My mother kicked me out of the house the very night she found out I was pregnant. Five years went by and she never contacted me, nor had she ever seen her grandchild. Then, after meeting the baby’s father, she wanted to come back into my life.

After that, I never saw him again. I did not have his number. I did not know his school.

I had nothing but a first name and a memory I could not build a life around. I dropped out of school and moved into a shelter. I had Janna alone in a county hospital while my mother told everyone I had run off to Vegas and ruined my own life.

Five brutal years followed. I waited tables at a diner where people talked to me like I was invisible unless they wanted something. I lived in a studio apartment with damp walls, roaches in the cabinets, and a heater that only worked when it felt like it.

Janna slept in a dresser drawer at first because I could not afford a crib. There were food stamps, WIC appointments, and mornings when I walked four miles to work because the bus did not run early enough for my shift. My mother lived twenty minutes away the entire time.

She never called. She never visited. She told family I was no longer part of her life.

My sister Denise secretly met me at parks and brought Janna clothes from consignment shops, but she was too scared to do more. My mother had threatened to cut her off too if she helped me. Still, I made it work.

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