m an officer for the Clayton county police department.”

“OK.” It’s 5 in the morning; I’m not at my best.

“Your mother in law has just gone to the hospital and I’m here with these kids (that’s what he said, these kids) and I need someone to come and get them, or I’ll call DFCS.”

The long and short of it is my sister in law, has gotten herself into trouble, and has been in jail for several weeks, my mother in law (god bless her soul—which is a good thing, because at times it’s like the devil controls her, and those are not times that you want to know the woman.) has gotten sick and gone to the hospital by ambulance.

Their father, the wonderful waste of space that he turns out to be, is no where to be found. And trust me, I don’t use that term lightly. This man has been known to beat my sister in law to a bloody pulp, no doubt in front of his children (9—yep, that’s right 9 of them), hit my mother in law and push her down the stairs while she’s trying to stop him from hitting her daughter, and lastly but not even close to lease, getting stopped by the police and giving them my husband’s name (it wasn’t until my husband got a summons in the mail that we even knew what was going on and then he had to take a day off work and go to court and take a letter from his job saying he was working at the time of the ticket (thank GOD) all the way across town).

My sister in law is no better as she used her own sisters name when she was arrested, and she conspires with her husband (my husband and I can’t figure out if they’re married) to defraud the government for all the money and food and housing that they can, and they have been having children since I was a child—literally.

When I get there, the police are waiting. As soon as I step into the house, my heart sinks. There’s no furniture, and there are bags and bags of wet clothes everywhere. I mean there had to be fifty of them laying all over the house. Children are running and screaming around and one of the officer’s head looks like its gonna explode from the noise.

They take me to the side and asked me what the hell is going on in this house. I tell him, truthfully, that I didn’t know and that my husband and I didn’t come over there. He says, “I don’t blame you.” He goes on to say that he didn’t want to have to call DFCS (Department of Family and Children Services), because they could screw up the kids more and that there is NO food in the house except one carton of eggs with 2 eggs inside and that he would have to file a complaint. That people would be coming. He got on his shoulder mike and then told someone I was a “very good citizen” and that I agreed to look after the kids. Then he left me there with them.

So eventually my brother in law (I guess) does show up, and oh my God. He comes in complaining that he can’t be taking time out to come there for HIS OWN CHILDREN. And that they get on his nerves. He’s screaming at them, right up in their faces—like a military man, which I know for a fact he is NOT. And he’s talking about my mother in law, you know the one in the hospital, you know, the one that just went to the hospital due to trying to take care of HIS 9 children. He’s saying that she has some nerve coming into his house trying to run things, and moving things, and that, oh, if he ever gets his hands on her…

OK, right now, it’s time for me to go. Go, you say? But really, what choice did I have. I mean, I thought about calling the police back and telling them to take the kids from him, but the officer had already told me he didn’t think that would be a good idea. He said that most of the foster parents were just after the $200 a month pay check and it would screw the kids up even more.

So, I leave. I left them there with a man that I know beats his wife and his sick mother in law. But he’s their father, right?

What else should I have done?

But this is just the beginning. And, oh, do I have stories to tell you.