Neglect

So it is August of 2011, and we just turned on the house with power, water and heat (the water story will be another post). My sister Ashby comes out from Philadelphia to help me and Kitty move in, which not only includes hauling all my junk but also finishing the bathroom (tiles and such). We have a time of it but I'm finally in! She stays the first night with me in the one mostly clean room shut off from all the chaos of the rest of the house.

When Ashby leaves I am so very lonely. I wander around and try to finish projects but then can’t get my act together. It is coming on October and I am still not anywhere near comfortable. It is desperate times. Then Ashby decides to leave Philly and come stay with me. I am overjoyed. We have a wonderful reunion and it gets a little easier to keep working on the house. I have a reason to make things more comfortable, as opposed to sleeping in filth and eating cans of beans over the bathtub (that was my only “sink” for a while).

Then it gets cold. Really cold. Throughout the fall we shared a bed, until Ashby decided she would rather sleep on milk crates than smell my farts all night. But once it got super cold she was right back in the stink of it. We spent a lot of time at the library and at the Bath House so we could be warm. When all our options were gone we bundled up in bed in wool hats and socks and watched VHS mix tapes our friend Kerry made us. We might have also played a lot of Donkey Kong Country on our super NES.

I had a shitty job at a shitty restaurant and I was itching to get outta dodge. The new year was upon us and so I gave the gift of the Caribbean to myself and my sister and we went to stay with our friends in Mexico for a month. That month turned into 9 more for me and poor Ashby had to go back to Mercy Haus alone. (I think this is when she named it that).

I abandoned my child.