Chapter Two: My Birth was Cursed:

I was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1986. Mama had me on Valentine’s day in small clinic downtown. Mama… how do I say this? She wasn’t much as a mother when I was growing up. I think she was eighteen or nineteen when I was born. I think she was still in high school when she got pregnant. I don’t know who my father is or was. She pretty doesn’t care. My grandma practically raised me. I didn’t mind it though.

I loved our home. We lived near the Louisiana swamp in the late 80’s and 90’s. Our house was called Victoria Manor. It was a nice-looking house in the swampy backwards. It looked like a giant dollhouse from a distance. The white paint shines in the sunlight. The house has been there since the 1800’s. My grandmother was proud of that house. Only she, Mama, the servants, and I lived there.

I tell you this to give you a little background on my situation.

For the first three years of my life were somewhat normal. Mama didn’t stop partying, drinking, and playing music with her band even after I was born. She didn’t seem to care that she had a child now. Grandma was the one who ended up raising me. My troubles began when I was four years old. I don’t exactly remember all the details. I asked my grandmother about sometime later. According to her, this is what happened:

It was unnaturally cold that year. I wasn’t supposed to be going outside on that morning. Mama had gone off on another one of her benders. The servants hadn’t come in for work just yet. I had a cold from the night before. Grandma stayed up with me all night to tend to me. The morning she had been watching me sleep. The only time she got up was when she went to go answer the phone in the kitchen. This was in 1989, you have to keep in mind. Cell phones didn’t exist back then. The manor didn’t even have cordless phones either. We only had three phones in the entire house. One in the kitchen, one in the main office, and one in grandma’s master bedroom. That morning, she used the phone in the kitchen.

My grandmother was only in the kitchen for ten minutes. I was asleep in the living room the time. When she came back, I was gone. My grandmother panicked and started looking around the house. Doris, her maid, walked in to begin her shift. She noticed the worried look on her boss’ face.

“Ms. Moss, what’s the matter?” Doris asked. My grandmother turned with big eyes.

“Kinsey’s gone missing!” she cried. Doris leapt to her feet and started looking around. My grandmother couldn’t find me anywhere in the house. She, the servants, and some of the neighbors spent the morning looking for me. One of our neighbors, Mr. Wheeler, tried to comfort her.

“It’s okay,” he said. “We will find her, you can bank on that.” My grandmother looked so pale as she trembled.

“She’s been sick since last night,” she said.

“I understand,” he said.

“Ms. Moss!” Isaac, Doris’ son, yelled as he ran towards my grandmother and Mr. Wheeler. “I found her! I found her! She’s in the vegetable garden! Down near the ditch!” Everyone ran to follow him. They found me being pulled up from the ground by two black that worked around the house. Ms. Wanda, another neighbor of ours, crossed herself and prayed. I found unconscious, lying on my back. I only had on my pajamas with no coat and no shoes.

“Is she breathing?” my grandmother asked. One of the black men leaned down to my face and took a listen.

“Barely,” he said. “But, yes.” They all rushed me to the hospital. I was in a coma for about five days before I woke up. I didn’t go home until spring.

As I write this, I am starting to remember pieces of the story that she didn’t know about. Here is how everything got started.