“You think I’m stupid? Huh? Huh? …” Her head jerked and she began viciously slapping her daughter in the face.

“You little hussy! You think I don’t know passion marks when I see ’em?” She continued slapping her.

“But Mommy, I didn’t do nuttin …” Tonya cried.

Veronica Morris was a heavyset woman, who was once endowed with a lovely figure, to match her face. But Father Time and neglect had conspired to rob her of her beauty. Her once shapely butt, thighs and hips were sagging under the weight of cellulite. The excess weight that she carried made her heavy-handed; she hit like a man. Tonya was dizzy from the punches against her body.

The mother beat her daughter like she was a stranger, hurling her against the bathroom walls, knocking down shelves and toiletries. She flung the girl to the hard floor and pounded on her back.

“You come home pregnant, heifer, so help me God, I’ma stomp it outta you!” she promised.

Tonya curled up into a fetal position, and wondered what she had done to deserve a beating like this. She let a boy pet and kiss her. And now she was getting the beating of her life.

Veronica was immune to her daughter’s pleas and cries. She broke a wooden toilet plunger over the girl’s back. She wanted to teach her a lesson, one she would not soon forget.

Veronica knew that there was no better time than the present to be a woman, especially a minority woman. The window of opportunity was wider than ever. She wanted Tonya to avoid the mistakes she herself had made. She became a teenaged mother and was robbed of her once promising future. She didn’t want her daughter to follow in her footsteps.

The last thing she wanted was for Tonya to succumb to the soft touch, the careless whisper, the lies and deceit of a boy, who had vowed they would be together forever, only to abandon her in her time of need. No, she longed for Tonya to go to college, graduate, get married, make it out of the ghetto, and not get stuck in some menial job, living paycheck to paycheck. After Tonya’s father left Veronica, she ate. Food became her friend. Her weight then ballooned to outrageous proportions, making her unattractive to most of the men around her, except for Pete. He happily accepted her and was willing to take care of her child too. Pete loved big women, even though he was 125 pounds, soaking wet.

Veronica could not look at Tonya, much less strike her, without being reminded of her daughter’s no-good father, Raymond. Tonya looked just like him. The resemblance caused Veronica to feel, again, and again, the pain of a broken heart, the sting of rejection, and the words of a broken promise.