Free Till We Meet Again by Sylvia Crim-Brown Page A

New York Giants. I just had to keep you worked up over it; I couldn’t help it. I never knew arguing over football could be an aphrodisiac.”
     
    Laughing I reached over and hit him on the shoulder. “You idiot,” I said.
     
    Charles grabbed me and held me tight. “Now that’s the second time someone’s called me that!”
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Chapter 5
    A New Start
     

A couple days after I escaped from Queens I was able to reach Thomas at his parents’ house to let him know that the boys were fine. I thought it was the least I could do since I had his sons. At first he was angry but then began pleading with me to come back. He said that we could work things out. But he wasn’t going to move out of her place until he knew for sure that things were going to work out between us. So the boys and I could come home and everything would be as it was, him doing our grocery shopping and us staying where he could find us. I couldn’t believe it. The scary part is that I actually thought about it for a few seconds. But no, I hadn’t lost that much pride to know that wasn’t an option.
    I told Thomas I wouldn’t move back to Queens and to that crazy situation, and that I wanted to raise the boys in Westchester County near my family and friends. He said, “It’s always all or nothing with you, bitch!” and hung up on me.
    A week later I called Thomas’ mother asking her to let him know I need to speak with him. I had gotten a post office box and he was supposed to send me money for the boys. Each day I pushed the boys in their double side-by-side stroller, or the “18 wheeler” as I called it, to the post office and each day it was filled with nothing but junk mail. Even though I didn’t want to leave the boys, I looked for a babysitter so I could work but it was way too expensive. Because the boys were so young any money I made would go right to the babysitter. So I waited for Thomas to send me the money he promised me. But he didn’t so I reached out to his mother. She, of course, didn’t want to get involved. She said IF she heard from him she would give him the message.
    Another week went by and no word or money from Thomas or his parents. So with the boys in their “18 wheeler” I sat in the crowded waiting room of the Department of Social Services. I handed each of them the last bit of crackers I had, hoping to keep them quiet. Although we had a set appointment we had been sitting there for over an hour waiting for my name to be called. I looked around at the other people sitting there and I wondered, “How did I get here?” Raised in an upper middle class home, by hard working, amazing and supportive grandparents, a college education, “How did I let this happen”? As Aiden began to fuss I put the bottle in his mouth. How did I end up like all these other single mothers who didn’t have half the privileges I had. Choking back tears as they called my name I somehow maneuvered the double stroller through the crowded room into the back room and cubicle.
    An African-American woman sat behind the desk. The nameplate on her desk read Mrs. Humphrey. Without looking up she pointed to the chair in front of her desk, “Miss Cameron, do you have the paperwork?”
    With a shaken voice I said, “Yes, I do,” and handed her the enormous pile of forms needed to apply for food stamps and other public assistance.
    Still not looking at me she said, “Do you know who their father is?”
         “Yes,” I said straightening my back, “My husband.”
    She then looked at me. “Oh. For both of them?” She pointed to the boys.
    What the….”Yes,” I said lifting my chin.
         “Do you know where he is?”
    Putting my head back down, “Not really.” I said.
    After years of trying to hide my situation from my family and what friends I had left, here I was at the Department of Social Services. I now had to admit to the county, the state and the Federal government that I had no idea where my husband, the father of