John Wesley’s daddy, a skinny, quiet fella named Carter Havens, showed TJ a lot of love and support and churchgoing until one morning she woke up to Carter standing over her bed and throttling his peter like there was no tomorrow. He’d placed his fingers to his lips and whispered to her to stay still. She’d told her mother. But Gina didn’t listen. She never listened. Soon Carter Havens had gone anyway and then the baby came and TJ became an eight-year-old kid with a real-life doll that ate and shit and consumed every hour she was awake and all through the night. John Wesley would start to cry and Gina would bang on TJ’s door and scream she needed some help. John Wesley hadn’t been maybe six, seven months old when Gina was back at the bars, meeting up with new men for no other reason than to show bony-ass Carter Havens that she didn’t give two shits that he’d gone back to his wife and three kids. That time, those early days when John Wesley had been a baby, might have been her best. TJ had some kind of structure and sense to time. She got up, took care of the baby, caught the school bus, and rode back home in the afternoon to take on chores and watch John Wesley while her momma got dolled up for another night out.

It wasn’t strange. Hell, it was all TJ knew. She figured everyone took care of the younger kids just the same.

But then Gina went from being fast and loose to just plain stupid when she first brought home old Donald Evans. That man just plain-out smelled evil: cheap aftershave and liquor sweating from his skin. He’d look TJ straight in the eye and tell her that she and the baby needed to head on to the back room, him and her momma were about to get down to business. TJ one time made the mistake of wanting a glass of water and saw her naked momma pinned down on the kitchen table, Donald Evans with his pants around his ankles, red-faced and rutting like a pig. Old Donald smiled at TJ when she froze up, heart pounding, not sure if she could move, while he finished up, snatching her momma by the neck and saying he was hungry. Why would Gina put up with that? Why’d she bring such trash into their family?