My mom just called to tell me that my little sister will be sleeping at her friend’s house today, and I can pick her up tomorrow, since the carpet guy will be at the house washing the carpets and we’re not allowed to be there. Now usually, I would bring the baby with me to school (I live on campus half of the time) and we would sleep after long hours of watching Dora the Explorer. That was the case before last week. My usually safe school was almost sued for my instant death caused by a heart attack. No, I did not die, but I came damn close to it. Someone spotted two guys with guns on campus, and so the police thought it was ok to break into everybody’s rooms at five in the bloody morning, with enormous guns pointing at us to make sure we were alone in the room.
That was good proof that whenever I die, it won’t be because of a heart attack. Bottom line is, my school is no longer safe for my sister. The night the police broke in, I was scheduled to bring her over, and changed my mind on the last minute because her dad said he’d pick her up. I spent hours thanking God that she wasn’t here when it all happened. Maybe I would have died, had she been here. Just the thought of my little one having to presence that breaks my heart into so many little pieces, and scares the living hell out of me. The worst part would be her seeing how scared I was, when I was supposed to remain calm and protect her. Oh God, oh God, I’m glad it didn’t happen.
But my point was, even though I know it’s not safe for her here, I do not favor the idea of letting her sleep at a stranger’s house. Ok, the woman has been “taking care” of her for a year or so now, and she’s good friends with my mom, but everyone that isn’t me is called a stranger when it comes to looking after Evelyn. I always think the lady isn’t feeding her enough (like that time Evelyn told me the lady had only given her old pizza that was in the fridge to eat, and I nearly killed the woman.) I’m just not sure I should trust her.
She’s not very active (but then my mom isn’t, either), and she doesn’t care much if Evelyn is only eating pizza. Trying not to be rude or rip her throat open, I find nice ways of telling her to please feed my child properly, and I teach Evelyn everyday how to ask for food when she’s hungry. Problem is, she doesn’t always know when she’d hungry, specially if she’s doing something else. One has to run after her with a plate, constantly, to get her to eat, and for some reason I cannot picture the old lady doing it.
Ok, she’s not that old (maybe forty), but her child is twenty-three and pregnant now, so it’s been a while since she’d taken care of kids. Besides, she’s just so excited about her grandson that she forgets about my baby. She taught Evelyn how to call her “grandma,” and so it hurt Evelyn when “grandma” said she wouldn’t be coming over anymore once her “first grandchild” was born. Now that I think of it, I came close to killing the woman a number of times. But it should be fine. Evelyn is excited and packing her little backpack; I told mom to pack lots of snacks just in case. I’ll be seeing her tomorrow first thing, and we’re hitting the playground, the library and our Saturday swimming class. Yeah, she’ll probably be safe. The woman wouldn’t dare do otherwise.
February 2010
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