As a young black girl growing up on the west side of Chicago life wasn't easy. Growing up in a single-family household with four brothers and one sister, Tyrese, Kentrell, Simon, and Erin are my four brothers' names. My sister is the oldest her name is Lisa and of course me. Hi, my name is Shay Williams, and this is the story of my life. Having to survive school, family, friends, and the events that are in store for me. Currently, I live in Dallas, TX living day to day doing my best to let go of the past while fighting for a better life.

So to understand I must take you back to as far as I can remember when I was about four years old. We're currently living in Chicago, IL the west side of Huron Street right off Monticello Ave in the hood. We had a cozy three-bedroom home on the fifth floor, it wasn't perfect, but it was home. I never knew my dad honestly, none of us did but, that didn't stop my mother from showing us pics and telling us about them. We had a normal life for the most part. My sister was the​one who raised me and my brothers. My sister is short, more of a caramel complexion, thick long hair, big beautiful brown eyes, and was built just like our mother with hips, thighs, and a big booty, one of the prettiest girls I've ever seen.

I remember every graduation my sister would be in the crowds cheering us on and never a sign of my mother. After so long you get used to your mother not being around for anything, the first face I was used to seeing was my sister; mother never really had time for us, mom was too caught up with different men. My sister would come in "get up time for school." She would scream with a smile, "I'm up," I replied, peeking my head from up under the covers. Now Lisa didn't play that "I'm still tired so I am going to lay here for a little" stuff. When she said get up that's exactly what she meant. Okay, ''by the time I come back from getting your brothers up you better be dressed," she replies, "yes ma'am," I get out the bed and start getting dressed for school I knew she wasn't playing cause less than three minutes she was back in my room checking on me. "When you're done come sit on the couch and wait on your brothers so you all can leave out together".

She was very strict about us sticking together and neither of us had a problem with that, Tyrese, Kentrell, and Erin came to the front room "we're ready," Kentrell says, "alright then I'll see you all later" Lisa replies giving us kisses on our forehead. "see you later" we replied while heading out the door to go school. Now the school was okay; I mean, I was always in trouble getting into fights.

It was these twin sisters who would always pick on me so, one day, I punched one of them and took off running, of course, they chased me, but I was fast, I took off at full speed and hid behind a car, and my little brother Erin came walking up. Now Erin was smaller than I am, he's light-skinned with a low fade and pretty brown eyes, he's a bit taller and thinner than I am, but we look the same to the point people think we are twins. ''What's wrong with you, and why are you hiding behind this car?" he asked with this strange look on his face. "Them twins I've been telling you about is after me," I replied. "Who them over there?" he asked, frowning "yes, that's them," I reply, still hiding behind the car. Erin walks away and leaves me behind the car, "where are you going?" I asked nervously, "I'm about to beat their ass," he replies while still walking up to them. The next thing I know, he's on top of one of them, beating the crap out of her. Her sister takes off running while Erin is beating the other sister something terrible. Kentrell ran up and snatched Erin off of her; She gets up and takes off running, "you better not mess with my sister again," Erin yells at the girl he just beat up as she's still running away. "Wait! Are you fighting Shay battles?" Kentrell asks Erin, "Yes, they were not about to jump, my sister." Erin says, looking at me. Kentrell starts laughing, "really, that's your little brother, and he's fighting your battles?" Now, Kentrell was one year older than me.

He's tall, brown skin, and thin, he also has a low fade, and these small tight brown eyes; He's the guy that all the girls wanted. "I can't wait until Tyrese comes out," Kentrell says, laughing. When Kentrell said that, Tyrese comes walking out of the school, and we start heading home. Tyrese is the oldest of us four; he's also brown skin, short, and a little intense for his age. He has medium eyes, but they are brown as well.

Kentrell starts telling Tyrese about what happened, and they laugh the whole way home. Erin looks at me and says, "it's okay, sis, forget them, I'll always have your back. I looked at him and smiled, saying, "thanks, bro." We finally make it home; mom is in the kitchen cooking, saying, "you all get your homework done, and take a bath. She informs us that the food finished". "Okay," we all reply while heading to our rooms. After about an hour, we all headed to the kitchen and proceeded to sit down at the dinner table, waiting for our mother to bring us our plates. While we are waiting, Kentrell and Tyrese are talking about Erin fighting my battle today. I'm not bothered by it anymore; it's whatever to me at this point. Erin looks at me and says, "It's all good sis, I'd do it again if I had to. Love you". "Thanks, bro, and I love you too," I replied with a smile. Mother walked in and placed our plates in front of us.

My mother is short, beautiful curly hair, these vast boobs, hips, thighs, and ass to match. She has this stunning smile and the prettiest white teeth I have ever seen, her skin is like milk chocolate, just beautiful, and she always looks and smells good. No wonder men are consistently hitting on her, and women want to be her. "Here you all go," she says as she placed our plate down on the table with fried chicken, corn, and mashed potatoes in front of us. "Thank you," we all say while bowing our heads to pray over our food. We finished eating and proceeded to get in bed because we had school the next day.

We all said goodnight to everyone and went to sleep. It's morning and the best part of this day is that it's Friday, so there is no school tomorrow. We get up and get dressed so we can head out for school. At school, it's a typical day homeroom, PE, lunch, whatever the next class is, then we go home. Well, today, Tyrese had a better idea, "Hey, let's go to my clubhouse," Erin, Kentrell, and I replied, "okay, let's go." Now the fence we were about to climb was as tall as the school, but that didn't stop us. We climbed up then over the wall. Once we reached the other side of the gate, we took off running. I'm only four, Erin is three, Kentrell is five, and Tyrese is eight years old, and we're jumping fences and skipping school, aren't we something else. We're walking, and before I know it, we stopped in front of this tall house that doesn't look like anyone lives there, so we go inside.

Once inside, we realized that the lights were still on, so we sat down and started watching TV. Tyrese says, "you all ready to see the next clubhouse?" We all scream yes with excitement. The other clubhouse was right down the street from where we were, so; we made it to the next house. As we proceeded inside, this clubhouse was full of water "yes, an indoor swimming pool," Erin says with the biggest smile ever. "This isn't an indoor pool. This clubhouse had so much water," Kentrell says with this strange look on his face but smiling at the same time. "SO, WHAT!" I yell, Kentrell, it's still fun. He looks at me and frowns, and I frown right back at him. "You two chill out; we're here to have fun," Tyrese implies while looking back and forth at Kentrell and me. "Fine," we both say and proceed to look around. Now this place had toys, plates, furniture, and anything you could think of floating around in all that water, like whoever lived there didn't bother to take anything before they left, which made it even better for us! Once we finished playing in the clubhouse, we left. "Let's go to the beach," Tyrese says. We all went to the bus stop so that we could go to the beach. We remembered how to get there from when my sister took us.

We're at the bus stop, and the bus approaches us. We got on the bus and go directly to the back. While sitting there, I noticed a lot of change on the floor, so I leaned down and picked up the loose change to realize it was falling out of the guy's pocket sitting in front of me. He did not realize it was falling out of his pocket because he was sleep. I picked up all the change when I realized Erin noticed, "what are you doing?" he asks with a whisper, "what does it look like I'm doing?" I reply. Erin gets up and comes and sits beside me; before I knew it, more change was falling out the sleeping man's pocket. It seemed like every time the guy moved, the coins would fall out, and I'm not talking about pennies; I'm talking all quarters and dimes, not even a nickel. Before I knew it, Tyrese and Kentrell were sitting with us, picking up change. This man is giving us all his coins well. That's how we looked at it anyway. I look up, and the man is looking at me, so I say, "sorry, sir, you were dropping your change. Here you go." He looks at me and says, " thank you." I know I should have felt bad for not giving him his chance back, but I wanted snacks while we were at the beach. "Next stop is the beach," the bus driver says over the intercom.

We arrive at the beach we get off the bus and run straight to the food stands and spend some of our change. After eating, we waited a while before heading to get in the water." We must stick together because we only have one hour before school gets out, and we have to get back because Lisa is picking us up," Tyrese replies with a serious look on his face. "Okay, got it," we all respond while walking into the water. We're all enjoying ourselves when we hear Tyrese, "time to go, you all," we get out of the water to go and rinse off and proceed to head to the bus stop. "Thanks, bro, I had fun today," I say, smiling hard "yes, thanks, bro," Erin and Kentrell said, "you all are welcome. Us coming to the beach is our secret," he insisted we all agreed. The bus pulls up, we get on and proceed to head back to school. When we made it back, everyone was getting let out of school to go home, right when Simon walks up, "where have you all been? Lisa has been waiting on us, come on". We proceed to the front of the building, got in the car, and went to the house. Today was the absolute best day ever. Finally, the weekend is here. We all meet at the kitchen table, prepared to eat Lisa is in the kitchen cooking. "Good morning, how did you all sleep?" she asked, "good, thanks," we all replied, smiling. She comes and sits our plates down in front of us. "Any plans today, sis?" I ask, "We might go to the park today" Lisa replies, "yes, we're going to the park," I say. We got done eating, and whoever turn it was to do kitchen duties had to wash the dishes that week; it was Kentrell.

The rest of us headed to our room to get ready for the day. I go into the room Lisa is in there getting dressed. I ask, "are we still going to the park?" "Maybe later. Mother asked me to go to the store with her," she replies, "can I go?" I asked Lisa replies, "you know I don't care but you must ask mom." Okay, I replied and went into my mother's room and asked her of course, I knew she would say no, but it didn't hurt to try. "Ma, can I go with you and Lisa to the store?" I ask, "No, stay here with your brothers," she insisted. Something about that day I didn't want to stay: I tried to go, so I asked again right when she and Lisa were heading out the door, "can I go? I don't want to stay here. I want to go with you and Lisa," I insisted "didn't I say no, stay here and play the game or something," mother shouts.

I ran to my room, crying as they were leaving. I heard the door close behind them. While in my room, Simon comes in, and I get this awful feeling, so I scream, "GET OUT NOW," he looks at me and starts walking up to me. I jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom and hid on the side of the toilet. In this apartment, we didn't have a lock on the bathroom door, so he walked right in and stood over me, tried to pull my pants down, so I jumped up and ran to hide behind the couch. Scared, shaking, not understanding what exactly was going on, I just knew something wasn't right with him. The look in his eyes was evil, and it scared me badly. He finds me hiding behind the couch this time; instead of trying to pull my pants down first, he pins me down, then pulls my pants down and starts rapping me.

Once he finished with me. He got up off me, looking at me with this evil look smiling as he walked off. I stayed behind the couch, rocking back and forth, crying my eyes out in pain while bleeding all on the floor. A few hours later, mother and Lisa come home. I'm still sitting behind the couch. The next thing I know, my mother comes and finds me, "what happened to you?" she asks, pissed off. I couldn't say anything; I was still in shock. Lisa walks up, shouting, "it was Simon" mother lays me back and examine my private area while cleaning me off, telling me she's sorry she should have taken me with her. I looked at her, crying, "where is that son of a bitch?" "Simon, your bitch ass over here," she yells. Lisa comes back in the front with Simon by the collar mother stands up and smacks Simon in his face "you're a sick motherfucker, this is your little sister, how dare you," yelling while walking him towards the window. Mother grabs the iron and wraps it around Simon's neck, then grabs him and throws him out the window. "I'll fucking kill you; you nasty bitch do you hear me?" As she is yelling at Simon. Now mind you, we are living on the fifth floor.

My grandmother comes in, yelling, "STOP ROSEANN, you are going to kill him" Mother looks at my grandmother and says, "go look at what he did to your granddaughter." Grandma turns around to see me lying there still bleeding, "wow, no, he didn't do this to her," my grandmother says.. Yous, he did; that's why I'm going to kill this bitch" mother replies. "Roseann, pull that boy back in. You don't want to go to jail." Mother pulls Simon back into the apartment. "you're a damn disgrace to this family," grandma says, looking at Simon like she wants to kill him too. My mother says, "he can't live here. He has to go today." Grandma replies, "okay, we'll send him to his daddy in Greenville, MS." "Go pack your bags you coming with me," grandma insisted, talking to Simon. Simon walks to the back and packs his bags. He and grandma walk out the door, and that was the last time I had seen Simon. I didn't have to be scared; my mother assured me of that. No one would ever rape me again. But that didn't change the fact that I was officially torn up and destroyed on the inside.

My virginity was gone forever. Taken away from me, and I can never get it back that nor my sanity. It has been weeks since the incident. I'm still feeling confused and scared even though Simon wasn't there to hurt me again but, that didn't change the fact that I was always frightened of every guy I have seen. I had a boyfriend around the time that happened. Since the incident, he came to my friend's house where I was. When he got close to me, I took off running into my friend's house and grabbed a knife. "GO AWAY" I yelled through the door "what's wrong, what did I do? Why are you acting like this with me? just open the door please so we can talk," my boyfriend yelled through the door. Still, I couldn't bring myself to open it. Now Jonas has never done anything harmful to me. He was a good boyfriend; he was always nice to me. Jonas would come to see me after school and would make sure I wasn't hungry. He knew my family was poor, and he wasn't.

He had his mom and dad, and they took great care of him. Jonas was just incredible. One night, he came to my apartment, ran upstairs where I live to tell me he loves me and give me a kiss goodnight. Around this time, I was only five years old. I wasn't even allowed to have a boyfriend, but I had Jonas. We had to be quick with it cause if we got caught, I would be in big trouble. All that changed because I felt like since my blood brother would do it to me, any guy would, so I never opened the door. My friend held me until he left "you're okay, Shay, I got you," Melissa says while holding me. That day I knew I should be with a girl because they would never hurt me in a way that a guy would. Jonas and I talked a few days later, and he asked why I did him like that. I lied about the reason, so we broke up a month later. Not just because I couldn't be around him and tell him what happened to me but also because we got evicted and had to move; that was the last time I have seen or heard from my first love Jonas Brown.

Around the age of seven, we settled into our new place. We still lived on the West Side. We were just further away from our old apartment, enjoying life and maintaining, at least that's how we saw it. It's been two years since everything happened to me. I'm a little better emotionally. After being rapped to losing my first love, I'm a bit better emotionally, but mentally I'm not OKAY. My brothers and I get out of school. The last day for Christmas break, when we find out my sister will be bringing our nephew home on Christmas, which was two days away. Mother is in the kitchen cooking. We go into our rooms and change out of our school clothes to get ready to eat. When we all finished eating, we all sat around and started watching the "Wrinch Stole Christmas." My brothers and I sat up for hours watching TV. Before we know it, our mother called us to take our bath and get ready for bed. We do as she says Christmas Eve is tomorrow.

Every Christmas Eve, our mother allows us to open one gift apiece. After each of us takes our turn taking a bath, we go to our rooms and go to sleep. Christmas Eve, here we come, yay. YES! The morning of Christmas Eve is finally here. I woke up and ran straight into the front room and sit by the tree. Mother is already up in the kitchen drinking coffee while smoking a cigarette. "Wait for your brothers to get up so you all can open your gifts together." "Okay," I reply; the boys finally wake up; Tyrese, Erin, and Kentrell walk inside the front room. "Can we open them now, mom?" I asked with excitement, "sure can pick one for you all. The rest will be open on Christmas Day". Mother implies to us all. "okay" we all say while ripping one of our gifts open. Mother sits there and watches our faces light up as we're opening our Christmas gifts. With her beautiful white teeth showing as she smiles at us opening our gifts. "Do you all like your gifts?" she smiles and asks, "Oh yes, thank you," I reply, and the boys follow behind with a "yes we do, thank you." We all get up and kiss mother on her cheeks.

We throw our trash in the garbage and play with our new toys showing each other what we got and what we think our other presents are. "One more day than Lisa will be home with our nephew," I say with excitement. "I know, right I can't wait," Tyrese replied. We all smile, "I'm about to go fix me some cereal," Erin says, "I want some to here I come," I reply to Erin Tyrese, and Kentrell joins us. We all sit at the table, eating a bowl of our favorite cereal. We wash our bowl and spoon out and go back to the front room to watch cartoons. Today is a great day; it's Christmas Eve, and it's so much snow outside. "Want to go outside and have a snowball fight?" I asked my brothers, "oh yea, let's go get dressed. We go into our rooms to bundle up and put on our snow boots. We go outside and have a snowball fight until mother calls us back into the house because she says it's time to eat. We had been outside for about an hour, at least that's what mother says. Even though it only felt like a few mins but whatever, she's the boss.

We went back into the house, switch out of our playing clothes, and sat at the table to eat. She cooked us some hot dogs and noodles, saying to us, "you all will eat this tonight because you need to have an empty stomach for tomorrow. And don't forget your sister is bringing the baby home tomorrow." "Yes, ma'am," we all reply. We finish eating and do like we did earlier we washed our dishes. "Want to play Monopoly?" Erin asked us, "yea why not," I say. We all went into the front room while Erin went and got the board game out of the hallway closet. My brothers and I sat on the floor and played the game until my mother lets us know that it's time to go to bed. Mom always says young kids need their sleep so that you all can grow, which if you ask me, I think she just told us that, so she could do whatever it is she wanted to do. Lisa and my little nephew come home tomorrow. And that's good enough for me to go to bed. Christmas Day Lisa is home with the new addition to the family, our nephew Zayin. This day can't get any better. We sit down and wait for my sister to get her, and the baby settled in, so we can eat.

Lisa gives the baby to our mother. Lisa proceeded to the restroom to take a bath. Lisa came out and joined us at the table. We all hold hands while mother says grace. Once the prayer is over, we eat. No one ever talks when food is in front of us. We're all sitting around eating, enjoying each other company. Then mother says, "I'm about to head out for a little while" we all look at each other in confusion. It's Christmas, and you are leaving us! She gets up from the table and heads towards her room. Everyone stops ea this point, so I felt like I should say something. So I did. "She's going to leave us today. I can't believe this" "hush girl, do not let her hear you," Lisa replies with a frown on her face, "okay, but you know I'm right. That's fucking messed up. We're her kids, and you just came home with the baby," I say, mad, tears started to fall from my eyes. "I just can't do this." I get up and go to my room. Like the power is off" Lisa mentions, "this can't be real" Erin implies, "looks like it well is the gas on still"? Tyrese asked, "I don't know, let me go check" Lisa says. "Nope, that's off too," she replies.

"This is the worst Christmas ever, and the baby is here. Where is our mother?" Kentrell says. It gets later and later, and now the heat that was inside has faded, and it is getting colder. "Where's the oil lamp?" I asked, "right here," Erin replies. He hands me the oil lamp. I light it "okay it's not much, but it's something and should hold us for a little," I imply. Tyrese blows up the air mattress, and we all climb on it with one blank. I pull the oil lamp closer to us but not too close where it could set something on fire. We all lay there in silence, no one saying a word, but you can hear the sniffles from crying. Still, no one would admit how sad, sad, or whatever emotion they felt. We just remained as silent as we could be until everyone fell asleep. A few days passed, almost a week before we see mother, but she finally returns, saying, "grab what you can and come on, I got somewhere for us to live" of course, we're happy to see her. She is our mother. We get our things, and we head for the door, putting our stuff in the car, finally out of that cold abandoned house and back with our mother. After about half an hour in the car, we arrived at these lovely apartments.

They were fenced in, and you had to use a code to get inside the apartments. We walked inside the building, and up a flight of stairs, we go. Finally, we arrive at a door to be greeted by a tall, fat, dark-skinned guy waiting, smiling at us as we walk in "hi, how are you all doing?" he asks. Seeing how our mother left us on Christmas in a cold house for days, almost a week, with no lights and gas, how do you think we're doing? I thought. But of course, we lied, with a reply saying, "we're good, how are you?" Lisa always taught us to be polite to our elders. We introduce ourselves one by one. "Nice to meet you all. My name is Robby Bread, and it's a pleasure to meet you all," he replies with a smile, "pleasure is all of ours," Lisa says. He takes us and shows us where we will sleep. The apartment had one bedroom, so my siblings and I had to sleep in the front room on some mattresses, which beats sleeping in the cold. Life was great living with Mr. Breed, he would take us to Candy Land on the weekends, and when we weren't going there, he would take us out to eat. Compared to the way life was before we stayed with him, this was heaven on earth for us. Every Sunday, Lisa would take us to church. She kept us in church, which we didn't mind. Cause going to Rudy Memorial Church was a great experience, and that church taught us that GOD will always be with us no matter what happens.

To this very day, I live for him. Jesus is the best thing that ever happened to me. Mr. Breed took excellent care of us, and neither of us was his children. He gave me the nickname "Sunshine." Because he always said that I'm so bright that it brightens everyone's day when I smile. I never had a father figure in my life until now, and he loved us as if we were his children, and he didn't even have children. It's not too many men that would take five children into his home, but he did, and that's what made him different. Of course, my mother would soon take that away from us. Day in and day out, I started seeing my mom beat him, disrespect him, even tried to cut him and not one time did he call her out her name nor hit her. He would always say, "Roseann calm down, don't be doing this in front of these kids," but she never cared. She would keep swinging at him until he would leave and go to his parents' house. Even though all the things she did to him, he still loved her and never disrespected her.

It got so bad one day he told me he loved me and told my brothers and sister the same, and he grabbed his things and left us. That day he walked out that door; things would never be the same again. Mr. Breed was truly missed by us all. Months went by since Mr. Breed packed up and left, and mother didn't have a job, so we knew it was a matter of time before she leaves us again, and we're back in the same situation we were in before Mr. Breed let us stay here, so we did what any kids would do enjoy it will it lasted. The next month it started to happen. First, it was the gas, and then the water last was the lights. She got the water back on and then the lights but no gas, so cold baths it was. Life started to go back to how I remembered it to be.

Within the next few months, we were homeless again, got evicted like every other time we had to "move." Go figures! I moved in with my friend Missy. Her mother wanted to adopt me, but my mother wasn't having it even though she couldn't take care of me. The school year was almost over, and we only had a week left before the summer break. I went for a few days out of the last week, but I didn't go the remaining days. Tyrese and Kentrell stayed with their friends, but this time my sister left and moved to Greenville, MS, with our nephew.

Now I know you're wondering about Erin. You see, he was the problem child still is somewhat, but I'll save that for the next book. Erin stole from anybody whom he could catch slipping off their game. So, no one would welcome him into their homes. One night Erin came to my friend's house looking for me. A good thing I was there. He says to me, "I can't find mom and I don't know where she is," I put on my clothes and shoes. "I'll be back I have to go find my mother." I tell Missy, "okay," she replies. I head out to help look for our mother at midnight. With my baby brother. Two young children are walking the dark and crazy streets of Chicago, IL. We walk for about thirty minutes before Erin looks at me and says, "I'm sleepy," so I take him to the park by the school, and we climb into the tunnel, him first, then me. I let him rest on my lap while I watched over him.

He falls asleep for a while; I'm sitting up just thinking about where our mother could be and how I'm just so sick of her doing us like this when she could give us to someone who will care about us and be here for us. Erin wakes up, "are you ready to finish looking for her?" I asked. He replied with a nod, so we climbed out of the tunnel and proceeded to look for our mother. "Shay," I turn around, but no one is there, "Shay, wait up" again, I turn around no one is there at this point. I take my brother by the hand, and I start walking faster. "Shay hold on" "LEAVE US ALONE," I yell from the top of my voice. "It's me, Missy," she replies. I stop, "oh, I didn't see you.

All I heard was my name called. I was about to grab him and start running," I reply with a laugh of relief. "I found your mother," Missy replies. The next thing I know, I see our mother walking up, calling for Erin to come here. "Where are you staying tonight with him?" I asked, "at my friend's house," she replied, "are you ready Shay," Missy asked. "No, I'm going to stay with them tonight," I replied. Missy asks, "Are you sure you know you can stay with me" "yes I'm sure, thanks though," I reply with a smile. Missy heads back to her house, and Erin and I proceed to walk with our mother in the opposite direction. We make it to her friend's house. She and my brother lay down on the front room floor, and as do I, except I didn't fall asleep until after Erin and my mom was sleeping. I sat up and watched them until I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore.

That next morning, we woke up at six o'clock in the morning and left. She and Erin head to get Tyrese and Kentrell from their friend's house. I split ways, so I could see Missy and say my goodbyes because it wasn't hard to realize we were homeless, and she's about to move us around again.

Good thing I did say goodbye because that's what happened. She came and got me and said we were leaving. I hugged Missy and kissed her, and we went on, never to see our friends again. When will this end? A few weeks have gone by since Erin, and I walked the streets of Chicago looking for our mother. We are now living with one of my mother's homegirls in a different part of Chicago. She comes into the room where my brothers and I are sleeping and say. "We will only be here for a week then we are leaving. So don't get to settled in here". Tyrese then replies, "where are we going?" she replies with a smile saying, "with your grandmother and sister in Greenville, MS." We all look at one another with these weird looks on our faces. All we know is the city.

Our mother looks at us and says, "it will be better for you all. We got my whole side of the family down there," trying to ease our minds, but it didn't work, not for me anyway. Mother gives us all a kiss and tells us she loves us. This moving around doesn't make me happy my twelfth birthday is next week. Mother leaves out the room. We all look around at each other unaware of what country life is even like. We are about to find out that things can and will get worse.

It's a maybe, maybe not game now, and we are the players. Greenville is the playing board, and the only way to find out if we will win is to play the game, which is to survive the best way we know-how and never give up on finding a better life. Only time will tell, and may GOD be with us.