Chapter 3
Three
Until my arrest, I didn’t exist.
Not on paper, anyway. I breathed air. I possessed a soul.
I lived in a physical body. But there was no evidence of me.
No documented proof of who I was. It’s a strange realization, discovering that you don’t exist, that you are invisible to the world and live only in the minds of a handful.
It fits the narrative you’ve been fed your entire life.
I was born on the kitchen floor. Lila too.
That’s all I knew about our births. Not the circumstances or the time, just a day and the year.
Mama and Daddy offered nothing more than that.
Not even one birthday party. You have ten days to report a birth, I later learned.
In doing so, you receive an official birth certificate and a Social Security number.
This is what validates your existence. That was never an option for Daddy, not when the ancestors cautioned him against it.
We lived off the grid, and he rejected all government inclusion and entanglements.
“They won’t be slaves to the government,” he said of Lila and me.
It was easy to neglect reporting a birth—you simply didn’t do it.
With a home birth, there’s no one watching, waiting, starting the clock.
Our births went unreported, rendering us nonentities.
My birth date said a lot about me—December 21, the day of the year with the least amount of sunlight, the winter solstice.
The days only got brighter from there. There was also a darkness inside me, planted before I pushed myself into this world.
I grew up invisible, a stranger to people and even myself.
Maybe that’s why I chase the light, why I love being under the sun.
The sun touches everything, sees everything.
And more than anything, I wanted that. To be seen.
To be known. To be understood. To not be a walking contradiction.
We lived in isolation in Berkeley County, South Carolina, in a small trailer.
The double-wide sat on twenty acres of land—Daddy’s sole possession, passed down to him from his father and his grandfather before.
There was more land at one point. Lots more.
Two hundred acres of woods just off the Santee River, the second largest on the eastern coast of the United States.
Trees shadowed our door and our despair; more food roamed outside than in.
Our world was small, the kind of place where time skipped and stopped, where a life could go missing.
I do not know when my father’s deep distrust of the world intensified.
I can tell you when it began: when my great-grandfather staged his own personal war against the government.
During the Great Depression, South Carolina decided to dam the Santee River, forming Lake Marion and Moultrie, and diverting the river’s flow into Cooper River.
This New Deal rural electrification and public works project provided cheap electricity and modernization.
The project created the Santee Utility, whose main source of electric power was the hydroelectric system inland from Charleston, which damming the river allowed for.
But there were unintended consequences. Land was needed for these hydroelectric damming and power plants—land once owned by my father’s family.
The war ended with a single bullet to my great-grandfather’s head.
Because of that, my father didn’t trust anyone: not the government, not the public school in our town, not a neighbor or friend. And so I didn’t exist.
Following the river’s meander, I walked until the land gave way to a sea of trees, and the distant hum of traffic reached my ears.
To my left, an open field stretched, flat and undistinguished.
On my right, undergrowth rustled with life and branches that, despite the season, dripped thick with leaves.
Ahead, my shadow sprawled out and a green sign shone in the distance.
White letters spelled out a word. Leaning on a stick I’d picked up along the way, I swiped sweat from my brow and sounded out every letter, savoring the anticipation of what lay ahead.
Then the first raindrops fell. There had been sunlight, and seconds later, the rain came down. Not a drizzle, but sheets of it, an audacious downpour that arrived with a mission: to wet everything it touched—or, in my case, remind me that rain still existed.
I gasped at the shock of it. I hadn’t felt rain on my face in years.
It’s funny what you remember and what you forget.
How many rainstorms have I experienced, but right then, I heard Lila’s laugh.
When the rain would surprise us, we always ran squealing from it, dancing through puddles like we could outrun it.
But I didn’t run this time. I smiled up at it, letting the water kiss my skin.
Droplets slid down my face like tears, clinging to my hair and soaking my clothes.
I breathed in its smell, earthy and musky, and my ears buzzed with the white noise it created around me.
I arrived at the edge of a town just as the rain stopped and the sun sank below the horizon.
The tall, brittle weeds beneath my feet gave way to short weeds and cut grass where the woods ended near a building with a solitary flashing light above a steel door.
I crouched behind a tree, grateful for the break.
I had been walking for several hours without stopping.
Pain sliced up and down my body, sharp and sudden, and my wrist throbbed, a deep persistent ache.
I had made no plans, had no destination when I set out walking other than to follow the river that moved somewhere I wasn’t—put distance between me and the crash.
The more, the better. I had felt the significance with each step.
A thin wave of smoke wafted by me, the stench of cheap cigarettes mingling with the fresh air. It led me to a young girl with long braids swaying with each step. The faint light illuminated her body just enough for me to see the black-and-gold Dollar General logo on her shirt.
I counted the cash I’d stuffed into Officer Madison’s purse.
The bills, still damp, equaled to $377. My mind filled with what I would need: New clothes.
A backpack. Food and water. I had no idea how much things cost anymore; I didn’t know how I would get more money.
I had to make these dollars stretch. Necessities only.
The key to hiding in plain sight is to act like you belong there.
A lesson learned many years ago when we ventured into town with Mama.
We didn’t exist, were invisible on paper, but people could see us.
And they would have questions: Who were we?
Why weren’t we in school? Who were our parents?
We learned to speak but only when spoken to.
Never offer much about yourself. Be pleasant but not overly nice.
Blend in as much as possible. Any awkward movements or interactions would draw attention.
There could be no missteps, then or now. I had to be careful.
Fortunately, even in my wet and tattered prison clothes, I didn’t resemble an escaped convict, more of a disheveled wanderer.
Better, but not exactly the average townsperson.
The once-white T-shirt bore the stains of my journey—sweat and dirt—and the orange prison pants, hacked off into shorts, were frayed and uneven.
I splashed the last of the water on my face, trying to wash away the sweat and grime of the woods, and tucked my shirt into my shorts to hide the dirt.
My unruly hair, now wet and escaping its braids, framed my face in wild curls that I desperately tried to tame.
As I stepped into the Dollar General, a blast of cool air rushed out.
I welcomed it against my face after hours of walking.
I grabbed a yellow basket and hooked it onto the bend of my elbow.
Every step forward felt like walking a tightrope between normalcy and exposure.
My heart quickened with fear and an unfamiliar thrill.
“Welcome to Dollar General,” a voice said, the sound loud and clear.
I jumped, but quickly recovered and pushed my mouth into a tiny, fast smile before I realized the girl who’d spoken wasn’t even looking at me.
It was a routine greeting, toneless and rote.
I noticed the girl from outside now behind the register, her eyes still glued to her cell.
My back stiffened anyway. She might have seen me lurking in the woods.
The routine buzz of customers and the worker’s inattention presented a stark contrast to the adrenaline racing through me.
I had to appear calm. I had a basket on my arm and money in my purse.
I was a member of society again, just a woman shopping for a few things after work.
I kept walking and disappeared into the clutter of the store.
The aisles resembled a labyrinth, long rows cluttered with boxes and carts, a chaotic arrangement.
It was a wonder anyone found anything or comfortably navigated the merchandise.
I grabbed the cheapest deodorant I saw and a pack of bar soap.
Briefly, I considered purchasing a brace for my wrist, but the cost made me decide against it and choose a cheap ACE bandage wrap instead.
Nearby, a pack containing a brush and a comb caught my eye, and I threw that in my basket. Next: sustenance.