By CAROL MARBIN MILLER

In Elena Perez's first 48 hours as a U.S. resident in 2004, she was abandoned at Miami International Airport not once but twice: first, by her husband, who went home to ''party'' with relatives, and then by her uncle, who said he wasn't able to care for her and her two small children.

Months later, with a hurricane approaching and no place for Perez to stay, a worker with Catholic Charities took her to Houston, where she knew no one. There, she was attacked by two men, and sank deeper into poverty and depression.

''I had been abandoned. I had been through a total change of life. I was in an unknown place, and I didn't know anybody,'' she told a packed courtroom Wednesday.

Thus began the strange journey of Elena Perez, Cuban pharmacy worker, winner of the U.S. visa lottery in Cuba, mother.

Perez's odyssey has now taken her to the Miami-Dade County courthouse, where she is playing a starring role in a drama that, in many ways, is not about her.

Florida child-welfare lawyers have asked a Miami judge to order that Perez's 4-year-old daughter live permanently with a Coral Gables foster family that has cared for her for 18 months. The girl and her older half-brother went to live with Joe and Maria Cubas after Perez took a kitchen knife to her wrists in December 2005.

Perez is not fighting for custody of her daughter, but the girl's father, Rafael Izquierdo, is. A farmer from Cabaiguán in central Cuba, Izquierdo is battling the Department of Children & Families, which claims he is unfit to raise his daughter.

On Wednesday, DCF attorney Stacey Blume put Perez on the stand to elicit testimony central to the state's case against Izquierdo: He did not send birthday cards to his daughter. He did not call the toddler even once from Cuba. He signed a consent form allowing the girl to live permanently in the United States.

Perez, dressed in a black pinstripe suit, her dark hair hanging loosely at her shoulders, battled tears through much of her four-hour testimony. She described a life punctuated by violence, heartbreak and anguish.

STORIES OF ABUSE

Her father, she said, was a drunk who was abusive to her and to her mother. ``One day he married a bottle of rum, and never again did I recover him.''

Her father also ''cut'' her mother and tried to kill her by choking her, Perez said. ''Almost, almost,'' she recalled. ``I saved her.''

Perez's first husband, Sandor Sanchez, beat her as well, she said, badly enough that she suffered convulsions and was hospitalized following a blackout.

In May 2004, Perez won a visa lottery allowing her to legally emigrate to the United States. A neighbor, Jesus Melendres, offered to marry her so she could qualify under a program that limits emigration to people who are married, she said. He made big promises. She believed him.

'He promised, `Even if you are in Pennsylvania, or any state, I will always be with you.' ''

Instead, she said, when they arrived in Miami, Melendres left Miami International Airport with a gaggle of relatives who hugged and kissed and did not bother to introduce themselves to her.

Perez drove home with a maternal uncle. The very next morning, she said, the uncle ``led me by the hand. His wife told me they couldn't take care of me and the children. I wasn't able to speak.''

Her uncle drove her back to the airport and left her, she said.

`BEGGING HIM'

Days later, she turned to the only other man she knew in Miami, her husband. ``I was begging him on the phone, please, remember what you told me. I was begging him to come back. He answered he would not. He was partying. His family threw a party for him.''

After spending a disastrous few months in Texas, Perez returned to Miami. In late 2005, she said, she called Izquierdo in Cuba, told him she was falling apart and asked him if he could come to Miami to retrieve his daughter.

Izquierdo told her he would try, she said. But within weeks, DCF had taken her children.

`ALL MY SOUL WANTS'

Blume asked Perez if she wished to reunite with her daughter if Izquierdo regains custody and takes the girl back to Cabaiguán. Perez said the two had discussed sharing custody.

''If, one day, I am able to get better, or recover from where I am now, it would be all my soul wants if I were allowed to kiss and hug my child, and spend some time,'' she said. ``Only that.''

DENIES PLOT

Perez denied, under questioning by both Blume and Circuit Judge Jeri B. Cohen, that she had hatched a ''plan'' to take custody of the girl if Izquierdo takes her back to Cuba.

Moments before Perez left the courtroom for the day, Blume asked her if she desired to regain custody of her daughter.

''Yes, I do,'' Perez answered. ``But I can't.''

''Why can't you?'' Blume asked.

``Because I don't have the strength.''

Earlier Wednesday, a caseworker from the private foster-care agency Neighbor to Family, Maria Zamora, testified that after the girl was placed in foster care, she arranged phone calls so Izquierdo could talk to his daughter.

She said Izquierdo, who was in Cuba, never asked her what he could do to regain custody of the child.

But under cross-examination by Izquierdo's lawyer, Ira Kurzban, Zamora acknowledged it was not her job to help him seek custody of his daughter. ''I was told I was not to discuss the case with Mr. Izquierdo,'' she said. ``I was to facilitate calls between him and the child.''