However, Liz notices that Carlos also flirts with lots of women. He lavishes money on his friends, and buys all of Liz and Sam’s food. Carlos brags that he’s about to inherit lots of money from his family. Liz and Sam begin living in friends’ houses and spending virtually all of their time with Carlos. Liz begins dating Carlos, and she also begins spending all her time away from Brick’s home. She, Carlos, and Sam begin spending more time together, and they hatch a plan to move far away from New York one day. Around the time that she begins high school, Liz meets a charming boy named Carlos Marcano. Meanwhile, Ma’s health deteriorates further. Liz is, as usual, careful to ensure that her parents don’t learn the truth about her truancy. She and Sam begin cutting class and exploring New York City. There, she makes a close friend, Samantha, or Sam. Living with Brick is difficult for Liz, but she begins to enjoy herself after she starts middle school. There, Liz is miserable, but she meets with a psychologist and is released to live with Lisa, Ma, and Brick. ![]() Around this time, however, Child Protective Services takes Liz to live in a state home, due to her “behavioral problems” and truancy. Eventually, she leaves Daddy and takes Lisa to live with Brick Liz continues living with Daddy. Ma also begins spending more time with an alcoholic security guard named Brick. However, when Ma returns from the hospital, she takes Liz’s money and spends it on drugs. She also finds ways of earning money for herself. Liz spends more and more time with her friends. Though Liz doesn’t fully understand what this means, she senses that her mother isn’t going to live much longer. Liz also learns that her mother has been diagnosed with AIDS. However, it is during this period that Liz finds out that Daddy had another child, Meredith, in a previous relationship, and abandoned the child when she, Meredith, was only two years old. In Ma’s absence, Daddy becomes a more active parent, and becomes adept at providing enough food for his children. Over the next few years, Ma has multiple mental breakdowns, partly because she uses drugs more than ever, and partly because her family has a history of schizophrenia and other mental disorders. She never tells Ma that she kept quiet about her abuse for months because she wanted to ensure that Ron would keep taking care of her family. Liz senses that she’ll never feel normal again. Afterward Liz is examined by doctors, who find that Ron has abused her many times. When Liz tells Ma the truth about Ron, Ma is so upset that she has a nervous breakdown. He also molests Liz on multiple occasions, and at one point orders Liz and Lisa to show him their genitalia. ![]() Ron provides Ma and the family with money, food, and drugs. While she’s still a young girl, Liz visits a friend of Ma, Ron. However, she also teaches herself to read by thumbing through her father’s old books, and always manages to pass her end-of-year exams and graduate to the next grade level. She skips school and learns to destroy letters from the truancy officer before her parents read them. ![]() Liz attends school in the Bronx, but finds it almost impossible to focus, since she barely sleeps, barely eats, and can’t concentrate on her homework with her parents arguing and getting high at all times of the day. ![]() These checks provide the family with a stable source of income, but Ma and Daddy spend most of the money on drugs, leaving only a little for food and electricity. She becomes accustomed to standing in line with her mother, who collects welfare checks because she’s legally blind. As Liz grows up, she witnesses her parents using cocaine and other drugs. When Daddy gets out of prison, Liz is three years old. Their fortunes took a turn for the worse when Daddy was imprisoned for impersonating a doctor and selling painkillers, leaving Ma pregnant with Liz and already taking care of Lisa. The two of them fell in love, but began using drugs (including heroin and cocaine) more and more heavily, until, by the end of the decade, they were full-fledged addicts. Both came from emotionally abusive families. Daddy was a charming, intelligent student when he met Ma in the 1970s. Her older sister’s name is Lisa Murray, and her parents are Peter Finnerty and Jean Murray (though she refers to them as “Daddy” and “M”a throughout her memoir). Elizabeth Murray grows up in the Bronx in New York City in the 1980s.
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