Mamacita
by MR
I look over at Ray deep in conversation with the
patrol officer who took the call. She's talking
softly, head down, possibly crying. I could listen
and ascertain this for sure but do not.
Again I glance at the houses around us. When I first
came to Chicago, I was in total ignorance that such
things as 'good' and 'bad' neighborhoods existed. I
was, I now realize, almost frighteningly naïve; it's
amazing I survived long enough to learn the
difference. Mrs. Vecchio used to tell me the saints
protected me and they surely must have.
This is not a bad neighborhood. Older perhaps, the
houses beginning to look a bit shabby, but it's
obvious the people living in them are doing their
best. The lawn of this particular house could use
mowing, but there are flowers planted around the fence
and the front porch. A large plastic child's gym set
takes up most of the available space, and I find
myself turning to look at the children huddled in the
back seat of the police car.
For several years, Chicago has been experimenting with
the concept of beat officers in certain neighborhoods.
There are perhaps a dozen of them scattered over the
city. The 16-block area this house stands in is part
of Sharon Cortez's beat. She and her partner, Chris
Amadio, have been patrolling it for just over a year.
Sharon Cortez grew up here. She knows most of the
families on a first-name basis. She certainly knows
the five children huddled in the back seat of her car.
A 911 call. Ray would say that is where it started,
but in fact it truly started four days ago, when
Evangelina Ruiz tried to wake up her mother and
couldn't.
How does a child's mind work? Does anyone truly know?
Had Evie been unable to
wake up Mama before and so thought nothing of it?
I look at the children in the car. Evie is seven.
She is the oldest. Officer Cortez told Ray and I that
when Evie answered the door she was carrying the baby
on her hip. Her brothers and sisters were sitting on
the floor in front of the television eating bowls of
dry cereal. They apparently ran out of milk two days
ago. Since then Evie had been feeding the baby
Kool-Aid in his bottle. The younger children, Officer
Cortez said, were washed and neatly dressed. Evie had
to rinse some of the baby's diapers out in the bathtub
because they'd run out of clean ones and Mama was too
sick to go to the Laundromat. That's why she finally
called 911, because Mama had never been sick for so
long before and Evie was worried she needed to go to
the hospital.
The coroner's ambulance has since taken the body out
via the back door to spare the children. But police
draw attention. Officer Amadio is next door now
talking to Mrs. Silvera. Eventually they will talk to
everyone who lived close to the Ruiz's. For now,
however, the cause of Carmen Ruiz's death remains
unknown.
What is known is that Evie Ruiz spent four days taking
care of her younger brothers and sister while their
mother lay dead upstairs. She kept trying to wake her
up she told Officer Cortez, but she couldn't.
Yesterday she apparently quit trying, concentrating
instead on taking care of the children.
Evie is small for seven. A solemn girl with large
brown eyes, she holds the baby, Hernando, carefully on
her lap. Hernando just turned a year two weeks ago.
Her two other brothers, Hector and Jesus, are three
and four. Her sister Marta is five. All of them call
Evie "Mamacita." Little mother.
I return my attention to Ray. He has an arm around
Sharon's shoulders. Her eyes are red, but she's
pulled herself together. I know he's telling her this
isn't her fault, that there was no way she could've
known what had happened. She wants to believe him but
isn't quite ready to absolve herself of guilt yet. I
walk over to where they stand.
"You know what she's most worried about?" She says to
Ray, and I follow the direction of her gaze to the
children. Dief has decided to have a look at them,
and the older boys are laughing as he licks their
hands and faces. Only Hernando looks uncertain, and I
know in my heart that if Dief makes him cry, Evie will
order him away. "She's worried they're going to be
separated. That they're going to take the kids away
from her." She sniffs slightly. "When she asked me
that, she asked it in English. Because the little
ones don't speak it yet. She doesn't want them to
know."
Ray's eyes meet mine and a silent understanding passes
between us. This will be with us tonight after we
leave work. We will take it home, and probably into
our bed as well. We will see it reflected in each
others eyes as we kiss, feel it in each other's bodies
as we make love. It will keep us from sleeping
peacefully. Until we find out what killed Carmen, we
will be nervous and edgy. If it turns out to be
suspicious, we will expend all our time and energy
trying to hunt down leads. If it was a drug or
alcohol overdose, we will shake our heads at the waste
of it all.
And at some point, before it is supplanted by more
pressing matters, more murders demanding our
attention, we will cry. Perhaps alone, perhaps
together. We may hold each other as we weep.
I wonder when the last time was that someone held Evie
Ruiz when she cried?
FIN
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