New Moon Child

You have created a child out of love. Raise them as best as you can, and then forgive yourself. ~ C .S. DeDona

I am born.

And they created me out of love.

They are GOD.

He is GOD.

I am listening.



I am older than five.

I like to walk along the streets of Manhattan with Mom.

I hate overcooked vegetables. They make me gag. 

They bring a new baby home.



I am eight.

The city is a dangerous place.

Somebody steals my roller skates.

They break off the antenna on our brand-new car.

Dad says we are moving to the country.

Mom refuses to bring that baby back.



I am twelve.

They brought another baby girl home last year.

The country has bad people too.

They pat you on the knee and higher.

The neighbors do not like Kraut kids living here.

They lie.



I am sixteen.

Dad drinks a lot. It makes him lazy.

He starts projects he does not finish.

It has been months since I saw the top of the Kitchen table.

Nobody is allowed to clean it up.

Dad keeps saying not to touch anything, or he will chop my fingers off.

I believe him.

My boyfriend is killed in May by a drunk driver.

I stop listening to GOD aka Dad.

I skip school.

I run away from home.

I get arrested. Hitchhiking on the Belt Parkway in D.C. and am placed with three of my friends in a detention center for wayward teens.

When I tell them my real name, they let us go home. I wait a week and  I run away again. With a boy who I met there. He hides me in a basement of a house where the woman has a bad back and is high on Percocet and Valium. She sleeps a lot. I stay there for two nights. We move to a nice apartment and the song I remember is “Me and Mrs. Jones”. 

I come  back home on my own after learning a new word: emancipation. 

I make up six months of missed Gym classes. 

I graduate KHS with a Regents diploma.

I get my Driver’s license.

I get a job.

The diploma means something, but I no longer care.

I am seventeen. Mom works all the time.

Dad is still a drunk.

I do not understand why this bothers me.

It is normal.



I am almost 18.

I meet Tommy.

He is eleven years older.

He likes me.

He calls me every day.

Sometimes twice a day.

He wants to take me out.

He wants to know everything about me.

Tommy likes me.

I do not like him.



Tommy is cute.

But a sex maniac and arrogant.

Tommy boasts.

Tommy tells jokes.

His timing is impeccable.

Tommy is persistent.

Does not take NO for an answer.

I move in with him against my better judgment.

His mom asks him why he is robbing the cradle.

I think she does not like me.



Tommy is separated from his wife.

Tommy has three kids, one girl, and two boys.

He tells his mother his soon-to-be ex-wife is lazy.

She does not even do the laundry.

She is a poor excuse for a mother and a wife. 

This is not true. I still believe the lies.

Tommy tells his parents he loves me.

We move into the apartment upstairs.

We buy furniture and a bed.

His mother says I make too much noise. 

She has her own problems.

I take tip-toe lessons.

It is my new normal. 



I am eighteen.

I learn to adapt.

We will move three times in the next two years.

Rent apartments in Merrick, Hempstead 

And a house in Bellmore.

I meet the wife.

I meet the kids.

They like me. 

 I like them.

I work at Ehrhart’s Clam House in Freeport.

Tommy drinks.

Tommy is a roofer. He makes money and then hides it.

Tommy gambles at the Pool Hall in Freeport.

Tommy has blackouts. Tommy sideswipes three cars on the way home. 

Tommy gets home and screams, 

Where Is My Money!!

I do not know. 

He roars at me to help him. 

He chokes me until I do.

We cannot find it.

Until he does.

Afterward, Tommy goes to sleep.

The next day he wakes up and acts as if nothing happened.

I cope.

I drive back and forth to visit my family.

I have plenty of change for the tolls.

It costs about five dollars.

I say nothing about Tommy’s blackout.

I forget.

I am good at it.



Tommy and I bring his kids,

On one of those trips upstate.

One of the boys tells his dad,

I slapped him.

Tommy reacts quickly.

And shoves me,

The kitchen table’s feet scuff the linoleum as I fall hard.

Tommy hisses, that will never happen again.  

He then walks outside.

He does this in front of his three children and my two sisters.

I am shaken but quickly stand up and brush myself off.

This is the second incident.

The children are permanently damaged. 

The shock is too much for me. I cope by blocking it out of my memory.

I sometimes wonder what else I have forgotten.

These trips become less frequent as time goes on.

The grooming is complete.



I am twenty.

Tommy divorces his first wife.

He wants to move to Hawaii.

Patty Feathers, the stripper he used to date before me, 

told him he belonged there.

I insist we get married first.

I am hypnotized by his promises.

I still believe in fairy tales.

We sell everything.

And give away whatever is left.

Grandma Hertha,

Flies in from Germany. 

There is a quick marriage by a local Judge.

I wear a black jumpsuit for my wedding. 

The Judge looks at me and asks a question.  

Yes, I am sure, I reply.

There is no church,

I have no wedding dress.

My parents are witnesses. 

My grandma waits at home.

We go bowling between the ceremony and the reception.

Tommy has arranged a cake and a party at 

Hidden Valley in Rosendale.

Everybody is invited.  

Today is February 19th, 1977.

It snows on the day after our wedding.

Tommy’s mother buys his Chevy Blazer.

She drives us to the airport.

I am still clueless. 

I am excited to leave New York and start a new life.

We land in Hawaii with no place to go.

I call a few places from the airport. I find a hotel.

I am smart.

But ignorant of a few facts.