exactly that. Then all hell broke loose!
But I’m moving real fast here. So let’s take some time and return
to a couple of years in my past life of horror in Buffalo. It was 1991 and my mother had met a man. She fell hard for him. He was a con artist and a scammer who went by the name of Curtis. As you already guess by now, I hated Curtis. From the beginning, I knew he was not right. But hey, what do you
tell a person blinded by love?
By this time, my brother had graduated high school, and was up-
state New York. Having received a scholarship for his athletic talents, Lee was living his dream of playing basketball at Sienna College and my mother couldn’t be prouder. Her son had made it out of Buffalo, and all she had to worry about was me. Lee eventually played basketball for Sienna College from 1988 to 1992. I was sure that he would never have approved of Curtis,
and I actually couldn’t wait for the day when they would meet.
Before meeting Curtis, my mother had already made a name for
herself. She was a very successful woman who was working in her field of choice. Joan Milling was an ambitious black woman with an entrepreneurial spirit who owned her own successful business. With nothing more than her
faith, she had established a successful real estate business from scratch.
We were not by any means filthy rich, but were definitely not poor.
If I had only learn to follow the rules, I could’ve had my heart’s desires. But I was rebellious, and breaking rules became a bad habit. I didn’t feel it was in my DNA to follow or be confined by anyone’s rules.
Curtis was a homebuilder who wanted to start his own construction
company, and saw my mother as an opportunity for his selfish gains. In her real estate business, she would purchase abandoned homes, and he was hired to renovate them. Well, that was the initial plan. The second time in my life I ever laid my eyes on Curtis, he was introduced to me as my step-father. My blood instantly began boiling at the thought of this man being anything significant in my life.
Things immediately started to change the moment Curtis moved
into our home. My brother, Lee was seven hours away, and was absolutely clueless to the recent change of events. He was spared the experience of liv-
ing with the homewrecker known as Curtis.
My mother began asking this man for permission to speak. This was
a strong indication to me that something was amiss. Anyone who knew my mother would tell you how outspoken she was. Joan Milling was always known for being a leader. She was headstrong, honest, and smart. There was power in her voice, but soon it would all be silenced. And this happened whenever Curtis walked into the room.
I could hear them fighting at nights when she would leave me in the
living room watching my favorite TV show. She would be in her bedroom, and I could hear him beating my mother. On one occasion, I remember sitting in the living room with two of my childhood friends. Out of nowhere, my mother came running and screaming for dear life. Following right behind her, chasing my naked mother with a knife was sorry-ass Curtis. I immediately jumped up, ran into the kitchen, and grabbed the biggest knife I could find.
Then I took off after him.
By the time I made it outside, I could see my mother running bare-
footed through the cold, icy street which was covered with snow. Curtis jumped in his car, and he was actually attempting to run my mother down. Luckily, she made it back to the house, locked all the doors, and immediately
called the police.
The next morning, she took out a restraining order against Curtis. But later that day, this evil man returned to our home and cut all the electrical wires to the house. It took the National Grid power company five days to repair the lines. During this time, my mother and I were prisoners in our own home. We remained trapped without electricity while the awful smell of rotting food filled our nostrils for days. This occurred because my mother was too frightened to leave the house. On the other hand, I refused to be a captive
in my own home.
My mind was already made up. I made a promise to myself that I
would kill this creep. My mother knew it too. She was not only aware of my plan to commit murder, but she felt it! In this harsh world, we were all each other had. There was no way I was going to stand by and let this con man take
my mother away from me.
I already hated life and the only thing I had left to lose was my moth-
er. I wasn’t having that, so my blade was persistently by my side. I slept with it each and every night. Patiently, I waited to seek my revenge exclusively on
the man who beat my dear mother.
To my dismay, a couple of days later, they were back together like
nothing had happened. I couldn’t understand this development, and needless to say, I wasn’t just angry, but I was very frustrated. I had reached the limit of my boiling point. Unable to fathom my mother’s actions, I moved out of the
house. This time it was for good. I had had it at this point.
Surviving by any means necessary, I lived on the streets of Buffalo. I hated my mother’s husband, and he hated me. There was absolutely no way that we were going to exist under the same roof. Where could I stay to get off the streets? I was a teenage girl. My options were limited, and few. I defi-
nitely was not, and could not live with my natural father.
His wife would not allow it. She hated my mother the most. There
was no option, but to extend her hatred in my direction. My mother gave him something she couldn’t, and my mother had something she didn’t. I was his only child! But why did she hate me? I did not ask those two people to have sex, and bring a life into this world! I resembled my mother. And to this very day, my father’s wife still harbors a strong revulsion toward me.
Every other day I would stop by and check in on my mother. I want-
ed to see how she was doing, and to learn what the wacko had up his sleeves. My mother was kind enough to give me a job in her office. This kept me out of trouble, and she paid me pretty good too. My mother taught me office management, how to create files, make copies, fax papers, and read good
faith estimates. She spoke to me a lot less, and I could tell that something was
bothering her. I just didn’t know what it was.
One day, after having a quiet mother and daughter lunch, we re-
turned to her office. A tall man with a thin build, accompanied by a petite woman with red hair, who I later learned was his wife, showed up at the office. The man was loud and adamant about needing to speak with my mother right away. She directed the couple down the hall to her office, and closed
the door.
Like any inquisitive child, I made sure I got close enough where I
could hear every single word. I overheard the ranting of the irate man. He was threatening my mother. He told her that if she did not have his money in thirty days, he would have her arrested. Then he grabbed his wife by the hand, and
together they stormed out.
My heart raced erratically. The thought of my mother going to jail
was extremely terrifying to me. I heard her on the phone arguing with someone from her bank. Thousands of dollars were missing from her business escrow account. No money had been removed from her personal account, but the money earmarked for her real estate clients was gone.
The next few weeks were like something out of a nightmare. My
mother was avoiding telephone calls, telling people she wasn’t there while being in her office. Then she began eyeing everyone around her as if they were suspects in a plot against her. She had even put me—her only daughter, the one she gave birth to, at a distance. After a couple of weeks passed, a friend of mine handed me a newspaper, and told me to read it. Right there on the newspaper’s front page was a picture of my mother, her home, and her business. She had been charged with fraud, and the federal agen
ts had seized
everything she owned.
Her whole escrow account, amounting to eighty-thousand dollars
had been wiped out. Curtis had gotten my mother real good. My entire childhood I watched her work hard, and made innumerable sacrifices in order to build a successful business. Then Curtis came along, and stole it all away from right under her nose. So packing up everything and moving to Greensboro, North Carolina, was a welcomed change. Both me and my mother were
overdue a fresh start.
Living in Greensboro initially proved to be a great idea. My mother
went back to working hard in an attempt to rebuild her life. I was working part time as a waitress, and going to school in the evenings for my G.E.D. I loved my new life. Nobody knew me or my mother in North Carolina, and nobody pointed a finger at us or gave us any type of suspicious looks. The people were warm and treated us with respect. We got along with them and blended in just fine.
The bittersweet parody of my new situation was confounding to me. There was a rebellion going on inside my head, and it turned me into the type of person who couldn’t stand being told what to do. Working as a waitress proved to be both challenging and stressful. I detested taking orders from anyone, including my own parents. I hated manual labor. I was young and in great shape, but the only place I wanted to stand on my feet for eight hours or better was at the nightclub. After work, I walked three and a half miles each day to get home. Once I made it home the first thing on my list was to fix a cold drink. I would kick off my shoes, and check on my mother. Then see
how my baby girl, Aleea, was doing.
After my usual rough day at work, this was one of my favorite times
of the day. This day, however would prove to be different. I saw my mother’s purse on the kitchen counter, but a quick glance made me realize that she wasn’t around. I went into my bedroom and noticed Aleea alone on my bed. She was asleep. This was very unusual. My mother was in love with Aleea,
and the only time she left Aleea’s side was when she had to go to work.
I immediately spun around and walked toward my mother’s bed-
room door. Finding her door closed came as a huge surprise to me. I kept turning the doorknob, to no avail. Frantically, I started to knock, which
amounted to me banging on the door. There was still no answer.
Thinking of all the horrid possibilities, my thoughts spurred my ac-
tions into a more urgent state. Fearing the worst, I really began to worry at this point. I hurried back to the kitchen, and grabbed a butter knife to jimmy the locked door. I popped the bolt off my mother’s door, and was not at all
prepared for what came next.
Curtis! That bastard was chilling in my mother’s bed. His feet
kicked up, a cigarette was dangling from the side of his mouth. He had that ugly smirk on his lips. I hated that expression so much. The one that said, “Ah
ha, I’m back. I run things now bi*ch!”
Oh my God! I thought. My breath was now coming in gasps and
before I knew it, I couldn’t breathe! I was searching, panting for air that disappeared from my surrounding like a flash of light. My vision became blurry and I felt the room spinning. Suddenly my throat was parched and I was getting very dizzy. Overwhelmed with confusion, the anxiety left my mind in a whirl. Questions still lingered in my baffled cranium. What the hell was Curtis doing here? I thought we had left him hundreds of miles back in the past behind us. How did he find us?
At the sight of this wicked man, I became so emotional that I found
myself suddenly sprawled across my mother’s bedroom floor. I collapsed as my mind couldn’t take the shock. I passed out. Then I ended up in the emer-
gency room, suffering a panic attack.
I remember lying in the bed at Wesley Long Community Hospital,
looking around in astonishment, wishing, hoping, and praying that it was all a dream. There were doctors standing over me, pricking me in different places on my body attempting to resuscitate me. All I was able to think about was
why would my mother let him come back?
This man had stolen her money, and robbed her of her dreams. Not
only that, but he took away the plans she had for her children. Just when my mother and I had been getting along really good, reestablishing our lives, the home-wrecker reappeared. I wasn’t getting into any kind of trouble, and I had
been helping her with the bills. Why did she need him, and not me?
I sat up in the hospital bed, disconnected all the machines and wires
from my body. Then I discharged myself. I did not know anyone in Greensboro. So it wasn’t like I could just go somewhere for a couple of days. This time I had a child to think of and I had to make some real plans. Atlanta, Georgia was where my closest family resided. It was four hours away. Get-
ting there was going to be a major problem.
My mother had to be crazy, crazy enough to let this crazy man back
into her life. She was foolish to believe that I would feel right being anywhere close to him. I felt that my mother was doing as she pleased with no consid-
eration of my feelings. I had to make a decision for me and Aleea.
So I put my plan into action. The first thing I did was call my natu-
ral father, Robert Stanton, who was home back in Buffalo, NY. I informed him of my plans. He pleaded with me to give him temporary custody of my daughter until I could get my life together. My current situation was unstable, and I knew that to be true. I loved my baby girl, and I swear to God that I did not want to let her go. She was so beautiful and innocent. My baby girl had her whole life ahead of her. She did not deserve to be out on the streets. My life wasn’t together. I was headed to Atlanta, but had no money. There was nowhere to live and I had no immediate direction. The last thing I wanted was
for Aleea to grow up to be anything like me.
My father met me the next day. He was there to take Aleea back
home to Buffalo, NY where she would reside with him and his wife. There was so much sadness in my actions as I began putting my baby in the back of my father’s car. I packed her bag and her favorite toys in the trunk of the car then broke down in tears. Aleea was crying as well. She could care less if my situation was dire and unfit, she did not want to leave me. My baby loved me! I stood there numb, watching my father’s car drive away. Holding my aching stomach, I saw how my firstborn was frantically kicking, trying to get out of her car seat. Then slowly the car disappeared out of view, and I went back inside. Through teary eyes, I kept looking through the peephole of the front
door. I hated my life at that point.
With my daughter safely with my father, I had only myself to worry
about. I packed my very few belongings, and began my journey to Atlanta, Georgia. The city was only four hours away and this was a relatively short trip. Little did I know the place would have brought many people, both good and bad, crossing my path. My actions would have life-changing, unforeseen consequences in the development of my adult life.
Now let me tell you about my relationship with Phaedra Parks, and
the truth behind her deceitful web of lies. A lawyer who was very instrumental in my life, Phaedra helped me to realize that the one thing about lawyers we all know to be true was that they were great liars.
Chapter Two
The Devil in Disguise
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” Matthew 7:15 (NIV)
My cousin, Kate, came up from Atlanta on a Greyhound. It was dark
and about two in the morning. We were able to ‘illegally borrow’ a neighbor’s Chevy Blazer. Kate’s father was a good mechanic and had taught her everything about cars, including how to hotwire one. The passenger window was broken out, but there was a full tank of gas. Sharing driving duties between
the two of us, we were able to make it down to
Atlanta, Georgia.
When we arrived in Atlanta, I got a glimpse of how poor my family
in Georgia lived. That meant limited resources, and no handouts to anyone. It was everyman for himself. There was one place for me to live. It was 306 Ormond Street. The house was located in an area of Atlanta called Summer Hill. The house was home, not only to me, but to my entire extended maternal family.
In the Fall of 1995, I started getting reacquainted with family mem-
bers, and started hanging-out with my cousins. I hadn’t seen Scott, Kate, Nikki and Cookie since I was seven years old. We were all around the same age, eighteen years old, give or take a few months. It was a happy homecoming. Nikki, Cookie, and I had always shared a certain bond. Being victims of simi-
lar abuse by the same molester, we were all trapped in the same nightmare.
If they were asked, my cousins would probably say that I was lucky
because I got away. I didn’t grow up in the same home with the predator, while they, on the other hand, didn’t have a choice. One of my female cousins told me that one of my aunts caught the predator greasing her up in the hallway. He had a whole jar of Vaseline, and was applying a thick coat over
her anus. This sick man was prepping her to be sodomized.
On hearing my aunt’s footsteps coming down the hall, he dropped
the Vaseline, and ran toward her shouting, “Look at what this nasty little girl is in here doing!” Enraged by the fact that she caught my cousin with her pants down, my aunt, without even giving her so much as a chance to explain,
summarily beat my cousin like the poor girl had stolen the family heirloom.
Maybe in the eyes of my cousins I was lucky, but for me I lived
with the awful memories. Even though I tried desperately to bury them in the past, like a bad tattoo, they resurfaced and still remained a part of me. I was thin skinned and sensitive. Every time the thought came to my mind, the bad
memories would bring the abuse back to life.
In 1996 my mother had her fill of Curtis, and she moved to Atlanta.
Lies of a Real Housewife Page 2