It just so happened that my parents left this life very early and I was taken in by my aunt. She and her husband had two other native sons besides me. My aunt took me in for the money she received as my guardian and for my parents’ apartment.
From the age of ten I had to do laundry, cleaning, ironing and cooking at my aunt’s house. I was very much abused by my older brothers, but my in-laws did not care at all, as she often slapped me around herself. I sometimes had to sit hungry if I did not have time to cope with the tasks given to me by my aunt. I will honestly say that my life in my in-laws’ family was not only devoid of a bit of joy, but it was more like round-the-clock torture.
Besides my aunt, I had a grandmother who did not recognize me. My grandmother loved my cousins very much, but she did not see me at all. I learned from conversations with my elders that my grandmother hated my mother because she had another bride in mind for my father. Every year in the summer my relatives went to the south, and I was locked up in the apartment. They left me some grits to make my own porridge and pasta.
I loved those days, because I could rest and I did not have to wake up at dawn and dusk to prepare breakfast for my relatives. On my vacation days I read books that I borrowed from my aunt’s husband’s library.
I found out I had my own place when I was sixteen. At that time my aunt and her family were just on vacation in a warm country. I had a bad memory of the house I had lived in with my parents, and my aunt had always convinced me that my parents had let everything down. When my aunt came back I asked her what my future would be in the future, and I also asked her what would happen to my parents’ apartment. My aunt thought about it and answered:
– After you turn eighteen, you’ll leave my house, but you’ll thank me beforehand for taking you in.
Sometimes, when my brother was in a good mood, he would let me use his laptop. I read a lot of different information and firmly decided that I would not sign any documents under any pretext, especially in a notary’s office.
After I turned seventeen one of my brothers started living in a common-law marriage with a girl. From the conversations of my relatives, I understood that my cousin had moved into my parents’ apartment.
After I turned eighteen my aunt didn’t put me out on the street. I lived with my in-laws until my twentieth birthday, and then I met my future spouse and got pregnant. At that time I was studying at the university. After my aunt found out that I was going to become a mother, she called my grandmother, and they began to insist that I get rid of the baby. Then my aunt told me:
– You, like your mother, are forbidden to procreate, and therefore you must terminate the pregnancy, so as not to make life difficult for anyone.
I said no to my aunt’s words, and then my aunt told me that I had to go with her to see a man together. Then she took me to the notary, who began to make me sign a deed of gift for the apartment, and then my aunt told me:
– For all the good I once did you, you have to sign over your place to me. I didn’t leave you in an orphanage, and you should thank me for that. I’m going to be a grandmother soon, so I need your place.
The fact that I was going to have my own child very soon didn’t bother anyone, so why should I care that my cousin was about to have a baby? I didn’t sign any documents, but jumped out of the notary’s office and rushed to my boyfriend and told him everything. He called the police, and then we went with him to evict my aunt’s son from my apartment.
When we arrived, my aunt and grandmother were already there waiting for me, and they started poking me with the deed of gift again and demanding that I sign it. I had always lived by their rules, but this time I was ready to stand up for my rights to the very end. The police arrived and helped my young man and I evict my family from my apartment.
When the police escorted my brother and his wife out of my apartment, my aunt jumped up and almost punched me in the stomach. After all that happened my in-laws called me ungrateful and now my grandmother and aunt come to me one by one and charge me for my upkeep.
However, my spouse tries his best to keep all my contacts with my relatives to a minimum, because I am about to give birth, and therefore it is highly undesirable to be nervous. Sometimes I think that it would be better if my relatives gave me to an orphanage, because in fact my life in their house was not much different from the life of a slave…
