by CARLOS ATWELL

A "HOT HEADED" EXCHANGE has caused an unemployed mother with three small children to be put out in the cold.

But Margo Lawrence, who told Motilewa Pierre to leave her home Monday night, said the 29-year-old was not blameless in the matter.

The DAILY NATION visited Pierre at a friend's house yesterday in Pavilion Road, St Michael, to get her side of the story. She said the situation was caused by an argument over another child, her ten-year-old daughter, Renesha Lawrence.

Pierre and her boys, Negus, six; Azikiwe, two and Elijah, one, were staying with Lawrence and her family at Evelyn's Avenue, Bay Land, St Michael. Pierre has two other children, a daughter who lives in St James and Renesha, Lawrence's granddaughter, who lives with Lawrence.

"I took Renesha to a clinic [Winston Scott Polyclinic] to have her finger looked at but the clinic was packed and there was a mix-up. Then the doctor said nothing was wrong," she said.

Things worsened

Pierre said she was upset she had to spend so much time at the clinic for nothing and sent her daughter home and went to collect one of her sons from Wesley Hall Primary. She said things worsened when she returned home.

"That night, she [Lawrence] told me she was not pleased (and) just started carrying on about how I did not care for my daughter, but I was just expressing my feelings about how I wasted a day. Then she told me to leave and I left," she said.

Pierre said she spent the night on the floor of her mother's house but her mother said she did not have room for her to stay any longer.

She said she called the National Assistance Board and was told they would try to get her in Lancaster House but she said that was too far from her children's school and she had no money.

"I have nowhere to put my children and no one to turn to. People aren't renting to a woman with children. I feel she [Lawrence] is heartless and I'm not going back. I'll have to beg my mother to keep us for another night," she said.

However, Lawrence's side of the story was that the young woman had outstayed her welcome. She said this was the third time she was staying with her, this time over five months.

"I have been sleeping on the floor and my daughter on a chair in the front house just so she and her children have a bed and to think her own mother said she did not have room," she said.

Lawrence said the whole thing came to a head when she asked Pierre to take Renesha to the polyclinic after the child had been complaining of pain in her finger after a netball accident.

"I asked her to call me when she got through and she called and told me she real vex because she had to wait the whole day and nothing was wrong with the finger. Later, we exchanged some hot-headed words and I asked her to leave," she said.

Lawrence said she might have reconsidered if Pierre had not listened to her neighbours and called the police and the paper.

"I can forget and forgive but at this stage of my life I can't take the headache," she said.