“Please, sit back down,” I finally managed. When she had done that, I said, “Dr. Spencer, I mean, Marcella, I’m sure that you’re very suitable with what you do but, like you said, I’m not your average client and it’s not only because of the fame and money.”
“What does your father think you’re here in Atlanta for?”
Now she was cutting straight to it. I could appreciate her candor.
I didn’t hesitate again. “Vengeance. He thinks that I’m here for vengeance . . . and he’s right.”
“Vengeance against whom?”
“Are you aware that Richard Sterling adopted me?”
“Yes, I believe Wikipedia said around age six.”
I smiled. “Good old Wikipedia with only half-accurate information that anyone can put up. He did lie and tell everyone that, but Daddy never laid eyes on me in his life until I was fifteen. He adopted me legally on my sixteenth birthday but had them doctor the paperwork.”
Marcella was stunned. “And why did he do that?”
“To protect me from my past. So that no one would ever know who I really am.”
“And who are you?”
“I haven’t told anyone my real name in decades, but it’s Caprice. Caprice Tatum, and I was born right here in Atlanta.” I paused. “You’re in for a long afternoon, Marcella.”
Chapter Five
Saturday, May 5, 1979
Atlanta, Georgia
It was a Saturday. I remember that well. No school, no plans, only space and opportunity. My best friend, Bianca Lee, had come over early that morning, banging on the back door by eight. I had rushed to the door, hoping that she had not woken my mother. Momma was a drug addict, pure and simple. She had me when she was only seventeen and hated the fact that I was born.
Back then, I did not know what drugs my mother was using, but she was definitely smoking something stronger than weed. We lived with my grandmother, Alice, who did the best that she could . . . considering. My mother, Denise, had named me Caprice seven years earlier after the model of car she was raped in by her uncle Donald. Her pregnancy with me was a result of that horrific act. He was convicted and sent to prison, where he was found beaten to death in his cell less than a year after sentencing with an asshole wider than a baseball bat, but that did not negate the fact that an abomination had been created . . . me.
My mother never let me forget that. She would constantly curse me and call me a little bitch. She would beat on me and my grandmother, who was weakened by pleuropulmonary blastoma—a rare form of lung cancer—and would always have to pull her off me. Being so young and having known nothing but Mother’s schizophrenic outbursts since my memory allowed, I actually thought it was normal back then. That all children had to suffer at the hands of their parents and then, once they became adults, it would be their turn to chastise and cause pain to their own kids.
Since I was only in the second grade, I was rarely allowed to visit other kids. Mother never took me to the birthday parties that the entire class was invited to, and that was just as well. I was withdrawn in school and barely spoke two words to anyone other than teachers. Bianca was my one exception. She was a vibrant, outgoing little girl who lived two doors down. One of her parents would stand guard and watch her as she skipped down the sidewalk over to my house to see if I could come outside and play.
Mother only let me go out with her because she did not want to be bothered with me. But I would see her constantly peeking through the sheer curtains in the living room, not in a protective way, but almost in a menacing way, like she hoped someone would drive by and snatch me up into a nondescript white van, never to be seen or heard from again. To make an extremely long story short, Denise Tatum hated the one person she should have loved the most—her daughter.
Despite her hatred of me, I was a stunningly pretty little girl. I was Mother’s spitting image. While most women would take pride in having a miniature clone of themselves, it was obvious that she could barely stand to look at me. Little did I know when I woke up that Saturday morning in May that my life would change forever.
* * *
Bianca and I were standing in the driveway, trying to decide what to do next. We had already gone through Mother May I, Red Light Green Light, Simon Says, and had done three rounds of Miss Mary Mack by slapping hands and chanting the rhyme. Kids back in the day had to actually play outside and come up with ideas instead of becoming zombies to the Internet and video games. We were debating about playing jacks, doing hopscotch, or Bianca going to get her Etch A Sketch while I went to retrieve my Slinky. Playing Lite-Brite was out of the question because there were no plugs outdoors close enough to play and neither one of us could enter the other’s house. Her parents would have allowed me to come into theirs, but Mother had made it clear that I could never do that.