D.D. handed the woman her card, but her mind was already elsewhere.
At eight thirty in the morning, approximately thirty-five minutes before the shootings, Roxy Baez had left the house with not only the dogs but also a backpack she’d secreted away. Filled with items she’d stolen from her family? Supplies she already knew she might need for her future life on the run?
The backpack bothered D.D. Seemed to indicate some kind of advanced planning. But what kind of sixteen-year-old ran away with two dogs? Or, worse, exited the property, then returned to shoot the rest of her family to death?
What the hell had been going on in that house?
Who was this family?
Chapter 6
Name: Roxanna Baez
Grade: 11
Teacher: Mrs. Chula
Category: Personal Narrative
What Is the Perfect Family? Part I
When the cops first arrive, my baby brother runs away and hides under the bed. There’s a lady with them. She came in her own vehicle, a little economy car. We’ve seen her before. She walks up to the door first, knocks hard.
“Don’t answer it!” my little sister says. She is eight. Nearly my height, with long dark hair and big dark eyes. Like a doll. Sometimes, when she goes with me to the corner market, grown men stare at her. I don’t take her to the corner market as much anymore.
I don’t have those problems.
The lady knocks again. She wears nice pants, black, and a purple-colored blouse. Fancy clothes, I think. But they don’t work with her face, which is tightly pinched. Not so nice.
She has come to our apartment twice before. We don’t think she likes kids. Maybe, for her job, you can’t.
“Shh,” Lola says. “Pretend we’re not here!”
Being older and wiser, I already know this won’t work. The lady will come in. She always has. And now, with the policemen standing behind her, waiting . . .
I’m eleven. I’m the oldest and these things are my responsibility. Slowly, I unlock the door. The lady and I stare at each other.
“This isn’t your fault,” she says, then pushes by me into the apartment.
I try to clean. I try to shop, put together meals, wash clothes. But this latest spell . . . it has lasted longer than most. I’ve raided my mother’s purse, then the money in the freezer, then the emergency funds she stashes under the mattress and doesn’t know that I know about. Except I think she got to most of that money first.
I think she used those last few dollars for the bottles of tequila that now roll across the apartment floor.
Which is why the lady has come to the door.
She looks around. I already know she sees everything. Last time she asked me about the empty fridge, the dishes in the sink, the stench in the bathroom. So many questions. I did my best. I’m the oldest. That’s my job. I tried. I tried. I tried.
Later, my mother yelled at me. She wept, she raged. “They will take you away!” she cried. “Don’t you understand? They’ll take you away from me!!!”
My baby brother got so upset, I had to sleep with him that night. The two of us curled up tight on the sofa. Lola on the floor. My mother passed out on the bed.
“I don’t want to go away,” Manny sobbed.
“It’s okay,” I told him then. “We’re family. No one is gonna tear us apart.”
I’m the oldest, which means I’m the one who knows best how to lie.
“Where’s your mom?” the pinch-faced lady asks me now.
“You just missed her,” I say politely. Beside me, Lola nods. She might be only eight, but we’ve both heard this question before.
From down the hall comes the sound of crying. Poor Manny, hiding under the bed from the pinch-faced monster.
The lady looks toward the bedroom.
“Your brother?” she asks.
“He’s little. These visits scare him.”
“I’m here for his protection.”
I don’t say anything. She’s told me this before. As the saying goes, we agree to disagree on this subject.
“Is your mother in the bedroom?”
“She’s out.”
“Roxy, I know she’s home. I can smell the liquor from here.”
I look away. There are many things I can fix. Many things I can do. Clean this, organize that. Manny, it’s time to shower! Lola, put on fresh clothes! Come on, let’s all go to school! But there are things I can’t control. Like my mother, every time she moans Hector’s name and drags out another bottle of booze.
“This environment is not healthy,” the woman says.
Lola and I stare at the floor.
“I’m sorry, Roxy. I know you care. I know you’re trying. You’re going to have to trust me on this. In the long run, this is what’s best for you.”
The police enter the house then. They push past Lola and me. They head down the hall.
A scream. A wail. I don’t know what to do. I can hear my mother, drunken, angry, sloppy.
“Don’t you . . . take your hands off . . . goddamn . . . sonsofbitches. Hey. Stop. Goddamn . . .”
Then more screaming, in earnest now, followed by a low curse.
Manny comes bursting out of the doorway. I just have time to see blood on his mouth—under stress, Manny bites—then he flings himself at me. I catch him, hefting him up, though at four, he’s getting too big for this. He hugs me tight. I grip him back just as hard. Then Lola throws herself at me, grabbing on as well.
I can smell my baby brother. Sweat, tears, Goldfish crackers. All I had to feed him for lunch. And I can feel Lola, her strong, too-skinny arms squeezing hard. I want to close my eyes. I want to freeze this moment. Me, my brother, my sister. So many nights I’ve promised to keep them safe. So many mornings I’ve told them everything will be all right.
I don’t know what to say anymore. I don’t know what to do.
The lady is staring at me. “This is not your fault,” she says again.
But I don’t believe her, and she knows it.
They drag my mom out of the room. One of the officers is listing off charges. Violation of this, neglect of that. She is cursing and swearing, wearing nothing but a yellow-stained T-shirt. She turns and vomits. The two cops jump back. She sees her moment and races for the door. The only thing between her and freedom is the solid column of her three children, still entwined.
At the last moment, our eyes meet. She stares at me. Wild, crazy. For a moment, I think she sees me. Actually sees me. Because her eyes go sad. Her face looks bleak.
Then she slams into us, knocking us down. She shoves aside the pinch-faced lady, and rushes ahead.
She just gets the door open before the next cop appears on the porch, standing right in front of her. She screams. Trapped, enraged, furious. She vomits again.
On the floor, Manny cries harder and buries his little face against my shoulder. Then the cop has my mom by the arm. He drags her through the pool of vomit, out of the house, off the porch. He takes her away. And my mother, who once read us stories and sang us songs and made us Crazy Tacos, is gone.
The remaining cops are still swearing softly. One has puke on her shoes.
“You need to come with me,” the lady says.
The three of us look up from the floor. But we don’t move.
“I’m sorry. I tried everything.” The woman’s voice catches slightly. “It’s very difficult to find one home that can take three kids,” she says finally. “But I can keep the two of you together.” She looks at me and Lola. “Manny has a different foster family.”
It takes me a moment to understand what she’s saying. When I do, I can feel my heart hiccup in my chest. Then everything goes cold. I don’t, I can’t . . . I hold Manny tighter, even as Lola curls herself up around us.
The woman is holding out her hand. The woman is waiting.
We don’t move. We can’t move.
One of the cops reluctantly steps forward. “Shh,” he says gently. And holds out his arms to take my brother away.