Hood Wife, Good Wife

My name is Christianna. I never thought I would get married but I met someone. A wonderful someone and when he asked me to marry him, I let go of my past traumas and embraced a new life as his wife. We shared a wonderful life together. But marriage isn’t always easy. After a string of miscarriages, I was finally pregnant with the baby my husband longed for until tragedy struck. Life after was a mess of ridicule and degradation from my mother-in-law, obsession to find justice, fear of never providing my husband a child, and the indescribable pain of past secrets making their way into the light and blowing up your world. My friends and family call me Tianna or Ti for short. I am a good wife. I am a hood wife. My name is Sharmayne. I never wanted to get married. My eyes were set on law school and getting out of the ghettos of Camden. Happy marriages were as foreign to the murder capital of New jersey as million-dollar houses. My mom never married my dad but probably because he disappeared when I was little and didn’t want to marry a heroin addict. To get out of the hood, I did many things I wasn’t proud of, and while I do regret those things, those ordeals led me to my future husband who embraced my daughter and me. But marriages aren’t always good times and laughter. My past refuses to stay behind and my future insists on being a difficult road. Against my husband’s wishes, I am forced to return to my past in order to save my family, shedding light on the darkest and ugliest of places I ran away from and he’d never known about. People call me Shar for short. I am a hood wife. I am a good wife.