La Familia 2 by Paradise Gomez Page B

streets never sleep and there was a war going on between two rival gangs.

Chapter Five
    Mouse
    I woke up on Erica’s couch feeling a little better, but it was far from okay for me. I was wrapped up underneath the blanket she gave me so snugly I looked like I was in a cocoon. The warmth was so soothing that it made me not to want to get up. It was another cold day, and there was nothing I wanted to do more than just sleep all day somewhere comfortable. But I had to check on my daughter and make a plan for myself.
    I got up and became startled at Erica’s grandmother seated across from me in an ugly brown chair. She just looked at me stoically, like she was some zombie, her eyes black and aloof from everything around her. I remembered Erica telling me that her eighty-four-year-old grandmother was senile and had Alzheimer’s.
    I smiled and greeted her with a simple, “Good morning.”
    â€œJackie, you still going to school this morning,” her grandmother said out of nowhere.
    Jackie? I looked around me to see if there was anyone else in the room, but I was the only one.
    â€œI need to get ready for school, Jackie. Mama gonna get mad at us if we’re late,” she said. “Jackie . . .”
    I was confused; she was talking to me, but wasn’t talking to me. It seemed like she was in a different world, or a different time. Her thin, frail, and wrinkled body was clad in a blue housecoat and her thinning gray hair was in small braids.
    â€œI’m not Jackie,” I said.
    The woman’s toothless smile was aimed at me and she repeated, “Jackie, we gonna be late for school. I need to go.”
    Yeah, her memory was warped.
    â€œGrandma, your sister Jackie has been dead for ten years now and you ain’t been to school in forever,” Erica said, coming into the room to care for her grandmother.
    Erica kissed her grandmother on the cheek and buttoned up her housecoat to make sure she was warm and fine. She took her grandmother’s wrinkled hand in hers and massaged it tenderly. “You hungry, Grandma?” Erica asked.
    She looked up at Erica with her warm smile and replied, “Hey, Candy.”
    â€œGrandma, I’m Erica, your youngest granddaughter, remember?”
    She nodded.
    I never had been around anyone with Alzheimer’s before. It was weird to me. She kept calling me Jackie. I just hoped I never succumbed to such a horrible disease when I got older. Sometimes I thought I wasn’t going to see my next birthday. Every day to me was a blessing, because for me, it was survival of the fittest out here.
    Erica looked at me and asked, “How did you sleep?”
    â€œI slept fine.”
    â€œYou hungry?”
    â€œVery,” I replied, feeling my stomach growling like a loud engine.
    â€œI’ll make some pancakes.”
    â€œWhere’s Eliza?” I asked, becoming concerned about my daughter.
    â€œShe’s in the bedroom watching cartoons with my kids,” said Erica.
    The first thing I did was get up to check on my daughter. We had a horrible night in the cold and I had to make sure she was fine. I had no changing clothes for her, no food, diapers, toys, or a decent winter coat. We just had each other and the clothes on our backs.
    I went into the bedroom and saw Eliza seated between Erica’s daughter’s legs watching cartoons. When she saw me standing in the doorway, Eliza jumped up and came my way with open arms. I scooped my daughter up in my arms and kissed and hugged her tightly. I loved my little girl and didn’t want to let her go.
    I said hi to Erica’s kids, but they looked at me like I was some alien from another planet, especially the daughter; it looked like she caught an attitude with me because I interrupted the cartoons. So I went into the kitchen to see about breakfast. Erica was a hood bitch, but one thing for sure: she knew how to throw down in the kitchen. She was whipping up some blueberry