Memoirs of Anonymous Ann

My name is Ann. That’s what I tell people to call me. Ann or Annie. It doesn’t matter. Spell it with an ‘E’ at the end or leave it off. It makes no difference to me. It’s not my real name anyway. The real me doesn’t exist anymore – at least not to this city or even to this country’s government. I am faceless. I picked the name ‘Ann’ because it’s short for ‘anonymous’. It’s a private joke between me and God. It’s really not that funny, but I thought it suited me. It seems to be the perfect name because that’s how I feel about myself. People don’t see me anymore. In fact, some go out of their way just to avoid me. I am invisible to them. I am avoidable. A nobody. Anonymous. Ann is short enough to remember and simple enough to forget. I thought about calling myself Jane as in “Jane Doe”, but they use that for dead girls with no ID. But I’m not dead. Yet. Either way, Ann is the name I use. I guess you can say that it’s also a way for me to cope with my situation. My crazy, messed up life. This wasn’t how I thought things would be. This isn’t the life I planned. I was supposed to go to school, get a job, meet someone nice, get married and have kids of my own. Somewhere along the way, I lost control. I got lost. Now? I feel like I’m living someone else’s life. Someone else’s nightmare. It wasn’t always like this, though. At the beginning, I used to be a regular person with a regular job and a regular home. Nothing spectacular by any means. I was just like everybody else who dutifully filed my income taxes every year like a good citizen. But that was a lifetime ago. I’m not the person I used to be and I don’t know if I’ll ever be. How can I? Too much has happened. Too much has changed. I changed. I don’t know if it’s for the better or not. I think about my life so far and it’s hard to believe everything that’s happened. My life is the stuff books and movies are made of. Shakespeare would have been proud. He could have written a play about my life and turned it into a masterpiece. I’m Shakespeare now. This is my tragedy to tell.



So where do I begin? Not when I was born because I can’t remember that far back. I don’t think anyone can. And I can barely remember what it was like to be a kid. My childhood wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t bad, so I really can’t complain. There were only two defining moments in my life that I can think of that may have been the beginning of the rocky path that I find myself on. I can’t say that the two incidents had completely destroyed me. I think I would have to be institutionalized if it did. But they didn’t. They definitely changed the way I think about life and the way people are. And the way we treat each other.

I used to live in a small two-bedroom apartment in a building that had six floors with eight units on each floor. It was me and my younger brother, Ricky and Mamma and Daddy. I was 7 when Ricky was born. He was such a cute kid and everyone loved him. Always so happy. That’s what I remember most about him.

Ricky was 5 years old when he got sick. He died a few months later. They said he had a congenital heart condition and we didn’t find out about it until the doctor did an autopsy on his scrawny little body. He was so small. I cried my heart out when Mamma told me that Ricky was gone. That was when my heart was broken for the first time.

I don’t think my parents were bad parents. I don’t think they meant us any harm, but we never went to the doctor’s unless there was something extremely wrong. If Mamma couldn’t fix us with medicine from the drug store, then we went to the closest walk-in clinic. We didn’t go to the dentist either. Mamma just made sure that we didn’t eat things with too much sugar. No candy or chocolate bars or Oreo cookies. We had fruit. And she used to freeze orange juice in Popsicle moulds for me and my friends to help keep us cool on hot and humid summer days. No one ever complained about it. But things changed. After Ricky died, my mother and father fought a lot. Daddy hit her. I never saw him do it, but I know he did. He must have. I once saw bruises on Mamma’s back when she had bent over to check a chicken roasting in the oven. I asked her about it and she told me that she slipped and fell on a patch of ice. That was early in November – there was no ice on the streets at the time. I didn’t question her again. I knew she was lying because of the look of shame and embarrassment on her face. I guess Daddy blamed her for Ricky’s death and used her as a punching bag. They used to be close, Ricky and Daddy. I was never close to Daddy. I always thought that he didn’t like me because I was a girl. I never understood why he didn’t care for me – why he was so cold with me until the last time I heard my parents fighting. I overheard what they were fighting about.

I remember waking up that night because I couldn’t sleep. I thought I was just dreaming but when I woke up, Daddy was screaming at Mamma. I mean, really screaming at her. I don’t remember ever hearing him yelling at her like that. It was like he was filled with rage and the poisonous venom he spat at her was so full of hatred, I thought he had lost his mind. I don’t know if he was drinking or on something, but it sounded like he was a completely different person. He had turned into someone I didn’t recognize. And for the first time ever, I was afraid. I was terrified. So I stayed in my bed. I didn’t know what was going to happen and I didn’t know what to do if anything had. So I cried. I prayed that he wouldn’t kill her and then come after me. But just in case, I slipped as far under my bed as I could, so that he couldn’t reach me and pull me out. 

Daddy called her a slut and whore and accused her of ruining his life. Then he told her that he was sick and tired of her and that bastard kid and didn’t want to be here anymore. That bastard kid. Then it hit me. Hard. I realized then that the “bastard kid” Daddy was screaming about was me. The man I called Daddy wasn’t even my father. Daddy left us soon after that night and I never saw him again. It was just me and Mamma. Then Mamma killed herself.

She was always unhappy and was always crying and I felt so horrible for her. Everything was fine until Ricky died and I guess she couldn’t handle what Daddy said to her. The names that he called her. What he accused her of and then when he left, I guess she couldn’t handle being on her own.

I found her in the bathtub. I came home from school as usual. I quickly dropped my backpack by the door because I really needed to pee and headed straight for the bathroom. The door was partly opened, so I pushed it all the way and that was when I saw her. Mamma never took baths – only showers. And that was always after dinner. At first, I thought she was exhausted from cleaning and decided that she would treat herself to a warm bath and then fallen asleep. But then I saw the empty pill container lying on its side. I picked it up to see what it was and that was when I noticed the half emptied bottle of whisky. It was partially hidden by the toilet and the bleach Mamma used to clean the bathroom. I felt so sick to my stomach and I thought I was going to puke all over the place. I dropped the container I had in my hands – I never read its label. I have no idea what she took. I don’t even know if she drank the bleach with the whisky. Tears streamed down my face and then I screamed. I screamed and kept screaming until there was nothing left of me. What happened after that is a mystery to me. I don’t remember the next door neighbour breaking down the door. I don’t remember the paramedics and policemen coming through the door. I guess I banished the memories to the deep recesses of my mind. But that’s okay – I wouldn’t want to relive all that again.

I remember being angry with Mamma. I was angry because she never once thought about me. I started wondering if maybe Daddy had every right to hate her too. She was being selfish and she never thought that maybe I needed her. I was just a kid. Didn’t it occur to her that I was hurt when Ricky died? He was my brother and I loved him too. Then when Daddy left us, she was so wrapped up in herself and her problems that she never stopped to think that her daughter might need her. Or maybe she knew that I needed her and just didn’t give a rat’s ass. I didn’t ask to be born. It wasn’t my fault she got knocked up by some guy. How is that my fault? Was she ever going to tell me the truth? What if something bad happened and I needed a transplant or a blood transfusion? What if there was a history of some sort of dreaded disease in my real father’s family? How could she be so irresponsible? Does my real father even know that I exist? If he does, would he come looking for me? I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t tell him that he has a daughter. I hated her for what she did to me. For what she did to everyone in this family. Maybe God made Ricky sick to punish her. Because of her, we all suffered. How can I forgive her for that? For ruining our lives. That’s why Daddy left. I wish he took me with him. But why would he? I’m not even his. He doesn’t owe me a damn thing.